The liberal government in South Australia states the reason for the willingness to privatise the rail network is lowest patronage in the country for a metro service.  

How is this measured?  

Passengers per route kilometre?

Overall journeys?  If this is the case then would that not be expected with Adelaide a smaller city compared to Melbourne or Perth or Brisbane?  

Is the network picking up the new suburbs in Adelaide?  Is the network long enough and wide enough to pickup the right travel journeys?

Labor pledges to reverse Adelaide public transport privatisation

Did anyone at the rally think to ask the ALP reps if they would do something more useful like buying back the state forest they sold off?

The liberal government in South Australia states the reason for the willingness to privatise the rail network is lowest patronage in the country for a metro service.  

How is this measured?  

Passengers per route kilometre?

Overall journeys?  If this is the case then would that not be expected with Adelaide a smaller city compared to Melbourne or Perth or Brisbane?  

Is the network picking up the new suburbs in Adelaide?  Is the network long enough and wide enough to pickup the right travel journeys?

Labor pledges to reverse Adelaide public transport privatisation

Its difficult to measure any benefit as its impossible to have side by side comparison. In Mel the LNP govt actually did quite alot to improve ridership in the early 90's before privatising. Again, was the LNP's improvement prior to privatisation just pure timing with a change going to happen anyway? There have been a couple of interesting studies into Melbourne rail privatisation, was it successful or would most of this happened anyway, seems difficult to answer? One thing that is easy to answer is that despite the ALP objection at the time, the ALP renewed the contract, so privatisation of Mel suburban rail and tram is now ALP policy.

Back to Adelaide, obviously its purely focused at the existing network with no significant plans to increase the fixed rail network within the near future.

Likely KPI's
- Cost per passenger km
- On time performance
- Ridership

Adelaide's population growth is low, there are no major "Docklands" type redevelopment  projects, perhaps the KPI's in SA will be more meaningful than Melbourne.

SA ALP are just playing popular politics which may work for them as the SA LNP did say they wouldn't do it during the campaign. I suppose really, how much do the voters actually care is all that matters and provided there is nothing controversial like mass redundancies (unlikely)  before the election, 99% of voters will probably not have this issue change their vote. Most will be smart enough to realise that both LNP and ALP promote and have been previously active in privatisation.

The SA ALP will be quite happy with this move by the Liberal government. They are just like their corrupt mates in Victoria - the only thing they love more than selling off public assets themselves is when the Liberals do the job for them.

Then they next get into government, you can bet that they will find some excuse to go back on this pledge and stick with private operations.

Look at the form of the last ALP government in SA with respect to public transport services.

At the time they came into power in 2002, they inherited a partially privatised bus network (3 out of 6 service regions) where a minimum level of competition was ensured by having the public sector company TransAdelaide enter a bid for each tender.

While they were in power, the Rann/Weatherill government took the following steps to advance the private operation of the public transport network:
1. privatised the remaining 3 bus regions
2. abolished TransAdelaide's role as the public sector bidder
3. extended private operation of each bus region when contracts expired

The SA ALP will be quite happy with this move by the Liberal government. They are just like their corrupt mates in Victoria - the only thing they love more than selling off public assets themselves is when the Liberals do the job for them.

Then they next get into government, you can bet that they will find some excuse to go back on this pledge and stick with private operations.

They have already written the "get out of jail clause" quietly into their statement. Something around, "if contract conditions allow when we get into govt"

However the ABC isn't being friendly to the SA ALP

Opposition Leader
"He said the tram and train networks should be improved rather than sold off"

"Under the State Government's plans, announced in July, it will still own and control "rail assets""

So obviously the ALP Leader doesn't actually understand what is taking place, god help their support base.



"Transport Minister Stephan Knoll said Mr Malinauskas's announcement today was hypocritical because Labor also [color=#310099]privatised assets while in government[/color].

"When it comes to privatising, their record on this issue is there for all to see: four major assets — the Motor Accident Commission, the Lands Titles Office, forests, the lotteries — all flogged off by this government," Mr Knoll said.
"In fact, upon coming to Government, we were surprised to find furniture in the offices."
The former Labor government [color=#310099]renewed private bus contracts in 2011[/color]."

The SA ALP will be quite happy with this move by the Liberal government. They are just like their corrupt mates in Victoria - the only thing they love more than selling off public assets themselves is when the Liberals do the job for them.

Then they next get into government, you can bet that they will find some excuse to go back on this pledge and stick with private operations.

They have already written the "get out of jail clause" quietly into their statement. Something around, "if contract conditions allow when we get into govt"

However the ABC isn't being friendly to the SA ALP

Opposition Leader
"He said the tram and train networks should be improved rather than sold off"

"Under the State Government's plans, announced in July, it will still own and control "rail assets""

So obviously the ALP Leader doesn't actually understand what is taking place, god help their support base.



"Transport Minister Stephan Knoll said Mr Malinauskas's announcement today was hypocritical because Labor also [color=#310099]privatised assets while in government[/color].

"When it comes to privatising, their record on this issue is there for all to see: four major assets — the Motor Accident Commission, the Lands Titles Office, forests, the lotteries — all flogged off by this government," Mr Knoll said.
"In fact, upon coming to Government, we were surprised to find furniture in the offices."
The former Labor government [color=#310099]renewed private bus contracts in 2011[/color]."

The irony here is that the company that operates Adelaide's privatised bus network is managed by the husband of a Federal ALP senator. Dinner table talk would have been interesting in the last few days! And let us not forget Don Dunstan's selling off of the South Australian Railways. The result is plain to see with the heavy trucks on inferior roads

Rally in Adelaide https://www.railpage.com.au/news/s/hundreds-rally-against-sa-rail-sale

Did anyone at the rally think to ask the ALP reps if they would do something more useful like buying back the state forest they sold off?

Will that make any difference?

The Liberals are just bitter that they didn't get to privatise it themselves.

Steve Marshall hasn't delivered anything that he promised at all from what I can see. We were supposed to have completely deregulated shopping hours by now (same as Victoria) - what happened to that? Don't get me wrong I think Weatherill needed to go but the replacement has so far proven underwhelming.

I don’t think the Libs would have privatised the forrest, there’s too much support down there to lose.

Either way, I don’t recall much of a protest from the unions when the LTO and state Forrest were privatised.

I don’t think the Libs would have privatised the forrest, there’s too much support down there to lose.

Either way, I don’t recall much of a protest from the unions when the LTO and state Forrest were privatised.

Mt Gambier currently held by a Liberal who (as I recall) is still due to face trail for embezzling $2 million; but it has a history of returning independents so they can't really count on it.

I haven't been following the wash-up of the privatisation - were there many jobs lost down there because of it? Mount Gambier has a fairly high unemployment rate as it is.

It’s not just Mt Gambier, but also MacKillop which is generally held on first preference votes alone and then there’s Federal seat considerations too.

I don’t think employment is a huge concern, the mere fact it was a large revenue earning asset that probably now just be raped for corporate interests with little regard for the environment and sustainability would be the concern. At least that’s what all the (actually quite large number of) people I know down there say.

It’s not just Mt Gambier, but also MacKillop which is generally held on first preference votes alone and then there’s Federal seat considerations too.

I don’t think employment is a huge concern, the mere fact it was a large revenue earning asset that probably now just be raped for corporate interests with little regard for the environment and sustainability would be the concern. At least that’s what all the (actually quite large number of) people I know down there say.

Usually that corner of the state is a pretty rock solid conservative vote though so the Labor Party didn't lose much political capital; the Labor Party have never held the federal seat of Barker.

Every privatisation has been a revenue-earning asset turned into a cash-cow for the owners; look at how we're being gouged since ETSA was sold off; consistent failure at a state (and federal) level to guard public and small business interests against gouging by a virtual monopoly player. Sure Labor have rushed through some shonky privatisations but the sale of ETSA surely has to be the one that's single handedly made this state much more expensive to live in thanks to the highest domestic electricity charges in the world.

And both sides of politics are equally culpable for rushed privatisations that turned out to be bad for the public and they're all still doing it now: Dan Andrews in Victoria is having a secret scrape around to try and locate things not already sold since the Kennett era and as a result there's a huge amount of Crown land to be sold off over there. I think the only reason they haven't privatised the Transport Accident Commission over there (as we did with the MAC) is that they're presently using it to shore up jobs in Geelong so its serving a pork-barrelling purpose.

Governments everywhere are running out of money despite the biggest tax takes in our history at every level - not a good sign is it.

I think you missed my point, the ALP didn’t lose any voting capital there with the sell off - they never had voting capital to start with.

The voting capital lies with the Liberals, and they likely wouldn’t have sold the forrest for fear of losing such capital and potentially leading to an indie or something like SA Best getting the nod.

And both sides of politics are equally culpable for rushed privatisations that turned out to be bad for the public and they're all still doing it now: Dan Andrews in Victoria is having a secret scrape around to try and locate things not already sold since the Kennett era and as a result there's a huge amount of Crown land to be sold off over there. I think the only reason they haven't privatised the Transport Accident Commission over there (as we did with the MAC) is that they're presently using it to shore up jobs in Geelong so its serving a pork-barrelling purpose.

Governments everywhere are running out of money despite the biggest tax takes in our history at every level - not a good sign is it.

Memory maybe escaping me, but I thought one of things Kennet found was there actually wasn't alot to sell as Cain had quietly leased alot off.

I think you missed my point, the ALP didn’t lose any voting capital there with the sell off - they never had voting capital to start with.

The voting capital lies with the Liberals, and they likely wouldn’t have sold the forrest for fear of losing such capital and potentially leading to an indie or something like SA Best getting the nod.

Are there any in this state that should be reversed? Just interested in your opinion.

Memory maybe escaping me, but I thought one of things Kennet found was there actually wasn't alot to sell as Cain had quietly leased alot off.

Sort-of. Cain/Kirner did ultimately allow pokies and start a privatisation program that included selling and leasing back locomotives, rolling stock and other capital purchases. Kennett got the real jackpot with the State Electricity Commission and being the first state to privatise he got maximum capital return for Victoria; there was also Gas & Fuel, the public transport 'franchising' and the pruning of 50,000 state public servants.

The way the ALP are carrying on you think that privatising the rail and trams here that they are going to pack up the train and tram set and move it away from South Australia. Fear mongering like fares will go up for instance, they go up every end of financial year and that started with Labor in the first place from memory.

They are simply scared smegless that it might actually work here but I think the Liberal Govt do want to do something for the current employees that stand to lose a lot though, but just where does Labor propose to get the money to buy back all of this, so what they are saying is taxes, fares, etc will rise to cover this, not in so many words, but it would have to be done to get the money to do it.

Really they all should abide by an old saying, "Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone". This goes for all of them Labor, Liberal or independent.

a couple of stations have been added to existing lines and we've seen the Southern line extended to Seaford, but nothing else has been done to expand the network. It's fine to build housing along the train corridors but the stations need to be upgraded and be connected to a bus network to get people to the train. We have low patronage for one of two main reasons, not reliable or unsafe (crime, abuse etc).

a couple of stations have been added to existing lines and we've seen the Southern line extended to Seaford, but nothing else has been done to expand the network. It's fine to build housing along the train corridors but the stations need to be upgraded and be connected to a bus network to get people to the train. We have low patronage for one of two main reasons, not reliable or unsafe (crime, abuse etc).

One real bug bear of current commuters is the fact that the bus tram and train all still seem to be operated by separate entities altogether and not one of them works in conjunction with any of the others. Timetables reflect this with trains or buses at interchanges missing each other by a minute or so, you are on a train and need to get on a bus and as your train is still moving into the platform the bus you need to get on is moving out and the next one is a half hour or more to wait for. Surely this could be made to work better. Even short runs in places have this same problem so it is not like every route was late or early or something. It is endemic in the current timetables actually and is the main reason that a lot of people drive to places rather than use an uncoordinated public transport system.

Announced today the SA government is moving to the next stage of the privatisation approach for their rail network in Adelaide.

https://www.railpage.com.au/news/s/adelaide-rail-privatisation-plan-rolls-on

have no lessons at all been learnt on the Melbourne experience?

Labor will never reverse that privatisation, they were selling anything and everything in their last few years of office.

Announced today the SA government is moving to the next stage of the privatisation approach for their rail network in Adelaide.

https://www.railpage.com.au/news/s/adelaide-rail-privatisation-plan-rolls-on

have no lessons at all been learnt on the Melbourne experience?

I'm sure the lessons have been learned and following the successful Melbourne experience are now proceeding with some tweaking to hopefully improve further and customise to Adelaide.

The ALP obviously have nothing else to bring to the table so in a bid of desperation they are chasing this old chestnut, to pretend to be anti privatisation but really the instigators of most of the Nations privatisation.

The only thing the ALP love more than privatising something is having the Libs privatise it for them. They get it privatised (even if not going to the mates they want it to go to) and they get a stick to beat the Libs with for a while.

I'm on board with this one though as there is not going to be a transfer of ownership, only operations. The current public system is bloated and unaccountable, it's time for it to be shaken up. I had hoped that the threat of outsourcing operations would prompt some pulling up of socks, but it hasn't.

Yep, no improvement of operations.

My wife came into the city today and was delayed (I was speaking with her on the phone) circa midday ‘due to congestion’ arriving at ARS, again, she reported her train then entered the station without any trains having departed.

If they’re going to be dishonest and make up a cause for a delay, the least they can do is make it less obvious. Put a private controller in, and make performance matter to keep the job.

Yep, no improvement of operations.

My wife came into the city today and was delayed (I was speaking with her on the phone) circa midday ‘due to congestion’ arriving at ARS, again, she reported her train then entered the station without any trains having departed.

If they’re going to be dishonest and make up a cause for a delay, the least they can do is make it less obvious. Put a private controller in, and make performance matter to keep the job.

Most migration happens in an Easterly direction from Adelaide to Melbourne however in this case it is clearly the other way around - the good old SAR must have hired an ex V/Line staffer to run their Media and PR.

Look forward to a barrage of train faults, track faults, maintenance requirements, late running of a previous service, congestion at Upper Sturt and whatever other bollox they can come up with to try to deceive the travelling public into believing that it isn't simple incompetence delaying their journey.