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

There is one there. Make another one! Why not? In the seat of Hasluck, another marginal seat, $300,000 was promised to upgrade the Hale Road and Woolworths Drive intersection in Forrestfield. And in my seat of Cowan, previously held by the Liberals, they promised $20 million for an overpass at Ocean Reef Road and Wannaroo Road. Wannaroo Road in my electorate—which the member for Grayndler is very familiar with, having visited me there, as is the WA leader, Mark McGowan—has been identified by Infrastructure Australia as one of the top 10 most congested roads in Australia by 2030.

On 21 December, the WA Liberals announced $30 million to duplicate Wannaroo Road to deal with some of this congestion, and less than 24 hours later, on 22 December, the midyear review revealed that only $10 million was actually allocated to what they touted as a fully funded project. It took less than a day to break a fully funded promise to deliver key infrastructure in WA that would have created jobs and would have eased the strain on families. The government do not care about that. They do not care about families or jobs in Western Australia. They have some of their most senior politicians from WA, including some of their frontbenchers—Curtin, Pearce, Stirling, Hasluck, and more: Tagney, Canning and Swan. But where are they? Where are their voices when it comes to getting a fair share for the people who elected them—the people that they are elected to represent?

Instead of speaking up and getting a better deal for them, the Liberals are too busy making deals with One Nation to keep their jobs and keep Barnett in power. Instead of standing up for the people of WA, they are too busy rubbing shoulders or, rather, rubbing tin hats with their wacko coalition candidates. Where are they? Where are the Western Australian members of this government? Where are they on that side? Where are they to speak up for Western Australians? They are nowhere to be found. Instead, they allow this government, their government, to continue to snub and rip off the very people who elected them. Where is their conscience as they allow their government to skew spending towards Liberal- and National-held seats in the eastern states? They are nowhere to be found. Instead, they are complicit in the great GST rip-off of Western Australia.

The member for Canning is wondering where all his mates are. Where are all the Western Australians? They are not around you. They are not here. They do not care about Western Australia. All they care about is Barnett keeping his job. They are nowhere to be found. Is it any wonder that the federal Liberal Party has been perfectly happy with the state Liberals? They are all in it together. They are all in it for themselves to save their jobs and— (Time expired)

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