Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Urban Infrastructure) Share this | Hansard source

I will address a number of the matters that have been raised by parliamentary colleagues this afternoon. I will first address the comments made by the member for Tangney in relation to the Perth Freight Link. The member is not here anymore—he has had to go to another commitment—but I do want to acknowledge his outstanding advocacy for the Perth Freight Link project, a project that was identified by Infrastructure Australia as a high-priority project addressing national connectivity. Infrastructure Australia ranked this project as a high-priority project, and the Turnbull government therefore committed significant funding to it. It would have delivered, as the member rightly observed, very substantial benefits for people in the southern suburbs of Perth, particularly freight traffic moving efficiently to and from the port of Fremantle.

The incoming Labor McGowan government in WA unfortunately succumbed to the desire to chase Green votes, which is such a disease which infects Labor governments and Labor oppositions around Australia. We have seen this very disturbing trend. We saw it in Victoria, where the incoming Labor government abandoned the East West Link project, ultimately ending up costing Victorian taxpayers over $1 billion. They did that in a desperate attempt to protect two inner-city seats. We saw a similar pattern occurring with Perth Freight Link, with the incoming Labor government abandoning that project—again, in a desperate attempt to win Green votes. In fact, we almost saw it last year in the lead-up to the federal election when the member for Grayndler, who claimed previously to have been a supporter of WestConnex, performed an extraordinary backflip under pressure from the Greens in his own seat. To the ABC in 2014, he claimed credit for $1.8 billion of funding that his government, when they were in government, allegedly had committed to the Perth Freight Link. Two years later, he told ABC Radio the precise opposite. He said, 'We provided $25 million for funding and we never provided any substantive funding.' That was an amazing backflip and part of a regrettable pattern all around the country. The Labor Party really are not interested in providing better transport solutions for hardworking Australians in middle-ring and outer-ring suburbs, because they are so desperate to contest the votes of the latte sippers and try to get those votes away from the Greens. Unfortunately, the interests of hardworking Australians are sadly abandoned.

I repeat for the benefit of the member for Tangney: there is a commitment that this government has made contained in this budget. There is a contingent liability of $1.2 billion in this budget for the Perth Freight Link. Should any future Western Australian government wish to build the Perth Freight Link, we stand ready to fund it with $1.2 billion. That is why there is a contingent liability in this budget.

We heard from the member for Lyons, who made some assertions about the nature of infrastructure projects in his electorate and, indeed, in Tasmania. Perhaps I could remind the member for Lyons that the Turnbull government is contributing $260 million over the first five years of the 10-year $400 million Midland Highway upgrade program. Perhaps I could remind the member for Lyons about the $24 million commitment to the Hobart airport roundabout, the Highland Lakes Road upgrade, the Glen Road upgrade, the Industry Road upgrade, the Soldiers Settlement Road upgrade, the Cove Hill Bridge upgrade, the Saltwater River Bridge upgrade, the Bass Highway-Wynyard intersection upgrade, the Bridport western access road, the Bass Highway-Westbury Road intersection upgrade, the Bass Highway, and the Cooee and Wynyard planning money—there are a very substantial range of commitments in Tasmania by the Turnbull government. The member for Lyons is, sadly, misinformed.

The member for Mackellar expressed his strong interest in the National Rail Program. I commend him for that. I look forward to the opportunity, in a later contribution, to expand in more detail on that very exciting program.

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