Annastacia Palaszczuk and her part-time Transport Minister Jackie Trad have continued their campaign of outright lies about new passenger trains for Brisbane.
LNP Shadow Transport Minister Andrew Powell said Labor’s attack ad claiming New Generation Rollingstock (NGR) delivered by Canadian company Bombardier were sub-standard was a blatant lie.
“Just as they always do, Labor gets down in the gutter because they have no record to run on and no positive polices to offer Queenslanders,” Mr Powell said.
“The ad proves that Annastacia Palaszczuk will say and do anything to cling to power.
“Not only that, she will try to blame everyone but herself for the massive rail fail that’s crippled southeast Queensland train services under Labor’s watch.
“Quite frankly, Queenslanders deserve better than a blatantly untrue scare campaign.
“For the record, Australian manufacturing company Downer pulled out of the tender process for the NGR under the Anna Bligh Government when Annastacia Palasczuk was Transport Minister (see Hansard excerpt below).
“The Premier well knows that there was NO Australian company bidding for the NGR contract when, through an independent tender process, the Department of Transport awarded the contract to Bombardier.
“She knows this and yet still lies to Queenslanders to protect her own job – it’s disgusting.
“For the record, Jackie Trad then changed the design of the trains in response to demands from the unions who wanted a little cubbyhole added so that guards could sit down on their shift instead of doing their job of patrolling trains and looking after Queenslanders.
“This retro-fitting of what were perfectly operational trains delayed their delivery and caused new problems relating to disabled access to carriages which then had to be fixed, further delaying their rollout.
“Ten of the 15 trains that have been delivered have had zero on-track testing because Labor are dragging their feet.
“For the record, Labor’s Director-General of Transport Neil Scales publicly said last November 2 that there were no design problems with the NGR trains. Further, Neil Scales said that the right trains were ordered.
“For the record, Labor awarded contracts to the same company, Bombardier, to deliver trams for the Gold Coast Light Rail, begging the question – why, all of a sudden, is Bombardier not appropriate to deliver other train infrastructure in Queensland?
“This is a Labor mess that they’re trying to blame everyone else for.”
FACT: Australian company Downer pulled out of the running to build new trains under the Bligh Labor Government, leaving no Australian company bidding for the contract.
FACT: Labor Transport Minister Jackie Trad changed the new train designs, causing lengthy delays to the order and further design issues that caused further delays. Ten of the 15 trains delivered have had ZERO on-track testing.
FACT: Director-General of Transport Neil Scales – on Steve Austin’s 612 ABC morning program on November 2, 2016 – said: “All I can say is that, as far as the New Generation Rollingstock trains are concerned, all the issues in the cab have been ironed out.”
Later, in the same interview:
NS: We got five trains delivered. We dismantled the first one in Wulkaraka which is what we intended to do all the time to make sure it all works – and because the trains are manufactured and then delivered – once you actually get them out on a particular track, we’ve got different track geometry, we’ve got different stations, different inclines – so you’ve got to test it dynamically – and that starts again today. So this is just a normal process Steve.
SA: So this is all normal?
NS: This is all normal process. In my previous life I used to be a manufacturer – this is a normal process.
SA: Alright so when the trains were ordered, did we order the right trains?
NS: Yes, we did.
SA: You have no doubt about that?
NS: No doubt about it at all.
FACT: Labor awarded the contract to deliver Gold Coast Light Rail trams to the same company that they are now attacking – Bombardier.
