Page 3239 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 10 November 2021

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way of looking at your own local area, where work has been identified and see it happen.

Given the weather patterns, particularly with the La Nina weather pattern, this is an area of work we are really prioritising. With the rapid response team one of the exciting elements of this is that we will see people working across different land types.

For members of local communities there is lots of engagement in this area. I was excited last week to be involved in a Landcare weeds forum, which brought together government land managers, environmental volunteers, researchers and rural landholders to look at how we are responding and how we can do more integrated work. So I really encourage local people interested in this area to get involved in local groups but also get on to the website and see what is going on in real time.

Light rail—vehicle fleet

MR PARTON: My question is to the Minister for Transport and City Services. Minister, for stage 2 of light rail, the LRVs will need to be retrofitted with battery packs to allow for wireless operation within the parliamentary zone. My understanding is that that will increase the weight of the vehicle by as much as 16 tonnes, or nearly 50 per cent, and that the batteries will be directly above the suspect wheel arches. Minister, given that in several other jurisdictions the Urbos 3 LRV cracked even without these batteries fitted, are you confident that we will have no issues with cracking once the LRVs are retrofitted?

MR STEEL: That will be explored through the procurement process; the exact location of the batteries—may be on the roof, not necessarily on the floor, as Mr Parton is suggesting; there could be a range of places where those are retrofitted, depending on what technology is available at the time. Those discussions will be held. We will, of course, be seeking further information from CAF, as part of that procurement process and what delivery partner is able to provide the solution that is required to ensure wire-free running on Commonwealth Avenue and through the parliamentary triangle, including through the retrofitting of the existing vehicles, as well as being provided on the brand-new vehicles.

MR PARTON: Minister, how can you be confident at all, irrespective of where batteries are placed on the roof, given that extra weight on the roof, that the LRV will have no issues with cracking, when we see this exact same issue in so many other jurisdictions that operate the Urbos 3?

MR STEEL: We will be seeking further information from CAF as part of the procurement on those vehicles. As I have described, we will continue through the procurement process to make sure that we have safe LRVs that can operate, as they have been for some time, already since April 2019 in Canberra. We are, of course, working very closely with other jurisdictions like the New South Wales government, to understand the extent of the issue there. Once we have further information, we will continue to make sure that in future procurements we look at past performance on a


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