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

This motion from the member for Tangney is a curious motion, particularly because it comes just shortly after the Fremantle by-election. The member for Tangney is not backwards about coming forwards on his views when it comes to the Perth Freight Link. In fact, we've seen him put big advertisements in local papers and The West Australian. Yet, funnily enough, when there was a by-election happening in an area that would be directly affected by this policy, there was silence from the member for Tangney, no ads. In fact, not only were there no advertisements, not only was there silence from the member for Tangney; now that I think about it, examining the list of candidates for that by-election, there was not even a Liberal running. That's how badly they know this policy is regarded by the people of Western Australia. They wouldn't even put up a candidate in the seat of Fremantle because of their support for the Perth Freight Link.

The critical part here is this. The Liberal Party refuse to listen to the community on this issue. When we listen to the community, what we know about Western Australia's priorities is that, instead of spending money on the Perth Freight Link, the people of Western Australia want to see funding—and they have been able to obtain it, through the support of a WA Labor government and effective representation here in Canberra by federal members of the Labor Party—for METRONET, for a third lane north on Kwinana Freeway, for the new Armadale Road bridge, for a new Carroll Avenue bridge over Roe Highway, for the duplication of Armadale Road and, of course, for fixing the dangerous Denny Avenue level crossing in Kelmscott.

But, instead of doing all of those things, the Liberal Party's policy going into the election was: 'No, no, no. We won't do those things that the people actually want.' Their solution was to fund the Perth Freight Link, a road literally to nowhere, with no plan to get it from the south side of the river to the north side of the river, where the port actually is.

Mr Morton interjecting—

The member for Tangney says it's all right; we can just rely on the bridge that's already there. Well, if you're relying on the bridge that is already there, you're not doing anything to resolve congestion, are you? The bridge is clearly a point of congestion in and of itself.

But then the state minister floated this idea: 'It's okay; we'll build a tunnel'—forgetting that one-third of the traffic coming out of the port is placarded loads, which means they can't go through a tunnel in the first place.

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