John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too extend my sympathy to the families of the victims of the terrible human tragedy in New Zealand. I also extend my Christmas and New Year greetings to you, Madam Deputy Speaker Livermore, and to all members of the House. If anything typifies the failure of the former Howard government it is the disastrous legacy of that government’s policies that continues to bedevil all aspects of the Australian transport industry.

Of particular concern are the high and still growing carbon dioxide emissions from road transport that result directly from a combination of inefficient vehicle engines and an excessive national dependence on road transport. Equally concerning is the unending carnage that makes the truck driver’s cab the most dangerous workplace in the country. According to the TWU, in any given year, road transport has the highest number of work related fatalities of all Australian industries and, in the 18 months ending in May 2010, 431 people were killed in truck crashes—an appalling figure that can no longer be accepted as an unavoidable cost of cheap transport in a civilized country.

Contributing to this disaster is a run-down railway system still operating on mixed gauges that are confined to 19th century alignments and single track lines between the major cities. While it is true that Australia has a widely dispersed population, this circumstance cannot be used to rationalise the level of inefficiency that has developed in our transport industry. Rather, Australia’s situation means that, as we are forced to confront rising fuel prices and growing oil imports together with the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, we must act rapidly to both reduce dependence on road transport and increase the utilisation of our rail network.

Figures produced by Professor Phillip Laird from the University of Wollongong make the problem clear. Between 1995 and 2010, the share of non-bulk freight carried by rail between Sydney and Melbourne fell from about 18 percent to around nine percent. That is a real decline of 50 percent. Worse, in the same period the transport of non-bulk freight by rail between Sydney and Brisbane fell from 29 percent in 1995 to less than 12 percent today, a real decline of 60 percent. Effectively nine out of 10 freight consignments between Sydney and Melbourne and eight out of 10 freight consignments between Sydney and Brisbane are now transported by road.

As a direct result, between 1995 and 2010, oil consumption and carbon dioxide emissions by the transport sector grew by almost 20 percent and now, according to the US Energy Information Administration, close to 40 percent of the 950,000 barrels of oil consumed per day in Australia is imported, increasingly from the trouble-prone Middle East. This quantity of oil when burnt produces approximately 100 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per annum, a figure that must be rapidly reduced if we are to avoid dangerous climate change.

The CSIRO points out in its fact sheet ‘Reducing Australia’s greenhouse emissions’ that it is possible to electrify most passenger vehicles and smaller trucks and only draw on around 10 per cent of total electricity generation. The CSIRO also points out that electrification of aviation and long-distance trucking is not presently practical yet much evidence shows that railway electrification is both viable and cost effective. In fact many decades ago the European Union recognised the risk of relying on roads for long-distance transportation. The Europeans saw that the costs of road transport can only continue to rise and that electrified rail transport was more efficient, much safer and free from dependence on oil imported from the unstable Middle East sources.

Presently 240,000 kilometres or 25 percent of the length of the world’s railways are electrified and 50 percent of all rail transport is hauled by electric traction. The advantages over diesel traction are numerous and include lower running costs, a higher power to weight ratio resulting in fewer locomotives, faster acceleration and higher practical speeds, less noise pollution, and independence from oil supplies. There is also much evidence that shows that electric trains are more energy efficient and produce significantly less carbon dioxide emissions compared with equivalent diesel trains.

Under the Howard government, the electrification of the railways went into reverse with over 100 serviceable electric locomotives scrapped as a result of incompetent decision-making by that government, blind to the consequences of its actions and ignorant of the advantages of railway electrification. We know the Leader of the Opposition will attempt to continue this failed policy because he said in his first speech:

The government’s job is not to lay rails, shift earth and pour concrete.

I am sure that if earlier leaders had held this view, our nation would have remained forever a land of dirt tracks, shacks and squatters.