Thursday, 17 August 2023

Adjournment

Public transport safety

David SOUTHWICK (Caulfield) (17:21): (301) My adjournment today is to the Minister for Public Transport, and the action that I seek is that the minister look at safety and training standards on buses and timetabling procedures to ensure that students are safe. This follows a recent knife incident on an Elsternwick bus service when students from Leibler Yavneh College were on that bus.

On Thursday 3 August 10 students from Leibler Yavneh College boarded the 604 PTV school bus on the way home before a passenger began to yell, ‘Jews, money and drugs’, according to a student on the bus. The man described himself as a Nazi. He then brandished a large knife and started menacingly waving the knife around. Students tried to have the bus driver assist but he seemed not to understand their concerns. The students were yelling and banging on the door asking for the door to be opened. Eventually the bus pulled over, the door opened and the students could get off the bus. Students said that at that time the bus driver did what he could, but it was noted after talking to both the principal of the school and the head of administration at the school that more can be done and more training needs to be provided to ensure that there is utmost safety. This time thankfully those kids were able to get away and are safe. Counselling has been provided to those students, and I want to thank everyone that has been involved, including Victoria Police. The Community Security Group has also been involved, providing a huge amount of support to the families and to those children. The school, Leibler Yavneh College, have been fantastic in supporting those kids, but we do need to ensure those kids are kept safe.

There are two elements in terms of that safety. One is to look at training standards for public transport workers, who already do a fantastic job, so that they are properly trained to handle these difficult situations when they arise. Secondly, the schedule for the route 604 bus could be much more suitable, because at the moment the bus arrives at 4:25 and school finishes at 4:05, so the timetable does not meet up. I believe it is a school bus that has been put on as an additional service for a number of the schools in the area, so if the minister can look at ensuring that that school timetable matches up to the bus service, that will help with safety, along with the training. I think, following the antisemitism report that we heard about and discussed today, we need to do as much as possible to ensure that our kids are kept safe.