Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Even though I did not know Con, I was aware of him. At the time, he was a well-known identity in Australian politics. I, too, send my condolences to the family and I congratulate the member for Lingiari on his heartfelt speech. I am sure that many other members of this place will concur with that sentiment.

I will move on to my speech. I have a couple of grievances to raise in the grievance debate tonight. The first relates to the future priorities that the city of South Perth is setting for its residents and how these relate to the priorities that the community holds. As the member for Swan, I have a great relationship with the City of South Perth, I would say, and I note that the partnership between the federal government and the city has been a good one for the residents in this area of South Perth. By listening to the residents of South Perth and working with the council, we have secured funding agreements for the Manning Road on-ramp and Mends Street upgrade, which will make a big difference to the local area. I note that both these proposals were enshrined in city of South Perth planning documents with the support of the community, and this is the model we should be replicating for future projects in the city of South Perth. I will also add that, as is well known, my wife is a councillor with the City of South Perth. I have a great relationship with the councillors. They are all active in their community and they are all pro looking after their community extremely well. There is a good relationship between the city and the federal government.

For the benefit of the House, I would like to do a quick overview of the city's funding in recent months. In the second round of the Stronger Communities Program, the City of South Perth and its residents were very successful. The City of South Perth received $17,750 to go towards street furniture for the Manning Community Hub; the Curtin University Boat Club received $20,000 to purchase a boat trolley and trailer so they could expand their club's membership and compete on other areas of the river; the Salter Point sea scouts received just over $5,000 to assist in their kitchen refurbishment project; and the South Perth Senior Citizens Centre received just over $18,000 for the purchase of new chairs. The Lions Club of Manning and the Rotaract Club of South Perth were also recipients in the last round of Volunteer Grants, and it was great to be able to welcome representatives from each club to join me at an afternoon tea in honour of the community work they do in Swan. I was also joined by the Minister for Social Services, the Hon. Christian Porter.

Perhaps the most significant funding announcements for the City of South Perth though, is the funding received for Manning Road, which I have been banging on about since I first came to this place in 2007, the same time as you, Deputy Speaker Coulton. As we know, persistence helps. After 10 years we finally got the funding through the coalition government. Unfortunately, it was not supported by the new Labor state government, but they have come to the table now that the Treasurer has done some negotiating on some extra funding for WA because of the GST. The coalition government has committed $28 million of the $35 million project, with the state government funding the residual $7 million. This is a project that has been a high priority for the City of South Perth residents and, as I have said, I have continued to advocate for it during my whole time as a local federal member.

However, in recent times, there has been some concern amongst ratepayers that the City of South Perth is pushing forward with new priorities that are out of step with the priorities of the residents of South Perth. The first example is the Westralian Centre proposal for the foreshore, which is a $7 million plan to build a precinct building around the flagpole on the foreshore in South Perth. The city have been pushing this proposal in one form or another for a couple of years and it aligns with their South Perth Foreshore Strategy and Management Plan, which plans for a civic building on the foreshore. However, this has always been a sensitive issue for the South Perth residents, who are protective of their foreshore and are instinctively opposed to attempts to build on it. They are instinctively opposed to anything on their foreshore. I know that this protectionism is borne out by the fact that, in 2013, the Telstra tower, which was a necessary item due to the 300,000 people that used to attend the foreshore Australia Day event, was mooted to go to the foreshore, but the residents had their way and, through the assistance of the then minister for communications—who is now the Prime Minister—we managed to get that Telstra tower stopped. So there is a strong passion to have nothing on the foreshore except what the residents want. I attended a special council meeting on this subject and the feeling of the community was made known in no uncertain terms to the council, who were all there that night. It seems to me that, if the City of South Perth are going to proceed with this, they are going to have to put it in another location. It would be a good facility, because it would have a museum that it celebrated the 10th Light Horse Regiment, which I know the member for Lyons would know all about because he is originally from Fremantle. He would know all about the 10th Light Horse.

The second project in which the City of South Perth is pushing against the feelings of many residents is the South Perth Station Precinct. As a tier of government, the city has long held the view, and has been alone in this view, that there should be a train station adjacent to Richardson Park in South Perth and they have been introducing high-rise planning regulations to increase the population density and generate the need for such a station. Many residents are against the station and feel like the city is trying to create a problem to get a solution that it wants. The city is proceeding in the face of the residents' views. When the city initially conducted the consultation on the South Perth train station many years ago, they received majority opposition from the area surveyed. They have since conducted the survey again, but what they have done is use a wider catchment to try and get the majority support and the results that they wanted. They are using that survey to justify their plans. Some of these councils are pretty tricky, aren't they? I picked up the concern of residents to these proposals and, in the last month, conducted my own surveys of residents in the City of South Perth on future priorities. I must inform the chamber that the residents' priorities are completely different to that of the City of South Perth. Priorities for residents include better access points to the freeway, an upgrade of the Canning Highway and proceeding with a City of South Perth aquatic centre, which is something that I have banged on about for a long time. The City of South Perth aquatic centre is a top priority for most of the residents I have spoken to in South Perth.

An honourable member: Put it on the foreshore.

I must just clarify that it is not going on the foreshore. It is definitely not going on the foreshore. Thanks for the member's suggestion for that.

The other thing that I want to get to—I feel like I will run out of time unless the member for Lyons can propose an extension—is matters in Belmont and my second grievance of the night. My grievance relates to the matter of the Labor Party in Belmont in my electorate and an act that has greatly mislead the electors of Belmont. For at least the last four years, the Labor candidate for Belmont—who is now the member—has been running a very misleading campaign for the Belmont police station to be turned into a police station that is staffed for 24 hours a day. The Labor member in question even used a front community group, which she made herself president of—taken straight out of the Craig Thomson playbook; more on that later—to push for this 24-hour police station in the lead-up to her election in the state election at March. Among her statements on the matter were:

We have written to the Minister for Police and the Commissioner of Police to ask for their support because we know that a 24 hour police station is something that our community wants.

Another statement:

All citizens have the fundamental right to safety and security in their own home and we believe that a 24 Hour Police Station is essential to crime reduction in Belmont.

Today I wrote to the Minister for Police Liza Harvey and the Commissioner of Police Karl O’Callaghan, asking that they support a 24 hour police station for Belmont.

Another statement:

Today I wrote to the Minister for Police Liza Harvey and the Commissioner of Police Karl O’Callaghan, asking that they support a 24 hour police station for Belmont. Residents of Belmont know that crime doesn’t just happen in business hours …

That is on her Facebook page.

Another statement:

During the recent council elections, an overwhelming number of candidates declared support for a 24 hour police station. Unfortunately, the Council has failed to show the leadership on this issue that our community needs.

I do not know how the council has anything to do with appointing or opening the police station for 24 hours, but they will throw the blame around where they can! Again, she said:

Crime does not only happen between 9am-5pm, and I will continue to lobby the State Government for a 24-hour police station in Belmont.

That was in the Southern Gazette on 2 August 2016.

But it turns out that this was all a misleading campaign that she used to get elected. When the new state Labor government recently announced a series of police stations that would become 24-hour police stations, Belmont was not included. Belmont missed out! While the police stations at Armadale, Cockburn and Ellenbrook will all become 24-hour stations, Belmont will not. And to top it off, since being elected, Ms Rowe has not even updated her beloved Belmont Community News page. There is not one update to break it to the community group that she has been unsuccessful in her campaign for the 24-hour police station.

The member for Belmont clearly no longer cares about her campaign for a 24-hour police station now that she has been elected. She simply does not have the influence that the Labor members representing Armadale, Cockburn and Ellenbrook have with the McGowan government. In 2015 she accused the City of Belmont for failing to provide leadership on this issue, but she has failed herself—a huge fail!

She also promised that after the election she would resign as president of the community group, but it is 100 days and her web page still shows that. I seek leave to table this document.

Leave not granted.

What a protection racket! A protection racket run by the member for Lyons for the member for Belmont! They are running a protection racket, Mr Deputy Speaker! (Time expired)