Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Science) Share this | Hansard source

In February, Cyclone Zelia devastated road networks in the Shire of East Pilbara. For eight months, the shire has worked incredibly hard and negotiated in good faith to secure funding, with $26 million required to rebuild 10 damaged roads, including vital access routes to the Western Desert communities. The response from the state and federal governments has been, frankly, insulting, with the current proposal totalling just $12 million. Instead of funding a like-for-like rebuild, they are prescribing a deliberate downgrade of roads that will fail once again when the next cyclone inevitably hits.

Just four days before Cyclone Zelia struck, the Prime Minister stood here in this parliament and spoke about closing the gap, promising 'the building blocks of a good life'—that's what he said: 'the building blocks of a good life'—to communities cut off for far too long. Well, how can this government be serious about closing the gap when it is underfunding the very lifeline roads that connect the Western Desert communities to clinics, schools, food and fuel? This week I was informed of serious incidents on the Punmu Access Road—a teacher's vehicle rolling over several times, tyres blown and bearings collapsed. People are lucky to be alive. This is unacceptable. The Pilbara is the engine room of the Australian economy. It's time this government started treating it like one. (Time expired)

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