Today during parliamentary Question Time, Member for the South Coast, Liza Butler, asked the Minister for Regional Roads and Transport Jenny Aitchison to address community concerns about bus subsidies on the South Coast.
Liza Butler, Member for the South Coast:
My question is to the Minister for Regional Roads and Transport, can the minister please respond to my community's concerns around local transport subsidies?
Jenny Aitchison, Minister for Regional Roads and Transport:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Look, I want to thank the Member for South Coast for her question. She is a great advocate for the South Coast, and I'm really grateful to her for advocacy on this community. And those opposite might learn a thing or two, some of you do come and tell me when you've got issues, some of you just get up in the House and have a bit of a blast. [He's] Not here today, I see. But you actually are here to ask and advocate for your community. Now, we all know the Minns Labor government is committed to keeping regional communities connected.
I've spoken in this House many, many times about the enabling aspect of transport. We've inherited, unfortunately, from those opposite, a hodgepodge of bespoke and grandfathered, rural and remote bus contracts. Which means that under them, access to concession fares depended on where you live.
Now, we are in a cost of living crisis, and I acknowledge that. And I know you've been a really strong advocate for that in your community.
Now, recently, I was in the far west, we put out a trial of new busses for Brewarrina and Colarenebri. We've contracted the local Aboriginal Land Council and they are actually doing that work.
It's delivered by community for community. This is about building viable services.
Earlier this year, we actually announced that the trial services to from Tumut to Wagga Wagga will be contracted, and have been contracted.
So we inherited a mess from those opposite, but our strategic regional, integrated transport plans are about rolling this out in a much better way. The work that the Minister for Transport and the Parliamentary Secretary have been doing on the Bus Task Force is about having a coordinated, cohesive approach. We know the regional bus contracts process are coming.
So what are we going to be doing here?
We're meeting today. I've already met with the Member for South Coast. We'll be continuing to meet with them and transport. We're going to work on a solution to this issue, to ensure that people from regional, rural communities who are left with a contract that was signed over eight years ago and then never left any option to continue. We are going to continue to do that.
Now, I want to once again, say to everyone in this House, everyone in this House, you know, all of them know, Mr. Speaker, every single one of them, if they've got a genuine issue that they want to fix for their community, come up here and talk about it.
At the moment, we've got an Opposition which is completely a rabble, right?
We are the party of the bush, we are looking at getting real solutions to public transport for local communities.
We are the party of the bush.
Extension of time
Thank you Mr. Speaker.
Those opposite Mr. Speaker, cannot speak with any credibility on public transport. They've got the former Minister running around querying costings. This is the guy that presided over a $20 million blowout on expenses in transport in the Sydney Metro to the detriment of the bush.
And what did the Nationals do? Nothing, nothing, nothing. They just let it go.
They've got a train fleet that we've got one train out here.
We inherited a mess.
Point of Order
Mr. Speaker, look, there is no quarrel. Everybody in this place agrees that we are the party of the bush. That is not an issue of disagreement here. We are the party that is going to deliver the Jervis Bay overpass. We will deliver the Milton Ulladalla bypass that those opposite could never get the community agree on.
Point of order
They promised Tripoli Way twice at two elections - never delivered. And we will do that. We won't be we won't be lectured by those opposite.
We are the party of the bush. We are delivering better transport. We are delivering better concessions. We are delivering the roads and railway networks and bus networks that the regional people have never had under you lot over there.
You should be ashamed of yourselves, absolutely ashamed. You come in here you want to ask about taxis from a guy who's never even been to Moree.
