Article: Qld govt won't commit to keeping Qld Rail

[ozbob]

From News.com.au click here!

Qld govt won't commit to keeping Qld Rail

Qld govt won't commit to keeping Qld Rail

THE Queensland government won't rule out selling the state's passenger rail businesses, Queensland Rail, after the next election.

Katter's Australian Party State Leader Rob Katter introduced a motion to parliament on Tuesday night, calling on the government to acknowledge community opposition to the privatisation of rail assets and commit to retaining ownership of Queensland Rail.

The opposition supported Mr Katter's motion.

But the government would not commit to keeping Queensland Rail Ltd in public hands, saying the state was $65 billion in debt.

Treasurer Tim Nicholls introduced an amended motion, which was supported, which said the government would not proceed with any asset sales without a mandate.

"We went to the people of Queensland at the last election saying, no asset sales without a mandate," he told parliament on Tuesday night.

"I say to the member for Mount Isa (Mr Katter) that that remains our position."

Mr Katter said Queenslanders would be very upset to hear the government would seek a mandate for a fire sale of state assets.

"To achieve this, it is clear that the LNP have embarked on what will be a three-year propaganda campaign to scare Queenslanders into supporting their radical policies to privatise state asset," he said in a statement on Wednesday.

Opposition treasury spokesman Curtis Pitt said the government would use its first term to create a political narrative to justify its asset sales plan.

"At the 2012 state election, the Labor Party received the message loud and clear that Queenslanders do not support selling off state assets. We listened and we are listening," he said.

Queensland Rail is the state's passenger rail service and has been in government ownership for 145 years.

Queensland Rail has more than 7000 staff, more than $6 billion in assets and more than 7000km of track.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/national/qld-govt-wont-commit-to-keeping-qld-rail/story-e6frfku9-1226455615030#ixzz24FN12e6U

[ozbob]

It is clear to me that the LNP would like to 'privatise' Queensland Rail.  The rate at which they are going the LNP government may not survive past three years ..

I think this grand plan is behind the move to cut out Queensland Rail from any construction alliance on MBRL for example.

Didn't come down in the last shower, did we?

[colinw]

Indeed. Seems like the LNP has failed to learn any lessons from the thumping the ALP received at the last election. The message was loud & clear, but they are not listening.

We don't have to commit to keeping the LNP.

[somebody]

I wouldn't commit either.

[Fares_Fair]

Are passeneger rail services privatised anywhere else in Australia?

It couldn't run without Government subsidisation, or else massive hikes in the fares which would be counter productive.

[somebody]

Are passeneger rail services privatised anywhere else in Australia?

It couldn't run without Government subsidisation, or else massive hikes in the fares which would be counter productive.

Melbourne.

In spite of the critics, the patronage growth is staggering.

[somebody]

Auckland is also operated by Veolia who were just booted out in Melbourne but that is still an awful system in spite of the strong patronage growth.

[Fares_Fair]

Are passeneger rail services privatised anywhere else in Australia?

It couldn't run without Government subsidisation, or else massive hikes in the fares which would be counter productive.

Melbourne.

In spite of the critics, the patronage growth is staggering.

Ok, Melbourne. Wow.
Are fares comparable?  and they have V-Line also ...

[Gazza]

^ +1

So long as the government commits to rail capacity upgrades then it doesn't really matter if the services are privatised.
Vic fell flat because of the buck passing. I've ridden some very good privately owned railways.

With MTR at the helm at least you see them coming up with proactive plans on how they want to run the network in 10+ years time.

10 min weekend frequency <3 <3 <3

Ok, Melbourne. Wow.
Are fares comparable?  and they have V-Line also ...

You can look up melbourne fares via google FF .
V line is still in state hands.

[somebody]

Fares aren't set by Metro in Melbourne AIUI.

[Fares_Fair]

So what you are both perhaps implying, but not explicitly, is that privatisation has achieved a good outcome for commuters and government alike in Melbourne?
Am I reading you correctly?

[Gazza]

It's been a mixed bag...They're getting heaps of new services, but at the same time reliability has been poor, and Governments, until recently, resisted much investment in the network at all.

[somebody]

So what you are both perhaps implying, but not explicitly, is that privatisation has achieved a good outcome for commuters and government alike in Melbourne?
Am I reading you correctly?

They're spending a lot more money on Metro than they were before privatisation, but they are seeing massive increases in patronage too.

[#Metro]

1. Privatisation is not correlated with patronage. Fares, Frequency and Span ARE. Melbourne's railways are not private, the operators are contractors however. It is not an ASSET SALE, it is a LEASE / CONTRACT TO OPERATE A STATE ASSET. There is no profit or benefit to sell a loss making operation like a railway.

To put it in simpler terms, any 'privatisation' of queensland rail would be merely like renting out a house - you'd get it back at the end of the contract expiry. Renting something is not the same as a SALE. Thus, no mandate or election is required, LNP could do it tomorrow and it wouldn't break their election promise.

2. Perth is growing patronage more than anyone else, and it's public. Why is it growing - fares, frequency, integration, all tackled in Perth.

3. Personally I think if we could get MTR Hong Kong running QR, that would be amazing because they would push for frequency improvements really really aggressively.

4. Anyone up for the privatisation of Brisbane Transport Buses?

[HappyTrainGuy]

Extending on the realibility. Their trains still get to the terminus on time for OTP but the route might change mid trip to acheive it. To put it into terms here it would be the same as the Caboolture-Ipswich service is running 10 mins late after being held up at Roma Street. To make up for it the train would run exp Auchenflower-Goodna before all stopping again on its normal schedule. If it's 10 mins late before Darra it might run exp to Redbank. You'd either stay on the train which bypasses your stop and then backtrack on the next inbound service or detrain and wait for the next outbound service. There has also been concerns raised about running km for mtce ie splitting current rollingstock in half to run to mtce facilities as two seperate services as it means more $$$ for them in return.

I don't like seeing railways privitised. If anything its Translink that should be pushing QR/Government more for the advances in the rail network. QR could upgrade the tracks and have 1000 trains but its still Translink that signs off on the frequency boost. There was the Nambour mess with the fix for overcrowded services after the timetable changes. Pretty sure QR also went outside the contract to run extra Ipswich services. But given Translinks lack of planning/input and advances in bus and rail services across the entire SEQ PT network something there has to change. Okay there's been a few extra buz routes, intergrated ticketing and small improvements to areas here and there but a majority of the rail and bus network to boot is still the exact same from the 90's in terms of frequency and route running/stops. As long as Translink/government keeps their current mindset up QR are always happy to run more freight trains that are willing to pay for it.

[ozbob]

It's been a mixed bag...They're getting heaps of new services, but at the same time reliability has been poor, and Governments, until recently, resisted much investment in the network at all.

Spot on Gazza.  When first 'privatised' there was little real network maintenance or development.  The operators were out to make a quid.  I witnessed a progressive deterioration in the network that was mind-blowing.

The governments have been forced to invest more in the network of late - a political reality because the size and culture of Melbourne, elections turn on public transport.

Metro is the best operator of all since the initial 'privatisation' but they are riding on the coat tails of better government investments, but they do have a better operational understanding than the others.

[SurfRail]

I think it's really telling that we had the highest PT patronage growth of anywhere in Australasia until around 2008 based on the figures recently posted, but even with that the rail patronage increase was barely noticeable.

[ozbob]

Bus has received the lion share of new investments recent times, hence that was where the growth was most dramatic.

Rail is slowly starting to advance again.   Lets face facts, June 2011 was the first major timetable improvement in 15 years!  And then only really between Northgate and Darra ....

The bus review, if done properly has the potential to at long last recast the network into a more integrated one, with rail starting to work properly.

Frequency improvements will drive patronage, but it has to be properly supported by feeders, frequent with wide span of hours.  By rationalising the superfluous bus stuff that should allow that to occur.  Then will see improvements in fare box and lessened subsidies.

The present fare increases have failed to do that.

I do wonder if the fare plan was actually deliberate to stall patronage growth in part ... the former CEO of TL did once comment that was what happened in the UK ...

[somebody]

I think it's really telling that we had the highest PT patronage growth of anywhere in Australasia until around 2008 based on the figures recently posted, but even with that the rail patronage increase was barely noticeable.

Wasn't it about 7% overall, 8% bus and 5% train.

Auckland has been growing at a rolling 8% overall year on year for some time, but off a lower base.

I guess the QR increase was also off a pretty low base.

-
TT, yes privatisation done properly has been correlated in increased services.

Newman went to election with mandate saying he wouldn't privatise further, I'm highly doubting this will change before 2015 and nor do I think he can afford the further voter backlash. I think they will test the waters with debate on what to do, but this will be for the next election. Disclaimer, Newman didn't say he would stop the further sell off of QRN shares.

Mandate?  Bah, humbug.

When did he ever say that he wouldn't privatise further?  Even if he did, it doesn't matter.  He's not a man of his word, quite clearly.

[Mr X]

Mandates never stopped Bligh selling $15bn worth of assets and look where that left her.

[somebody]

Mandates never stopped Bligh selling $15bn worth of assets and look where that left her.

Did she say before the election that she wouldn't?  Otherwise, that's a bit of an irrelevance.

[#Metro]

TT, yes privatisation done properly has been correlated in increased services.

What we need to focus on is RATIONAL TRANSPORT PLANNING. The current model is anything but!

Patronage has increased, private OR public, because of the underlying changes to fares, frequency, span of hours, network design, ticketing integration and so forth. What this means is that regardless of WHO the operator is, if those things can be sorted out, then you will get patronage growth, regardless.

Look at Perth and BT. BT is not private - patronage exploded on their buses. Why? The Fundamentals. V/Line patronage has also increased and that's public also.

I will concede though, that the contracting out can cause a change in labour practices, but then again, can't really see why those things couldn't also occur in the current system under a blue team government.

In the entire decade, all that has happened to rail frequency is that is has been extended by JUST TWO STATIONS - Darra and Corinda by the Springfield line project. That's all. What's happened to buses? 20 BUZ routes or so got put on, gigantic busways to speed them up etc etc.

It's not rocket science. Just put more trains on, all week, all day and re-work the network and that's it. You'd probably save heaps of money this way also. Why is is so damn hard to explain to the government - just BUZ the trains!!

[somebody]

I've recently seen stats which show that in the early 90s SRA (NSW) had a low of 22.5 boardings per employee, rising to 49 later to again fall back down.

Qld Rail have about 8 boardiings per employee.

I wonder how much of the differences are inefficiencies in the metric and how much are inefficiencies in the organisation.

[Gazza]

the Cunny coast

[somebody]

Newman: Public Servants have nothing to fear from an LNP government
Newman: We may need more public servants under an LNP government
Newman: There will be no forced redundancies

Technically, there haven't been any forced redundancies of permanent public servants quite yet AFAIK.  I expect this to change when former OCC staff have been looking for a new position for 4 months.

He did NOT say: "Permanent Public servants have nothing to fear".
He did NOT say: "we'll wind up Government owned corporations, who technically don't employ public servants"
He did NOT say: "We'll change the rules to override agreements we don't like"
He did NOT say: "we'll behave like complete tools so that public servants will look for the door"

Starting to get the message?  I'd refer you to "The Watcher" in the brisbanetimes

[Gazza]

How does Brisbane look if we cut GYN....Not many people on those trains so it would barely affect daily numbers.

[colinw]

Those Perth values are wrong, and are for their entire system including buses.

Perth rail patronage for the full year 2010/2011 was 58,867,780, which averages out to about 161K per day. Not sure about weekend/weekday imbalance, so a rough "finger in the air" value for weekdays would be around 175K vs 150K for Brisbane.

Source: http://www.pta.wa.gov.au/NewsandMedia/TransperthPatronage/tabid/218/Default.aspx

Perth whole system (bus, rail, ferry) patronage for 2010/2011 was 135,975,469.

Brisbane's low passenger count per km is unsurprising considering that we operate a number of the longest suburban lines in the country, including a very long interurban line with only 2 services per day each way. It would be interesting to see how we stack up if you consider just the system bounded by Beenleigh, Ipswich & Caboolture as the only line beyond those bounds that is pulling its weight is Gold Coast.

[Arnz]

The QR Patronage snapshots usually do not include Yandina-GYN, so I would suggest cutting north of NBR out when it comes to comparing numbers with other systems.

[#Metro]

Qld Rail have about 8 boardiings per employee.

Wow. That is truly shocking!

We have to count the passenger part though, because QR is more than just SEQ isn't it?

What's the staff:boarding ratio of perth?

[somebody]

Newman: Public Servants have nothing to fear from an LNP government
Newman: We may need more public servants under an LNP government
Newman: There will be no forced redundancies

Technically, there haven't been any forced redundancies of permanent public servants quite yet AFAIK.  I expect this to change when former OCC staff have been looking for a new position for 4 months.

He did NOT say: "Permanent Public servants have nothing to fear".
He did NOT say: "we'll wind up Government owned corporations, who technically don't employ public servants"
He did NOT say: "We'll change the rules to override agreements we don't like"
He did NOT say: "we'll behave like complete tools so that public servants will look for the door"

Starting to get the message?  I'd refer you to "The Watcher" in the brisbanetimes

Anyone trying to claim that temps or contractors should have nothing to fear is a fool. If you want to guarentee these roles, you make them full time. My SIL works as ICT contractor to govt via Police force and they have been previously offered full time roles, but all but one in their department has declined because they make "alot" more money as contractor. They know the risks in doing this. I do not consider cutting the temps or Contractors a breech of an election commitment. Every CEO in the world trys to cut these jobs as much as possible because the "temps" often turn into longterm costly FTE's.

Agree, there have been no/few forced redundencies, but feel they will come sooner or later. He should never have made this commitment and I'll look up their policy statements later to see.

I agree some of the govt member's behaviour and comments including Newman in reference to cutbacks have greatly disspointed me and this will not be forgtton by the people affected directly. They have been dragging this out for months, They should have kept it quiet and just come out and done this in one move. Placing 10,000's of PS on 6mth wait and see is unacceptable. Get it done, move on.

However, the govt should always be able to hold the right to close, or reduce govt departments or govt owned corporations as it needs to for what ever reason. PS jobs are not a right, like private industry they do a job until its no longer wanted. A good employee looks around them and follows the trends knowing when the time is best to move on before being pushed, unfortuately I feel many in the PS believe they have a job for life. If I was working in OCC prior to election, I would have been looking for a new job last year, thsi was always going to happen.

Agree, agreements should normally be allowed to run their term. But I would put some of the agreement stackholders on notice that some of the cushy agreements will not be rolled over to the next one.

Actually the temporaries referred to are on the same rate as what they would be if they were permanent.  Others wouldn't be in the count, which was 7931 last I checked.

The promise about public servants having nothing to fear has been well and truly broken - as blatantly as "No carbon tax under a government I lead".  Morale has been thoroughly crushed and many people are looking for the door.  Attempting to freeze increments from the employment conditions is only one example.  Directive 8/12 is another.

It seems that he always intended to break that promise.

And for the record, I did ask "When did he ever say that he wouldn't privatise further?"

[#Metro]

Until Brisbane gets the minimum critical mass of people in % terms riding the rails, rail will always play distant 3rd fiddle. Syd and Mel have a rail culture, Brisbane doesn't. Look at the CM readers posts regarding CT, how often do we see people complaining about network expansion being a waste?

Rail 'culture?' Nonsense - both Sydney and Melbourne are examples of high concrete, medium frequency rail formats. Brisbane is an example of high concrete, low frequency format and Perth is low concrete, high frequency format.

There are more than enough stations in Brisbane - 85 within the BCC boundaries, outnumbering busway stations by 3.5 : 1
No, what we have is cr*p service frequency and span - fix that and people will catch the trains.

[somebody]

I agree with the comments about there being a rail culture in Sydney which is lacking in Brisbane.  I think there is one in Melbourne but I haven't spent much time there.

[HappyTrainGuy]

Until Brisbane gets the minimum critical mass of people in % terms riding the rails, rail will always play distant 3rd fiddle. Syd and Mel have a rail culture, Brisbane doesn't. Look at the CM readers posts regarding CT, how often do we see people complaining about network expansion being a waste?

Rail 'culture?' Nonsense - both Sydney and Melbourne are examples of high concrete, medium frequency rail formats. Brisbane is an example of high concrete, low frequency format and Perth is low concrete, high frequency format.

There are more than enough stations in Brisbane - 85 within the BCC boundaries, outnumbering busway stations by 3.5 : 1
No, what we have is cr*p service frequency and span - fix that and people will catch the trains.

I reckon there is a whole PT culture in SEQ. The whole network rail and bus needs a retake. Having used the northside network the problems are ovbious.

Its going to take more than fixing the train services for added patronage. There's plenty of stations in the BCC area but how many of them actually have a decent or frequent bus services connecting them to it or between interchanges. Virginia has the 310/315 which is only usefull if you live near Sandgate road. Nothing at Sunshine. Geebung has the hourly 325 and the 2 hourly 337 linking it to Chermside (326/327 go to Toombul and pass the station the exact same time the trains do). Zillmere has the 330 buz which is limited and the hourly 326/327 (the 327 is useless as you have to walk down Zillmere road to interchange or because you watched it go past Geebung station as the train was going over the level crossing). Carseldine is the best but still crap overall. It has the 340buz nearby and a short walk to the 335. Outbound peak hour its damn good but could be better timetable wise. Utilising the outbound frequency boost in the bus network does work. Sometimes the Caboolture train Roma Street to Carseldine + outbound 335 (usually schedulled for 1 minute difference but thanks to traffic makes it roughly 3-5 mins difference) gets you to Taigum interchange faster than the outbound 325 does. It was/still is common for Caboolture train + inbound 340 (now if the bus driver is nice enough to wait 1 extra minute as during peak hour the bus is schedulled to leave 1 minute before the outbound train service arrive there you can get to the Aspley stop in sub 45 minutes vs the schedulled ~42 minutes for the outbound 340 buz) to get to Bridgeman Downs faster than the outbound 340 from the city. Bald Hills is a joke PT feeder wise. Strathpine, Bray Park and Lawnton heavily rely on walk up patronage and people from Warner/east Strathpine driving there as the bus services are just p%ss poor.  Leave the city after 5.15 and there's a high chance you've missed the last bus. If you have to walk from the station a lot of the surrounding roads have very poor lighting when its dark and when you have to walk down narrow pathways/through parks to access areas it can make you feel very unsafe especially if your alone. Petrie has a good connection to many suburbs near by but once the sun sets or if you leave work after 5.30 you'll have next to nothing to get you home from the station. Bus routes need a overhaul to connect new areas and provide decent running hours. Prior to the timetable changes Train Central-Strathpine + bus Strathpine-Eatons Hill used to be faster than the outbound 357 bus (the final service is now even RSBS 4:41-Eatonvale 5.30/RS 4:45-Strathpine-Eatonvale 5:37). Poor interchange between bus/train also doesn't help. When Kippa Ring comes online I expect they will be a huge expansion in the PT network in Redcliffe but if the fares keep increasing and buses keep stopping short on the running hours... its back to square one and the same problem were stuck in.

[somebody]

I don't think anyone said "Just fix the trains and do nothing else".  But it's a bit pointless, patronage wise, to feed into a half hourly frequency service.

[HappyTrainGuy]

Its also pointless patronage wise feeding into/from a connecting hourly bus service.

I know. I was just emphising that the bus network (especially between Bald Hills-Petrie with hourly peak hour feeders) really needs more intense work than the half hourly rail network. Before the 330/340 went to buz they were pretty much the only half hourly routes north of Chermside and outside Redcliffe. They went to 4bph while all the other routes were left with scenic tours and at 1bph. Most train services arrive in a decent time before the connecting bus but depending on the direction your going in you can still get burned like hell. The 325 has a ~15-20 minute wait if you get the inbound/outbound train service before it (take out the 3-4min it would take to walk to the stops and it becomes about a 10-15 minute wait depending on the lvl crossing/exit used/lights). Get the service after it and there's a 50 minute wait including walking to the bus stop. Having the 326/327 running past the station the same time the trains arrive/depart also hurts. 4tph would help but so would retiming the scenic tour stopping every 100m routes. The trains might be half hourly but most bus services on the northside are still hourly during the week.  Come weekends you'll be lucky enough to even have a bus service running at all let alone a bus after 6pm. Chermside has the 340 buz to Carseldine station yet the hourly 335 is faster to the same station and the hourly 325 is a quick 10 mins to Geebung station. It has to go both ways instead of spending it on stuff like expensive busways to promote the amount of extra seats here and there.

[somebody]

Well there is walk up patronage for the Caboolture line.

[Gazza]

It's no different to the situation on the Ipswich line really, crap train frequency fed by even worse hourly buses.

[somebody]

Those 112k have to go back home again and people do go to the CBD to arrive at times other than 7am-9am.

[#Metro]

I don't think anyone said "Just fix the trains and do nothing else".  But it's a bit pointless, patronage wise, to feed into a half hourly frequency service.

Bravo! What a fantastic statement!!

with significant investment in railway station upgrades, busways, bus tunnels and new buses

Pfft! You KNOW when money is being poured into high cost concrete megaprojects that same money, by definition, is NOT being poured into service. If the 0.5 BILLION spent on 1km of E. Busway at Buranda had been spent on actual SERVICE not CONCRETE, Brisbane could have been absolutely SATURATED in high frequency public transport.

[Gazza]

If the 0.5 BILLION spent on 1km of E. Busway at Buranda had been spent on actual SERVICE not CONCRETE, Brisbane could have been absolutely SATURATED in high frequency public transport.

For how many years though?