Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm looking forward to the long trip home to my electorate tomorrow more than I normally do, not just to see my family and my beautiful wife but also because tomorrow afternoon I'll be representing Fiona Nash, the Minister for Regional Development, at the opening of the Cranbrook Community Hub. Cranbrook is a little community of 300 or 400 people on the Great Southern Highway. I drive through it all the time when I'm down between Katanning and Albany. They've turned what was a liability in their town—an old supermarket building that was empty, that had been abandoned—into a community hub which will include a medical facility and involve home and community care facilities. There will be a day care centre, a gymnasium, training and art-and-craft rooms, an office space and also an exhibition space.

I will give a good shout out to the shire CEO, Peter Northover, and his team in Cranbrook. They are really having a go, really trying to develop their community. It was fantastic to be able to support them with $300,000 from the National Stronger Regions Fund two years ago, which leveraged $1.35 million towards the project. I will give a shout out also to Cassie Hughes, who has moved on from the Cranbrook shire now but who was very instrumental in driving this project in its early stages.

The good news doesn't finish there. Last week the Building Better Regions Fund round 1 grants were announced. Across my electorate we received $13.561 million, which will leverage over $37 million worth of investment in my communities. The first project is the Collie truck stop. The Shire of Collie is putting in a truck stop and RV dump point. Collie is on a very important freight route through to the port of Bunbury and has a high level of truck use, but is also developing its tourism industry. This will be a great asset to recreational vehicles and means Collie will be able to become accredited as an RV-friendly town.

The Williams Lions Park redevelopment project received $360,000 towards a $774,000 project to refurbish and enlarge its playground in the centre of Williams. I drive through Williams, on the Albany Highway, all the time, as do 4,000 other vehicles a day. Williams is halfway between Perth and Albany, and the redevelopment will give people the opportunity to stop. In particular, people with families, like my young family, will be able to get the kids out of the car, have a bit of a break and maybe spend a little bit of time in the town. That's what this program is all about, to try and drive some economic activity and bring more people into these regional towns.

Norseman received a grant to develop a cultural, visitor and community precinct. The town of Norseman is on the start of the Eyre Highway, at the terminus of the Eyre Highway and the Esperance-Goldfields highway. All the interstate traffic coming through the Eyre Highway goes through Norseman. The cultural centre, which will feature some of the local Ngadju culture as well as some of the woodlands environment of the area, will certainly encourage people to stop and spend some time in Norseman, enjoy the environment and get to know some of the local Ngadju culture. That's a very important project, and I'm pleased to see that the Goldfields got a little bit of love in this round.

Manjimup also received a grant, for its South West Energy Experience project. Manjimup is a beautiful tourist town in its own right. The South West Energy Experience, which is a museum of the development of energy in the South West, will add to the critical mass.

The one that I am most pleased about and that I think will have the most impact is the Great Southern Housing Intiative. This is a $10 million contribution from the Commonwealth government to nine shires that have banded together for a 79-house project across the Great Southern. Now, many of these small towns are finding it hard to attract private investment to build decent housing stock, which you need to attract good professional people to come and work in your towns, to keep your elderly people there and to build appropriate accommodation. So, those nine shires—Broomehill-Tambellup, Cranbrook, Gnowangerup, Jerramungup, Katanning, Kent, Kojonup, Plantagenet and Woodanilling—will all benefit from that. I am very, very pleased with that. I want to give a big shout-out to Keith Williams, the CEO of the Shire of Broomehill-Tambellup, who drove that project. I look forward to catching up tomorrow with him and all of those other shire presidents in Cranbrook to celebrate not only the opening of the Cranbrook Community Hub but the success in the latest round of the Building Better Regions Fund.