Today in Parliament, Abigail continued to advocate for the fully accessible NSW transport network that was promised by the Federal Government in 2002, which remains unfulfilled despite the 2022 deadline.
Abigail said:
I contribute to debate on the Transport Administration Amendment Bill 2024 on behalf of The Greens as our Treasury spokesperson and as a long-term follower of the Transport Asset Holding Entity of NSW [TAHE] saga. The bill represents the third and final stage of the transformation of the Transport Asset Holding Entity of NSW into a government agency rather than a State owned corporation, which is something that The Greens have long advocated for. After the bill is passed TAHE will become known as the Transport Asset Manager of New South Wales [TAM]. It already sounds a lot better and a lot friendlier. That is just my view.
The new objects and functions of TAM are broadly in line with the objects and functions of RailCorp, which was TAHE's predecessor. There are a couple of elements that provide TAM with greater discretion regarding disposal of assets, in relation to which The Greens will move some amendments. There is a need to move incredibly carefully when it comes to the accounting treatment of this entity, being newly brought back onto the balance sheet, but I have not been convinced so far that there is any valid accounting reason for the lack of ministerial oversight of some of the new functions of TAM. That is the purpose of The Greens' amendments. I am happy to speak with the Treasurer further about those amendments. We all want the same thing. We do not want a future government selling off our precious rail assets.
I speak about the accessibility aspects of the active transport elements of the bill. My colleague Kobi Shetty, the member for Balmain, had carriage of this in the other place. She is also The Greens portfolio holder for active transport. She incorporated some of the amendments that we had been discussing with Minister Haylen and her office. We noticed that there was no mention of people with disability in the context of active transport. I sometimes feel like we are pushing up a hill to try to get people to think more broadly about what it means to be inclusive about people with disability. A person can have a disability—for example, they can be in a wheelchair—and still be an active transport user. That is important when it comes to things like ensuring that walking tracks are wide enough or that there is level access to get back up to a walking track—for example, across the Harbour Bridge.
When it comes to e-mobility, or the equivalent of an e-scooter but an electronic wheelchair, some of them are pretty fast. We need to think about how they fit into the active transport network. The Greens moved a number of amendments about that in the other place, and I am pleased to say that they were accepted by the Government. As members would know, I talk quite a lot about disability accessibility in this place. I do not expect everyone to get it right. I do not think that anyone can get it right the first time. When it is picked up and somebody says, "You have not really considered people with disability in an accessible way," I am more interested in the response to that than the original failure. In this case, we had a real positive interaction with the Minister and her office. She saw the benefit of explicitly including people in wheelchairs, so that is in the bill that comes to us today. I am pleased that we managed to work together to achieve that.
In 2002 New South Wales signed up to a set of standards that were agreed to federally saying that the State would have fully accessible transport networks within 20 years of that date. There were stages for that, and every State in Australia comprehensively failed to achieve that. I have spent a long time in budget estimates talking with various disability Ministers and transport Ministers about the lack of action in not only not achieving full accessibility of the transport network but also not even getting to the point of working out what is required to make it accessible. I remember a conversation during budget estimates in 2019 or 2020 where I was told that an audit had finally been ordered. That was a good 18 years after the State had agreed to make its transport network completely accessible, and there had not even been an audit to work out what was required. That is happening now. I am pleased to see that there is a focus on accessibility. We are getting to the basics and beginning to understand that we need to have ramps, but we are still missing out on some of the more sophisticated understanding of what it is that people with disability need.
It was recently brought to my attention that ramps were put in a few years ago to provide accessibility for wheelchairs that are now out of date because some new electronic wheelchairs are incredibly heavy. We need ramps that can withstand 300 kilograms of wheelchair plus the person inside so that they are able to go up the ramp safely. It is an ongoing process. The more that government talks to people with disability and perfects what it looks like to be accessible, the better. The Greens have two sheets of amendments. The other set of amendments relates to amendments that were put up by Kobi Shetty in the other place that we are now putting up again. I understand that some of them have been the subject of further discussion with the Government and may be accepted. I will speak further to those during Committee of the Whole.