Parliamentary Speeches
Transport Administration Amendment (CountryLink Pensioner Booking Fee Abolition) Bill 2009 (14/05/2009)
Mr DONALD PAGE (Ballina) [5.00 p.m.]: I support the Transport Administration Amendment (CountryLink Pensioner Booking Fee Abolition) Bill 2009, which was introduced by the member for Willoughby and shadow Minister for Transport. The Government imposed a booking fee on our pensioner population that creates hardship, provides a disincentive for people to use the service and, frankly, is penny-pinching in the extreme. This group of people, who are not well off, do not deserve that sort of treatment. Many pensioners reside in my electorate of Ballina or on the North Coast. This Government has imposed $3.5 million worth of fees on pensioners in this State who have worked hard all their lives, supported the tax system and supported this country in many ways.
Australia is the great country that it is because of the efforts of people who are in that pensioner group today. It is unfair to impose a $10 pensioner booking fee on them. Since the introduction of this booking fee I have received many representations over the years from people who are concerned about its impact on their ability to travel. In many cases pensioners needed to travel on the XPT to Sydney for medical treatment—that is, when we had an XPT between Murwillumbah and Casino and then on to Sydney. It adds insult to injury when someone who has very little money and who has to travel to Sydney for major medical treatment suffers the indignity of the imposition of an additional $10 booking fee.
Back in 2003 this heartless Government took away our train from Casino to Murwillumbah; pensioners who relied on that train no longer have that service. They have to travel by bus from the north of Murwillumbah right through to Lismore to catch the Brisbane to Sydney XPT, either at Casino or Grafton. This Government not only is charging struggling pensioners an additional booking fee; it has taken away the train service altogether. Many pensioners have said to me that they are upset about the abolition of the train service and they have also said that the bus service is not really satisfactory.
I assure the Government that the anger in the community about the abolition of the Casino to Murwillumbah rail link has not abated one iota. People still want that train service. Pensioners might not want exactly the same service—some people still want to be able to connect to the XPT to go to Sydney—but others want a train service that provides commuter services and tourism services north and south of Byron Bay in particular. Eventually, the train service from Casino through to Murwillumbah and into south-east Queensland should be linked with the Queensland system. Members would be aware that the Queensland Government is pretty proactive about rail services in south-east Queensland, and over the next few years it will extend its rail line down to Coolangatta.
We need an integrated transport arrangement to link northern New South Wales with southern Queensland. We have very little public transport in northern New South Wales and the Government took away the train services that we had. To add insult to injury, for many years the Government has imposed a $10 pensioner booking fee, creating hardship for pensioners, who frankly do not deserve it. The Government's justification for the imposition of this fee is that it costs more to run CountryLink than it does to run CityRail. Pensioners in the city have pretty generous arrangements in that they are able to move around all over the place on trains, ferries and buses for very little money.
I remind members of the Parry report that was commissioned a few years ago. One of the most interesting findings in the Parry report was that the cost recovery for CountryLink was 32¢ in the dollar and the cost recovery for CityRail was 28¢ in the dollar. In other words, for every dollar that taxpayers invest in CityRail they recover 28¢, and for every dollar that they invest in CountryLink they get 32¢. The cost recovery for CountryLink is higher than it is for CityRail. In my view, to use the economic argument as some sort of justification for imposing an additional booking fee on people who use CountryLink, is fallacious and without justification. I agree with the statement made earlier by other members that this is an unfair tax on pensioners.
The object of this bill is to abolish the booking fees on the use of pensioner travel vouchers and passes on CountryLink rail services. Schedule 1 item [1] makes it clear that an order fixing charges for services of RailCorp cannot impose a CountryLink pensioner booking fee. Schedule 1 item [2] provides that RailCorp must not charge any pensioner booking fee for travel on a railway service provided by CountryLink. The new section provides that any order provided by RailCorp is of no effect to the extent that it imposes a pensioner booking fee. In my view, the Government should take on board this fair and straightforward legislation. I look forward to an opportunity to divide on the agreement in principle. If this Government opposes the legislation it will be shown to be the mean-spirited and heartless Government that we have grown to expect.
