Задержки с реформами безопасности железных дорог в Западной Австралии из-за поправок к законодательству

‘A kick in the guts’: Families made to wait longer for WA rail safety reforms Families and friends who have lost loved ones at passive rail crossings and who have waited more than a decade for safety reforms face further delays after several amendments were added to legislation currently before parliament. WA Nationals leader Shane Love, who proposed the Rail Safety National Law Application Amendment (Rolling Stock Lighting) Bill 2026, met with family members at the steps of Parliament House ahead of the debate over the proposal on Wednesday. The bill aims to legislate mandatory train lighting, a safety measure hoped to save lives at passive rail crossings across Western Australia. Love said his party was not in a position to accept the government amendments to the bill. “So this won’t conclude today, but the debate will continue, and the work will continue,” Love said. “I urge the government to engage in meaningful dialogue with the opposition and with all of the people that we have here and their representatives, as we seek to achieve an outcome which will lead to greater rail safety and hopefully avoid repeats of the sad losses that you see in this very touching display that’s here today.” Rail safety advocate Lara Jensen, whose brother lost his life in a tragic railway accident more than a quarter of a century ago, said some of the family members in attendance for the debate had travelled from as far away as New South Wales to see the bill passed. “They are family members, the family members of those who have lost their lives,” she said. “We don’t want to see the rail safety bill, as proposed by Shane Love and the Nationals team and the Liberals’ team, diluted in any way. “There are literally 60 years’ worth of red flags around this issue that have been highlighted by coroners and parliamentary inquiries in Western Australia alone. “We want to see change, and we want it now.” Transport Minister Rita Saffioti said the government had worked on Love’s proposal to see if it was a practical bill that would improve safety. “The feedback we got from unions, the workers, and industry more generally, is that there needed to be amendments to make it workable and to improve safety,” she said. “So, yesterday, through the party room, we got approved a series of amendments which I took to the leader of the National Party, Shane Love, and I gave him the package of amendments. “The aim is to work with the National Party in relation to those amendments, so we can have an agreed position that would mandate lighting on our trains and also stipulate the type of lighting. “Should this bill get through, we will be leading the nation. It’s not normal that a state will break away from the rest of the states in relation to these national guidelines, but we know that industry is working to implement this new lighting.” But Jensen said the amendments were “a kick in the guts”, and accused the government of “kicking the can down the road” on the proposed safety lighting upgrades for trains. “This is why all these communities represented in that flag, are here represented today, and all these families from around Australia, because we’ve had enough. “When you have coroner’s and parliamentary inquiries dating back to 1968 that are all saying the same thing, then let’s just get on with the job.”