House debates

Wednesday, 15 February 2017

Matters of Public Importance

Infrastructure

4:09 pm

Photo of Anne AlyAnne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

As my colleagues on this side from WA have said before me here today, Western Australia is in a recession. We are facing record debt and deficit at the hands of eight years of the LNP state government and record unemployment, and all of this is the result of consistent neglect by both the Turnbull and the Barnett governments. Western Australia has been ripped off by the Turnbull government with just three of 78 infrastructure projects promised during the election campaign being located to my state. Despite promising $860 million, which was announced during the federal election campaign—and, let me remind you, that was less than a year ago—for road and rail projects in Western Australia, the government will instead dedicate just over $40 million. That is just 4.6 per cent for those much needed projects.

During the election campaign last year, the government came out with some very extraordinary promises in what can only be described as an unashamed and crude exercise in pork-barrelling, not just in Western Australia but all around Australia. Seventy-six out of their 78 projects were in seats held by the coalition before the 2 July election. In the marginal seat of Swan in Western Australia, the government pledged $20 million for an on ramp from Manning Road to the Kwinana Freeway in the seat—

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