Mr CAMPBELL(12.30 p.m.) —I get amused in this House when members of the government talk about populist politics. Populist politics invades both sides of this House—Liberal and Labor alike. We heard in this House the other day a disgusting speech by Laurie Brereton, the member for somewhere in New South Wales—an attack on one of Australia's heroes, Geoffrey Blainey. It was an attempt at populism catering to what the Labor Party sees as a ground swell of support—support, I can tell you, that is simply not there.

Returning to the debate on the railway, having lived for years alongside the track and having worked as a fettler on the railway back in the days when Australian National was owned by Charlie Ryan, I have some interest in it.

The truth about Australian National is that it was probably the best run railway in Australia, certainly up until the time that Julian Grill became the Minister for Transport in Western Australia and reformed the Western Australian railways, which would now arguably be the most efficient railway system in Australia.

The Chairman of Australian National was a Don Williams, who was a brilliant, dynamic engineer. He had visions for rail transport across Australia and he wanted Australian National to take over that rail transport. But apart from being a brilliant engineer, Don Williams was also a bit on the arrogant side and certainly did not tolerate fools gladly. It was for this reason that he was totally unacceptable to the railway system of Victoria, which was hopeless, and New South Wales, which, while being very large, was also moribund.

It was quite clear that those states were never going to countenance an amalgamation or a takeover by Australian National, so the government of the day was forced into another alternative and set up the National Rail Corporation. The problem was that, having set up the National Rail Corporation, it then took from Australian National a lot of its equipment and all of its business, leaving Australian National with all its debts. Australian National had no way of servicing its commitments and it had no option other than to go broke and become a big burden on the Australian taxpayer.

It must be made very clear that the failure of Australian National had nothing to do with the workers. The workers of Australian National were, in my view, long-suffering and committed and were given a very, very poor deal. There is absolutely no doubt that the failure of Australian National lies with the actions of the previous government, and it gives me no great pleasure to say that.

There are no job guarantees, contrary to what the member for Lyne (Mr Vaile), who spoke before me, said. The act says that all staff will be made redundant and must reapply for their jobs with whoever purchases Australian National, or parts of Australian National. I believe it will be sold in parts because I cannot see anyone wanting to take up the whole lot. But still, it is a much better option than no jobs at all, which is the only other option I can see.

There is a flaw in the government's bill, that is, as I see it, it will make Australian National simply a custodian of the permanent way. It will be responsible for maintenance of the permanent way.

You simply cannot maintain a permanent way unless you have rolling stock. Right now, service development is being impeded on the trans line because Australian National do not have the wherewithal to carry their requirements for maintenance. So I think it would be very wise for the minister to amend the act to allow Australian National to still have some motive power of its own.

This could be done if they were to use the services offered by Aries Engineering in Perth, who have developed a high rail system where they use a truck—in this case, a Kenworth truck—which can move on and off the rail in two minutes and is capable of hauling up to 1,000 tonnes. It recently did shunt tests in Kalgoorlie where it successfully shunted very large loads.

This system would be ideal for Australian National, and they want it. They have their rest centres set in place along the trans line and they could use this assembly in the same way that they used their sugar train in the past, which was called `the bomber going the other way'—a slow goods train used for stopping at the various sidings to service those sidings and to also carry the equipment needed for maintenance.

I would urge the minister to not listen to the vested interests that want to keep this at a distance and would encourage Australian National to acquire this equipment available from Aries Engineering in Perth. There is one problem at the moment. To test this equipment, the company is required by some law to have $100 million of public indemnity insurance and a second policy of $20 million which appears to me to be for the same thing. This might be all right to impose on a rail system hauling large trains continually but, for someone running test operations, it is obviously a nonsense. It is a fiction which could easily be overcome if they agreed to have this operating under the existing insurance of Australian National or if they were to apply the same sort of insurance that this assembly would need to have it worked on the roads, where the risk is much greater. To have that in there is either incompetence on the part of the bureaucracy or a clear attempt by the bureaucracy to stop this very worthwhile development happening.

Apart from enabling access to the permanent way for maintenance purposes, there is also a local service commitment. I was involved in the opening up of the Nullarbor for pastoral industry—the last great pastoral development that will ever take place in Australia. When those stations were started, there was a clear guarantee that they would be serviced by Australian National.

Subsequent decisions, taken mainly at government level, made it simply uneconomical for Australian National to want to service the intrastate positions. If Australian National were to reinstate this truck-powered tea and sugar train or bomber train, it would also be able to service those sidings once more. I looked at the figures recently. On the Nullarbor, where pastoralists have an urgent need to de-stock some of their properties which have excess stock, it is simply uneconomical at the moment to ship them to the only market, in Peterborough in South Australia. This could be accomplished by a vehicle powered by the Aries concept much more efficiently and cheaply than the railways could possibly do it in their present set-up. It would serve a very useful purpose in terms of land care on the Nullarbor and it would certainly help to make those places viable—places for which I believe the government has an absolute responsibility.

Another matter that concerns me is this: we are told that Australian National will be the custodian of the permanent way and people will be allowed access to the permanent way. I think this is a good idea. But what we see happening already—and I cannot get answers from the minister's office—is that people are saying, `Yes, we want to use the permanent way for haulage.' One company in Kalgoorlie wishes to haul limestone into Kalgoorlie for the mining industry. Some of this would be made into lime and some would simply be crushed and used as an alkaline reagent in some of the processes. The company has already put in an order for railway equipment. It has already put in an order for a loco which it is seeking to buy from a state rail system. It is being hampered in getting access to the railway system. I suspect this is because of vested interests. If it is not, the only other explanation can be bureaucratic obfuscation.

I believe the minister has an absolute responsibility to consider this application now and let these people get on with what looks to me to be a very viable and worthwhile operation—an operation which will cost the government nothing. They will pay for access to the railway. That access must involve reasonable fees. It certainly must be no more than the large companies pay. But it will help to support the gold industry, which is very important to Australia. It will help to support employment and it will help to keep the railways viable. I simply need to know why it is not happening.

Another thing that must be done immediately is that we must stop the destruction of existing carriages. I know there are tenders now being put out for the acquisition of stock carrying carriages which were probably destined to be scrapped. I believe this must be stopped until we assess the need for these carriages. Refurbishment would obviously be a much better option than building new equipment. It would be scandalous if we allowed these carriages to be scrapped by any railway system in Australia until there was a clear understanding of the need for this equipment. So many times in the past we have scrapped perfectly good equipment and then put out tenders to buy new stuff. I certainly hope that does not happen on this occasion.

Australian National is very important to Australia. It links east and west. It is the link that is capable of taking traffic off the Great Eastern Highway. The Great Eastern Highway, from Kalgoorlie to Perth, is already overcrowded. We now have B-doubles and road trains operating beyond Northam. I believe there will be a serious accident there. I have driven along that road and I felt intimidated by some of these convoys of vehicles. It is much better to have them on the rail. It is also much safer.

We must look at railways. The government says it has an absolute commitment to rail. Rail is triumphant over long distances, particularly on flat terrain. That is the nature of Australia. Australia, more than any other country, is made for rail. I refer particularly to east-west routes. It must be remembered that east-west rail routes in Australia have generally been profitable. The massive losses have been on north-south routes. The reason is that for the last 70 years governments have not bothered to keep up the infrastructure on those lines.

We hear from the government how efficient road transport is compared with rail transport. Road transport has a clear advantage because the government charges an excise on fuel. It charges that partly for the construction of roads, so heavy trucks using roads get some benefit from the excise. All the reports have shown that it is large trucks that do the damage to bitumen roads, not motor cars. So the motorists subsidise the trucking industry on the road; the truck industry gets a benefit from the excise, some of which does go into roads. But railways pay that excise, too, and railways do not get anything like the benefit. The railway has to pay for every centimetre of its permanent way; it has to pay the full cost. Quite clearly, this needs to be looked at if we are going to have a truly level playing field.

It is unfortunate that this legislation needed to be brought before the House. However, quite clearly, it was needed. I say to the minister that there must be some competition. I believe Australian National could provide that competition with the National Rail Corporation. I believe Australian National can provide the intrastate services to which the government should have an absolute commitment. I believe it has a duty to provide those services.

Passenger trains could expand their services enormously if there were some intelligent promotion of tourism. Passenger trains would benefit from having two classes of travel—first-class, which would be very good, and the price would need to go up, and a real steerage class which could provide competitive rates for backpackers to cross Australia. In my view, that class of travel would need to be quite basic in order to keep the cost down.

In conclusion, I do urge the minister's office to take heed of what I have said. There are enormous achievements and developments that can take place. They will not take place if it is left to rail, because rail is totally stultified at the moment. They are frightened to do anything. The people of Australian National have actually told me that. They simply dare not make decisions.

I think the minister's office has to show that leadership, give access to people who will not access the permanent way and certainly amend the legislation to allow Australian National to keep some locomotive power of its own so that it can be self-sufficient in providing for the maintenance of the permanent way. After all, if that job is not kept up or it is forced into using expensive contract services, it will not be long before we are back in this House bemoaning once more the problems of Australian National and seeking even more privatisation.

I believe that for railways like this the permanent way should at least be in the hands of the government, and I think the maintenance of it is obviously better provided for in the main by employees employed by Australian National rather than contract teams. I say that with some experience, having worked on the railways and seeing the contract teams in specific areas, but in general maintenance I think it is going to be in Australian National's interest to keep a day labour force, which must be supplied.