Minister says Queensland Rail’s $28 million overtime bill ‘normal’

Spread across the state’s 887 drivers, guards and trainees, each worker would have taken home an extra $31,905 on average in overtime last year.

That was expected to decrease to $27,395 this financial year.

Queensland Rail has been under pressure to cut down on overtime hours after the opening of the Redcliffe Peninsula Line sparked a crisis in October 2016, which uncovered a shortage of drivers and an unsustainable reliance on overtime.

The resulting crunch led to the sudden cancellation of hundreds of services, including on Christmas Day, before Queensland Rail cut 462 services under a new timetable in an attempt to restore reliability.

An inquiry launched in the wake of the saga made 36 recommendations, 32 of which have been completed.

Loading

The state has paid external consultants about $8 million to help implement the recommendations from the Strachan inquiry, a question on notice asked at budget estimates hearing this week showed.

At the height of the rail saga four years ago, overtime hours made up 23.4 per cent of all hours worked by the state’s train drivers.

“In 2019-20 that was reduced for drivers to 13.02 per cent,” Queensland Rail chief executive Nick Easy said.

Mr Bailey defended the overtime spending, saying it was “a normal part of running a rail system anywhere in the world”.

“Think about when train drivers are taking trains out of railyards at four in the morning and bringing them in at night, of course you are going to have overtime as a normal operating cost,” he said.

“We have actually seen a reduction in overtime in the last few years in terms of proportionality and what we are achieving is a strong pipeline of drivers.”

Mr Bailey said the state government had hired 289 drivers since October 2016.

– with Felicity Caldwell