Hansard debates

Mrs McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (11:16): I rise to support Mr Barton’s motion, and as a member of the committee to which it is being referred, I will look forward to the expert evidence. We love experts, don’t we, in this place?

Ms Shing: I’m taking off my mask just to smile at you, Bev.

Mrs McARTHUR: Harriet, that is really important. So we will look forward to all the expert evidence, and we will come up with a conclusion. But you would not actually think it was even necessary to have to go to a committee. This looks like common sense, doesn’t it? I am sure, as Ms Patten has mentioned, there have been other inquiries, reports and whatever, and they are on some shelf somewhere, that probably go to the heart of this very issue. But, look, obviously they have never got off the dusty shelf, and so Mr Barton has had to resurrect this and get it into some sort of committee. You know, the problem with a committee is that a camel is a horse designed by a committee, so we hope this one has two legs, not four.

But, look, I just thought I would mention that in my day we never had a problem with paedophiles, getting to school. My biggest problem was my horse, which would jump out of the pony paddock and go back home, and I would have to walk. And the biggest predator I faced was the plover pecking you on the way back. So I am really sorry now that we have got to have rules and regulations to stop the paedophiles. In my day it was a problem with the plovers, the magpies and the belligerent pony that did not behave properly.

But, look, my children went on a school bus, and I had to drive them half an hour to get to a school bus and so on and so forth. There are very extensive difficulties in the country to get children to school, and there are many inconsistencies and problems. You know, we have got so many children that need to go to school, and in fact many using the school bus system are in the non-government sector, because many of the schools in rural and regional Victoria in the state system often are not operating to the best of their capacity. But the non-government—especially the Catholic parish—system is especially popular, and the buses are needed to get children to the schools.

But, you know, we can get to the moon, Mr Barton, so I cannot understand how we cannot overcome an issue of an elderly person perhaps who has got no other means of transport or somebody who does not have a car who cannot get on a bus that is travelling in the direction they want to go. And, yes, there may well be benefits. It may be good to have some adults on the bus instead of just the poor bus driver trying to make sure he drives safely and avoids the potholes and the shocking roads that are in country Victoria, which make bus driving quite problematic. That is an issue in itself—getting the children safely to school because of the appalling road system. So some adults might help in the situation where we have got children that might be not behaving absolutely properly, because they will not have experts on the bus ensuring that they do behave properly.

But look, I just thought I would also mention some of the problems with the bus system. My colleague the member for Polwarth has highlighted some of the bureaucratic nonsense that goes on in this school bus system. We had the issue of Roy in Wye River—

Members interjecting.

Mrs McARTHUR: Roy in Wye River, how’s that? The kids loved Roy. He had been operating the school bus, let me tell you, for decades. Anyway, Public Transport Victoria put him in the firing line and said no, they needed to get a cheaper version. Poor old Roy had done a fabulous job. He had fought the fires in Wye River, he had looked after the kids, he knew the bus routes intimately. But we know that we need to go to the big contractor who probably gave a cheaper price but would not have known one child or one road. He would have to use Google maps to find his way around. Roy lost the contract, as I understand it. Four thousand people signed a petition on this matter. I do not think there are 4000 people in Wye River, but there are a lot of people that love Roy. Nevertheless, we had bureaucracy on steroids messing the whole system up. It had worked perfectly for decades.

So we do need to make sure that local people understand and have input into how we run bus systems for schoolchildren and for others that may be able to—

Ms Shing interjected.

Mrs McARTHUR: I am being given the knife, Harriet.

Members interjecting.

Mrs McARTHUR: I think Roy is destined to only perhaps making sure there is not another fire in Wye River. We have got a big-time contractor now managing the little school bus in Wye River on the bad roads.

The other problem we have got is that principals are having to become sort of debt collectors, trying to sort out payments that need to be made. We have got parents that have to have children on different buses. I have an extraordinary story here somewhere of a young child who had to get on one bus, get off and then wait or hitchhike because he had to go in another direction.

So there are massive anomalies, hopeless situations and a bureaucracy that does not work in the interests of students or passengers, and we could absolutely streamline this better. But you cannot understand why this is not just the day job of government. You would think they would be able to do this. We should not need a committee, as Mr Barton has suggested, to actually make it happen, but apparently we do. I will look forward to being on the inquiry, Mr Barton. I will get on my bus right now—

Ms Shing: Get on the bus.

Mrs McARTHUR: Are you on my bus too? So we are on the bus with Barton, and we are going to make sure we get these buses filled. They are going to be safe, and we are going to get from A to B and hopefully avoid the potholes.