ADVOCATES of same-sex marriage accept Parliament will defeat two bills later this year calling to legalise gay marriage but believe public pressure will ultimately prevail.

The Finance Minister, Penny Wong, one of the strongest proponents for a change to the Marriage Act, said yesterday that change would come.

”I think the campaign is not going to go away because, ultimately, it’s a campaign for people’s equality,” she said.

Same-sex marriage … proponent Penny Wong believes change will come. Photo: Andrew Meares

A seven-member parliamentary committee split 4-2 against same-sex marriage yesterday with one abstention as it handed down a report which contained no recommendations, only information for all politicians to use to inform their final decision.

The committee chairman and Labor MP, Graham Perrett, along with fellow Labor MP Laura Smyth, favoured gay marriage while Liberal MPs Sharman Stone and Ross Vasta, and Labor’s Mike Symon and Shane Neumann opposed it.

The other member, the Liberal moderate Judi Moylan, gave no separate opinion.

Because both pieces of legislation are private members bills, time set aside to debate them is limited and no vote is expected until the end of this year at the earliest.

Priority will be given to the bill introduced by the NSW Labor MP Stephen Jones. The other is a Greens bill, sponsored by Adam Bandt.

”We’re short of the numbers at the moment but anything could change,” Mr Jones said.

The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, will vote against gay marriage but has allowed Labor MPs a conscience vote. Number crunchers estimate about 36 of the 70 Labor MPs will vote for same-sex marriage while 10 to 15 are undecided and the rest will vote against.

Tony Abbott will not allow a conscience vote and all Coalition MPs are required to vote against same-sex marriage. Backbenchers can cross the floor but any frontbencher who does so would have to resign from the shadow ministry.

Mr Bandt, who will hold off on his bill until later this year or next year, said the delay between the start of debate and the final vote would be used to increase public pressure on political leaders, especially Mr Abbott, to have a change of heart.

”I’m optimistic of achieving reform within the life of this Parliament with some more discussion and more persuasion,” he said.

Parliament’s standing committee on social policy and legal affairs received a record 276,437 responses to an online survey it conducted as part of its inquiry.

Church groups and the Australian Christian Lobby have fiercely campaigned against gay marriage, despite Labor’s bill exonerating the churches and any other religious groups from having to marry gay people.

Mr Perrett, who holds a marginal Queensland seat, said ”it is important to remember that God did not write the Marriage Act”.

With public opinion polls consistently showing majority support for same-sex marriage, Mr Perrett said it was incumbent upon MPs to respond to growing public support ”by categorically opposing laws that legitimise discrimination”.

Ms Stone and Mr Vasta said the Liberals had promised before the federal election not to legalise gay marriage.

”I do not accept that the view towards marriage has changed since the 2010 federal election,” Ms Stone said.

Follow the National Times on Twitter: @NationalTimesAU

Failure to achieve better on-time running can be annoying for commuters. Photo: Tamara Voninski

ONLY half of Sydney’s busiest peak-hour trains run on time when using a tougher measure of train delays, a leaked internal analysis by RailCorp shows.

The documents show just 46 per cent of trains run within two minutes of their timetable on CityRail’s Western Line in the busiest hour of the morning.

The result is a far cry from RailCorp’s published statistics showing more than 90 per cent of trains run on time, based on a more relaxed definition of trains arriving up to five minutes late.

The failure to achieve better on-time running can be annoying for commuters waiting for trains.

But in the peak hours, when trains are scheduled frequently, late-running trains prevent RailCorp from running extra trains needed to reduce Sydney’s chronic overcrowding.

RailCorp’s analysis of on-time running for the first three months of this year, obtained by the Herald, shows a gulf between the published statistics and an efficient network that allows the maximum number of trains to service the rush hour.

The figures show that during the 7.30am-8.30am peak hour for trains on the Western line, 90 per cent of trains run on time if based on a five-minute measure.

But on a three-minute measure the proportion drops to 66 per cent; on a two-minute measure it drops to 46 per cent; and on a one-minute measure it drops to 21 per cent.

Over the peak three-hour period in the morning, the figures are slightly better but well short of optimum levels.

RailCorp changed the definition of ”on-time-running” from three minutes to five minutes when it slowed the timetable in 2005. The move was criticised by Barry O’Farrell, who is now Premier, saying the trains were only running on time because RailCorp had changed the benchmark.

Shortly before and after the Olympics in Sydney in 2000, the rail network reported 90 per cent on-time running using the old three-minute measure.

Now trains in the morning peak are already so crowded they make even the more relaxed five-minute definition difficult to achieve, because passengers take so long to board and alight.

The Herald reported last week Transport for NSW is preparing plans to radically simplify CityRail’s train operating patterns to free up capacity on the Western Line, allowing more trains to run at crucial times.

The plans include running Richmond Line trains to Campbelltown instead of to the city and terminating Epping to the city trains via Strathfield at Central.

The idea behind the plans is to prevent trains from other rail lines joining the Western Line, which runs between Penrith, Blacktown, Parramatta and Central.

This would improve the capacity of the Western Line to run a reliable 20 trains or more an hour on the line but it would also force more commuters to change onto these services if they wanted to continue all the way through into the city.

Asked about the leaked internal analysis of on-time running, the Transport Minister, Gladys Berejiklian, said she knew customers wanted more frequent and reliable services.

”We are also working on a new timetable and it will be released at the end of 2013 with the aim of providing more express or semi-express services for customers travelling longer distances, including on the Western Line,” she said.

”In addition to the overhaul of the timetable we are looking at better ways to provide customers with real-time information and other important measures like journey times.”

❏ The government began a trial of selling space for advertising on the side of CityRail trains at the weekend. Advertisements for Emirates are being displayed on the outside carriages of two Tangara trains.

Failure to achieve better on-time running can be annoying for commuters. Photo: Tamara Voninski

ONLY half of Sydney’s busiest peak-hour trains run on time when using a tougher measure of train delays, a leaked internal analysis by RailCorp shows.

The documents show just 46 per cent of trains run within two minutes of their timetable on CityRail’s Western Line in the busiest hour of the morning.

The result is a far cry from RailCorp’s published statistics showing more than 90 per cent of trains run on time, based on a more relaxed definition of trains arriving up to five minutes late.

The failure to achieve better on-time running can be annoying for commuters waiting for trains.

But in the peak hours, when trains are scheduled frequently, late-running trains prevent RailCorp from running extra trains needed to reduce Sydney’s chronic overcrowding.

RailCorp’s analysis of on-time running for the first three months of this year, obtained by the Herald, shows a gulf between the published statistics and an efficient network that allows the maximum number of trains to service the rush hour.

The figures show that during the 7.30am-8.30am peak hour for trains on the Western line, 90 per cent of trains run on time if based on a five-minute measure.

But on a three-minute measure the proportion drops to 66 per cent; on a two-minute measure it drops to 46 per cent; and on a one-minute measure it drops to 21 per cent.

Over the peak three-hour period in the morning, the figures are slightly better but well short of optimum levels.

RailCorp changed the definition of ”on-time-running” from three minutes to five minutes when it slowed the timetable in 2005. The move was criticised by Barry O’Farrell, who is now Premier, saying the trains were only running on time because RailCorp had changed the benchmark.

Shortly before and after the Olympics in Sydney in 2000, the rail network reported 90 per cent on-time running using the old three-minute measure.

Now trains in the morning peak are already so crowded they make even the more relaxed five-minute definition difficult to achieve, because passengers take so long to board and alight.

The Herald reported last week Transport for NSW is preparing plans to radically simplify CityRail’s train operating patterns to free up capacity on the Western Line, allowing more trains to run at crucial times.

The plans include running Richmond Line trains to Campbelltown instead of to the city and terminating Epping to the city trains via Strathfield at Central.

The idea behind the plans is to prevent trains from other rail lines joining the Western Line, which runs between Penrith, Blacktown, Parramatta and Central.

This would improve the capacity of the Western Line to run a reliable 20 trains or more an hour on the line but it would also force more commuters to change onto these services if they wanted to continue all the way through into the city.

Asked about the leaked internal analysis of on-time running, the Transport Minister, Gladys Berejiklian, said she knew customers wanted more frequent and reliable services.

”We are also working on a new timetable and it will be released at the end of 2013 with the aim of providing more express or semi-express services for customers travelling longer distances, including on the Western Line,” she said.

”In addition to the overhaul of the timetable we are looking at better ways to provide customers with real-time information and other important measures like journey times.”

❏ The government began a trial of selling space for advertising on the side of CityRail trains at the weekend. Advertisements for Emirates are being displayed on the outside carriages of two Tangara trains.