Ben Morton (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) funding is available in the 2018-19 federal budget for the Australian Government’s contribution to the construction of the Roe 8 and 9 extensions to complete the Perth Freight Link (PFL), despite the decision of the Western Australian Government to not proceed with the project; and

(b) the Australian Government will provide $1.2 billion to the first Western Australian Government willing to build the PFL by constructing the Roe 8 and 9 extensions and is therefore recording this commitment as a contingent liability in the federal budget;

(2) acknowledges the real benefits of these projects including 15 sets of traffic lights bypassed, 7,000 trucks and 74,000 cars off local roads each day, freeway access and travel time savings and a reduction of 450,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions;

(3) welcomes strong community support for Roe 8 and 9;

(4) condemns the Western Australian Government for not accessing the federal funding and building this critical infrastructure that will improve freight efficiency, make local roads safer and create local jobs in Western Australia;

(5) calls on the Western Australian Government to:

(a) consider all options that allow Roe 8 and 9 to proceed, like a longer bridge over the wetlands or a longer tunnel; and

(b) immediately access the $1.2 billion available in the federal budget and build this critical infrastructure; and

(6) calls on the federal Opposition to explain if it will keep or remove this critical funding from the federal budget if elected.

Members of this house will be familiar with my passion and my commitment to ensuring that this road link is built. It is an important road project for my electorate. It is an important road project for the people of Western Australia. But it is important to note that the funding from the Commonwealth government remains there and is available for the state government to spend to construct this very important road project. The funding is available, as mentioned, as outlined, in the federal budget. It is there and recorded as a contingent liability in the federal budget. In fact, the Australian government has made it very clear in the budget that they will provide $1.2 billion to the first WA government willing to build the Perth Freight Link by constructing the Roe 8 and 9 extensions.

You'll hear all sorts of suggestions that the money is not there. You will have all sorts of weasel words from those opposite suggesting it's all smoke and mirrors. But the reason why that funding is recorded as a contingent liability is because the WA Labor state government is refusing to get on and access those funds that are needed to take 7,000 trucks a day and 74,000 cars a day off local roads in my electorate. That commitment isn't just recorded in the budget. A letter from the Treasurer to me, which has been provided to the state government, makes it very clear that the Treasurer says there is nothing preventing the current WA government from accessing the funding should they choose to construct this very important road link. On the weekend, the Prime Minister, speaking at the WA Liberal Party state conference, said: 'We remain committed to the Perth Freight Link. Our offer of $1.2 billion to build it still stands.' So there you have it, $1.2 billion is available to the WA government to build a very important piece of infrastructure.

Why is it important? It will take 7,000 trucks off local roads, it will take 74,000 cars off local roads, it will create thousands of local jobs, it will bypass 15 sets of traffic lights, it will improve freeway access east and west across Perth, it will save travel time and it will save 450,000 tonnes of CO2 gases as well. And, if you don't think there is support to keep the Fremantle Harbour as a working harbour and to improve connectivity to that harbour, just ask the people at the MUA in WA.

You will have people say that there was an election fought on this issue. When I have raised this point in relation to the strong support in local communities, it's been laughed at, and incorrectly so. The people of the southern suburbs strongly support this road project. They are the ones who have to put up with the traffic congestion that this road project will fix. What members opposite don't realise is that the simple mathematics is that there was no smashing of the Liberal Party in those southern suburbs. What those opposite fail to recognise is that the swing to the Labor Party in the suburbs where this road would be built was less than the average swing to Labor across the state.

Opposition Member:

An opposition member interjecting—

Ben Morton (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There was a swing to Labor; I accept that. It was much less than the state average swing in those areas that were affected by this road. Why? Because the member for Grayndler, the good fellow from Sydney, does not understand the strong support that this road project has in my community. So I call on the state Labor government not to ignore the $1.2 billion that is there available to build this road, to create jobs and to reduce traffic congestion.

An opposition member: It's not there!

It is there. It's available for the state government to use, and the state government should access it. If they want to build a bigger bridge or a longer tunnel, they should at least look at options that actually deal with the objective of getting cars and trucks from the Kwinana highway to the port of Fremantle.

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

It's a freeway.

Ben Morton (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

From the freeway. Thank you, Member for Burt. But federal Labor also need to make it very clear when they go to the people of Western Australia at the next election: will they remove this funding? (Time expired)

Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to follow the almost comedic contribution of the mover of this motion, the member for Tangney. It is more a fantasy than a motion. I move the following amendment:

That all words after paragraph (1) be omitted and the following be inserted:

(a) there is no actual funding allocated in the 2018-19 federal budget for the construction of the Perth Freight Link;

(b) the community rejected construction of this project when it elected the McGowan Labor Government in Western Australia with a record majority;

(c) the Federal Government announced funding for the project despite the Barnett Liberal Government's Parliamentary Secretary for Transport Jim Chown admitting that "we have not actually got design plans that are worthy of public scrutiny"; and

(d) the opposition to the Perth Freight Link was based on the lack of proper planning and the adverse environmental impact it would have, most notably on the Beeliar Wetlands; and

(2) calls on the Commonwealth Government to:

(a) provide increased financial support to the Western Australian Government's METRONET urban rail project;

(b) work with the Western Australian Government to identify rail and traffic management strategies to expedite freight movement around the current Fremantle Port facilities; and

(c) work with the Western Australian Government to identify and develop future projects that will best meet the State's long-term infrastructure needs, including a second port at Kwinana, and that those projects be supported by fully developed Business Cases that are submitted to Infrastructure Australia for assessment.

In the government's first budget they ripped out a whole host of funding that had been allocated for public transport. That included half a billion dollars for public transport projects in Perth as well as funding for the Melbourne Metro, the Cross River Rail project and others. But in WA on budget night even the Barnett government were shocked by this announcement about a project that hadn't been advocated by them, for which there was no business case, for which there was no route, for which there was no environmental impact statement and which Infrastructure Australia hadn't even heard of up to that point.

I had been the infrastructure minister for the previous six years. I worked with the WA Liberal government constructively. We advanced plans and projects like Gateway WA, the Swan Valley bypass, Perth City Link, the Great Northern Highway and the North West Coastal Highway—a range of projects right around the great state of Western Australia. Not one of the ministers or premiers I met with ever said, 'How about we build something called the Perth Freight Link?' The WA Liberal government didn't even know what it was when it was announced on budget night. It had no business case. Its EIS had already, upon examination for Roe 8, been rejected.

In June 2014, just weeks after the announcement, the then WA parliamentary secretary for transport, Jim Chown, said in WA's standing committee on estimates:

The commonwealth has a propensity to make these announcements, as you well know, but … at this stage we have not actually got design plans that are worthy of public scrutiny, as the director has stated.

This was a government that came to office saying that all projects worth $100 million or more would be approved only after they'd been to Infrastructure Australia. Here you have the state government saying that they had no design plans worthy of any scrutiny whatsoever. Although it was promoted as a way to take trucks to the port of Fremantle, planning had been so inadequate and hurried that the road would have stopped three kilometres short of the port. So, allegedly, it was about fixing congestion at the port, but it just didn't go there. This is a great example of how hopeless, inadequate and incompetent this government has been when it comes to infrastructure.

Government Members:

Government members interjecting—

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Now they come in here and they say, 'We've still got the money'—except it isn't there.

A government member: It is there.

It is not there. For which years?

A government member interjecting—

So they concede that it's not there at all. There are no dollars there. There is no funding, and it's a road to nowhere. (Time expired)

Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, I second the amendment.

Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support my colleague the member for Tangney and his motion. The efficient movement of freight and people is essential to promoting the growth of industry and productivity within our region. For the local economy to develop, efficient supply chains must be implemented for efficient transport, materials handling and logistics. Exporters require the means of dispatching goods, including perishable products, by road, air and sea freight. Conversely, importers require the channels to bring in bulky goods, construction materials and supplies. The efficient handling of freight in my electorate, which is located in the northern suburbs, first requires it to arrive at Fremantle and then be transported into the Kewdale-Welshpool area and up the Tonkin Highway to where the NorthLink project is being constructed at the moment. This will create an integrated transport and logistics highway from Fremantle all the way up to the northern part of Australia, through the Perth to Darwin highway.

We call upon Premier Mark McGowan, the WA transport minister, Rita Saffioti, and the state government to support moves to build the Roe 8 and 9 projects, to access the $1.2 billion in funding that the federal government has set aside for this project in the balance sheet and to support the project proceeding. The government has taken a very strategic approach to economic development, which goes beyond electoral boundaries. It will benefit not only the electors of one particular electorate but all Western Australians. We encourage the government to participate in this very important project.

It will reduce travel times and congestion and provide sufficient productivity benefits to the economy and industry, and motorists and local communities will be serviced by the regional traffic movements to commercial industrial areas, such as Malaga, Kewdale and Welshpool, by goods travelling all along this corridor. It will provide sufficient capacity to handle the expected growth in transport demand and improve the operational efficiency of freight vehicles servicing the nationally significant intermodal terminals based at Kewdale and Forrestfield. Between now and 2031 there will be an expected doubling of freight and passenger air travel. A long-term vision is to cater for the traffic volumes associated with the projected future Perth population of 3.5 million residents, to accommodate this extra growth in population. I commend the motion to the House.

Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to rise today to support the amendment put forward by the member for Grayndler and to speak on the private member's motion put forward by the member for Tangney. Well, here we are again debating another private member's motion, from the member for Tangney, on Colin Barnett's failed Roe 8 and Roe 9 Perth Freight Link debacle.

Government Member:

A government member interjecting—

Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's only your first one. Certainly, members from the Western Australian Liberals have been here before, raising this in private members' motions. I know it for a fact, because I believe I've spoken on it before. I was going to name the member for Tangney—it's practically the whole WA Liberal members of parliament here who like to pop their heads out of their Liberal Party hutch to check whether the shadow has fallen this way or that way! They call it their own little groundhog day, wondering, if they keep talking up the discredited Perth rail link in private members' motions over and over again, whether that will change the electoral result in WA on March 2017 that saw the WA Liberals get wiped out of state parliament. It was an election where Roe 8 and Roe 9 were talked about nonstop. It was a clear election issue.

A government member interjecting—

Well, I suppose there's something to be said for magical thinking, but I prefer an evidence based approach and all the evidence shows that the Liberals lost that state election and Labor won. And they won by a lot. Even yesterday, recent polls show how deeply unpopular the Liberal Party remains in WA. So you might note that. I remind all WA parliamentarians, especially the Liberal parliamentarians in their Punxsutawney Phil imitations, that it was the Western Australian people who turfed out an unpopular, erratic, opaque and fiscally irresponsible state government. This government had put the deeply unpopular Perth Freight Link at the heart of its campaign, and that's the result it got.

I'm proud that Mark McGowan's Labor team was handed an overwhelming mandate to govern, to get hold of the purse strings of the state's finances, which were, as we all know, spiralling dangerously out of control due to the mismanagement and poor economic decisions of the Barnett Liberal government. I think sometimes that the Liberals think they're born to rule over Western Australia, like it's some kind of Liberal fiefdom they can play with. Well, I think the Western Australian people are onto you mob. They got sick of the groundhog day the Liberals were stuck in that saw poor decisions—like the agreement between the former WA Liberal government, under Colin Barnett, and the Abbott-Turnbull-led coalition government, here, to fund the deeply unpopular Perth Freight Link. And as we heard before, from the member for Grayndler, it was a plan that had no business case and the state Liberal Party wasn't even aware of it.

Perhaps the plan was well meaning. Any well-thought-out policy to get more trucks off the road and ease congestion in WA is worth a look at, but this plan was riddled with potholes and hazards. It was and remains a plan for a road to nowhere that stopped short of the port of Fremantle. There is no final link in the Perth Freight Link. In fact, a 2015 report from Infrastructure Australia concluded that the entire project was hurriedly prepared and detailed assessments were not finished in order to find adequate alternatives. There was no business case. Two years ago a Senate inquiry was unanimous in denouncing the entire project and made the suggestion that funds be redirected to other important WA infrastructure proposals, including a future outer harbour in Kwinana.

You might think that was game over and end of story. But then we had the election, and we were right in the middle of that. One would have thought this would have sent a clear message to the Liberals that it was deeply unpopular. But, no, here we are again—groundhog day—with a private member's motion, having to refute a project that has been rejected several times in just as many iterations. What is it with the WA Liberals that they think they can just keep saying things over and over again, and maybe no-one will notice and maybe it'll make it right or appropriate? It's just nuts!

The fact that we're here talking about this again today is ludicrous. The fact that the WA Liberals can stand here and try to raise this project again, when everyone knows it's pretty much done and dusted, is just ridiculous. Why don't you come in here and talk about important infrastructure projects that people in Western Australia actually like? How about talking about METRONET? You remember METRONET. Remember when Colin Barnett—

A government member interjecting—

I know, but remember, when you canned the Ellenbrook line, you withdrew all funding. This is the party of Sir Charles Court, who stopped the Fremantle to Perth line. This is that party. They do not believe in public transport. They don't really believe in METRONET. Do you know why they believe in METRONET now? Because the member for Pearce's seat is on the line, and he needs a rail line to save the seat of Pearce so he can continue to be Attorney-General in this parliament. This is ridiculous. They should really get in behind METRONET and support it with their hearts and their minds. They just come in here to try to get some money to save their seats.

An honourable member interjecting—

They have. They have committed $500 million to the Ellenbrook line, and that's great, but, jeez, it's a bit late for Colin Barnett and the WA Liberals, who remain deeply unpopular in WA, and long may that reign.

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

Ben Morton (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What does the MUA think?

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

The member asks, 'What does the MUA think?' It's interesting to think about the issues that are affecting the port, Member for Tangney. What are the issues causing congestion around the port? We need to fix traffic on the freeway, which is a critical point of congestion for any road going into the port, and that is something that we're now doing. We need to fix congestion around the port, and that is something that the state Labor government is doing, by seeing a dramatic increase in the amount of freight being taken away from and into the port by rail. That is saving a considerable load of congestion. That amount will continue to increase under a Labor government, despite the fact that, under years of a Liberal government, we saw no movement—in fact we saw reductions—in the amount of freight being carried by rail. If you look at the truck movements on the existing roads, like Leach Highway, during the day we're not seeing truck movements like we see at some of Australia's busiest ports, where they have to happen all day long. There are other options to resolve congestion if that is the economical way to move forward.

One thing that I would like to remark upon is the way in which the former state Liberal government proceeded once it was going ahead with this project. Despite the facts that this was a very contentious project, that there was no support from the community for the project and that there were other priorities, the government proceeded to clear the land that would be affected by this road, removing an extremely valuable environmental resource for Carnaby's black-cockatoos and for other wildlife that is reliant on the remnant, aged vegetation—vegetation which has now been permanently removed by the Liberal Party in Western Australia—protecting our important environmental heritage.

There is one final point I want to make. If the member for Tangney is now saying that there is an additional $1.2 billion in the budget available for Western Australia, as gratifying as it is that the Turnbull government has finally realised that the state of Western Australia is actually a part of this federation, I say this: why are you holding the people of Western Australia to ransom by not delivering this money to the priority projects that it could otherwise be delivered to? Instead you say, 'We've got the money, but we won't give it to you.' Shame on the Turnbull government! (Time expired)