Kim Wilkie (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

My question to the minister is in regard to the project for widening the Great Eastern Highway in my electorate of Swan between Kooyong Road and the Great Eastern Highway bypass. Can the minister please explain why this proposal has received absolutely no suggestion of federal funding? The Commonwealth government has said that it is entirely a state responsibility even though this is the main thoroughfare that joins the eastern states to Perth and the main thoroughfare that links the airport to the city and therefore carries enormous volumes of people traffic from both the international terminal and the domestic terminal. Can the minister please explain why the Commonwealth has not seen fit to fund any of this project given that the mining boom is providing most of the income coming to the Commonwealth? Thirty thousand people fly in and out of the airport each week to work in the mines that generate the money that goes to the Commonwealth, but the Commonwealth cannot find it in its heart to come up with any funding for this project even though the royalties from the mining are going to the government.

Minister, I understand the project is worth $160 million, but the Commonwealth cannot even find it in its heart to come up with half of that money so that I can then go and argue that the states should at least fund some of the project. Can the minister please explain why the Commonwealth sees fit to spend $200 million on advertising for the coming election but cannot spend any money on this highway?

See this speech in context