Page 5240 - Week 16 - Thursday, 28 November 1991
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ACTION Buses - School Hire
MR HUMPHRIES: My question is directed to the Minister for Urban Services. I refer to the question I asked the other day concerning ACTION's hiring out of buses to schools for excursions. Why are the standards so different for buses on routes to and from schools at the beginning and end of each day - where much larger numbers of students, some standing, are often carried - from the standards set for the hiring of buses to schools for transport between excursion venues? Is it a case of ACTION demanding lower bus capacity only where the schools are paying for this rather than where they are paying for it through the ordinary allocation made in the budget for transport of commuters at the beginning and end of each day?
MR CONNOLLY: No, I certainly do not believe so. I do not have the figures with me now. I gave the figures the other day. There is a maximum capacity for buses for safe operation. It is a safety figure and it includes the number sitting and a certain allowable number standing. So, sometimes, to and fro, people will stand. When buses are hired, people wishing to hire a bus are asked how many people they need to take and a bus suitable for that number is provided with that number of seats.
I am unaware of any difference in policy. I will have further inquiries made and perhaps speak with Mr Humphries outside the chamber as to the specific nature of his question. Both questions seemed premised on some conspiracy within ACTION to do something untoward, and I am at something of a loss to know where we are going.
MR HUMPHRIES: I ask a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. Perhaps I can help the Minister by explaining. I have had complaints from schools that say that when they hire a bus they can transport on that bus only as many students as can be seated on that bus, whereas, if they had the choice, particularly for short routes, they would rather have the same arrangements as those that apply to buses on commuter routes, so that people can stand as well. ACTION does not allow them to have any children standing. But ACTION does tolerate it when the children are travelling to and from school in the mornings. I want to know why there is that difference between those two arrangements.
MR CONNOLLY: Yes.
Environmental Standards
MR JENSEN: My question is directed to Mr Wood in his capacity as Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning. I am sure that the Minister will recall the recent statement in the Assembly by the Chief Minister on an intergovernmental agreement on the environment as part of her statement on the Premiers Conference. Can the
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