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

More than two years of campaigning by me, federal Labor and my state Labor colleagues has paid off, with Labor's WA infrastructure package delivering key projects for my electorate of Burt. Since I was a member of the Community Reference Group for the Armadale Redevelopment Authority in the early 2000s, I have been calling for the level crossing at Denny Avenue in Kelmscott to be replaced. In both the Canning by-election and the 2016 federal election, I reiterated those calls, and federal Labor committed to assisting to fund this project. In the 2017 state election, Armadale MLA Tony Buti continued his campaign for this project as well, and now the $62 million project will commence in 2018 under the new Labor government.

Similarly, my campaign to have the construction work on the duplication of Armadale Road—a project that Labor's early commitment to in the Canning by-election saw the then Abbott government match—has been included in the WA infrastructure project, as has the new Armadale Road bridge at the freeway, something that the Liberals previously said was unnecessary. Other local projects from the WA infrastructure package for my electorate of Burt include $49 million for the new third lane of the northbound Kwinana Freeway from Russell Road to Roe Highway as well as over $400 million for the Thornlie rail line extension through Canning Vale connecting to Cockburn. In a major boost to my local community, over one third of the jobs created —that is, over 2½ thousand jobs—from this package will be on projects that benefit the Burt community.

This package has been put together partly from money that has been reallocated from that for the Perth freight link. Now, what has to be remembered here, of course, is that during the last state election the Turnbull government threatened to remove that money from the people of Western Australia. But it is quite clear that even the Turnbull government has realised just how out of touch it is, and Western Australians will no longer be taken for granted, because the government has finally agreed to reallocate those moneys to the projects that Western Australians actually want as part of this WA infrastructure project. That has demonstrated even further how out of touch this Turnbull government is, how they cannot be trusted with the things they say one month compared with what they say the next but also, critically, how Labor will deliver for people. I and Labor will continue to put people first and to build a better Burt.