Matt Keogh (Burt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The last time a Liberal Prime Minister came to Western Australia to announce funding for a new infrastructure project, he was knocked off by his own party the next week. I am of course referring to the Armadale Road duplication project in my electorate, the Labor commitment to which was partly matched by Tony Abbott in the Canning by-election, just days before he was replaced by the current Prime Minister. This may explain why the Prime Minister has been reluctant to visit WA this year, let alone announce new infrastructure funding for Western Australia.

Fortunately for WA, and for my electorate of Burt in particular, WA Labor has announced it will build the infrastructure projects our community of transport consumers desperately needs to deal with ever-growing frustration and to get local people back to work: projects that the Abbott government, the Turnbull government and the Barnett state Liberal government have all ignored and refused to support.

There is the new Armadale Road bridge, the logical second stage to the Armadale Road duplication project that I mentioned, which will stop the bottleneck at the Kwinana Freeway and which has the support of local councils, businesses and more than 80 per cent of the local residents. Then there is the Thornlie to Cockburn rail line, which will extend through Canning Vale, with two new train stations.

The state Liberal MP, Peter Abetz, likes to pretend that he has been advocating for this project for eight years, but it has only been since WA Labor put pressure on through the fantastic local candidate, Terry Healy, that the Liberals matched Labor's commitment for this new rail line. After the broken promises of Ellenbrook and MAX light rail, which we heard of earlier, who could honestly believe that the Liberals will follow through on this promise? And just this week, WA Labor announced that it will remove the Denny Avenue level crossing in Kelmscott, replacing it with a bridge or underpass by 2020. I was proud to secure funding commitments to these projects from the federal Labor team during last year's election, and it was a shame that the Turnbull government did not match those commitments.

WA Labor will take the responsible step for our state of not pushing ahead with Roe 8, redirecting that funding to projects like those I have just mentioned and many others. Yet the only response so far from the federal Liberals has been to try to hold WA to ransom—to threaten to withdraw funding rather than let an elected WA Labor government spend that $1.2 billion in allocated funding on infrastructure projects that WA desperately needs and wants. Here's the rub: going off the Turnbull government's MYEFO figures, WA will receive about 12 per cent of the federal infrastructure budget. WA has just under 11 per cent of the national population, so that might seem fair until you recall that WA takes up a third of the landmass of our continent and is one of the biggest economic contributors to our nation. If the funding for the Perth Freight Link were stripped from WA, our share would drop to just seven per cent. That is right: not only would we score only 30c in the dollar on the GST; we would receive a tiny proportion of Commonwealth infrastructure funding. Of course, given that the Liberal government has not funded any new infrastructure projects in WA, are we surprised?

Even if we finally do have a state government and a federal government that support these kinds of congestion-busting infrastructure projects, we will need to ensure that the jobs created during construction actually go to Western Australians. The economy has changed but the Liberal-Nationals have done nothing to change the outdated list of occupations which are available to be filled in Western Australia by overseas workers. Occupations currently on the list include fitters, bricklayers, wall and floor tilers, electricians, air-conditioning and refrigeration mechanics, welfare workers, ambulance offices, firefighters, accountants, surveyors, child-care centre managers, and primary and secondary school teachers. At the same time that it has become easier for overseas workers to be employed in skilled jobs, cuts to TAFE by the Liberal-National government have meant it is harder for local people to get the training to access skilled jobs. By making changes, WA Labor will ensure that we make the most of the job opportunities that will flow from the construction of projects like the new Armadale Road bridge, fixing up Denny Avenue, and a new railway line from Thornlie, through Canning Vale, to Cockburn.

There are currently more than 92,000 people unemployed in Western Australia, and Labor's priority will be to ensure that they are first in line for WA jobs. A McGowan Labor government will, on day one, tear up the list of occupations that fast-tracks overseas workers to WA and replace it with a new list that reflects WA's changed economic circumstances. That is the best way to ensure that jobs in local projects go to Western Australians to get our unemployment rates back down to where they were before the Barnett and Abbott-Turnbull Liberal governments took a sledgehammer to Western Australia. The simple truth is that, on local jobs, on transport infrastructure and more, Colin Barnett is exactly like his federal counterparts: out of touch with a state and people struggling after eight years of Liberal neglect. WA Labor will bring a fresh approach to WA and a comprehensive plan for jobs—something we desperately need and will not get from the Liberals. (Time expired)

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