Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I just want to use this brief opportunity to explain how difficult it was to get money out of the Howard government for even very worth projects. There was a project that was initially called the Peel deviation; it was a deviation around the city of Mandurah. I think the analogy is clear. We started writing letters to the then minister back in 2001, as soon as we got in government, saying, 'We know this is a very big project. This requires a lot of long-term planning. It is not something that you're going to be able to immediately put money into, but we have a target of starting this project around 2006. We want to start a dialogue with you in 2001 so that by 2006 we can both contribute money to this very important project.' I tell you, it was like pulling teeth. They would write back saying, 'No, not interested. We're not going to talk to you about this.' As a model, dealing with the Howard government in the roads portfolio was a lesson on how not to develop federal-state relationships. We started off from a very respectful point of view, recognising their need to plan their budget over the longer term, but all we got was rebuff after rebuff after rebuff really for about three to four years. Then they could see that this was becoming a massive political issue and they started jumping up and down and demanded that it be done yesterday. (Time expired)

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