Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the Defence Housing Australia Amendment Bill 2025. Obviously it's welcome that this government is finally taking some of the first steps required to see AUKUS come to fruition in this country. It is a policy that, in rhetoric, anyway, has been supported by those opposite, the Labor Party, for a significant period of time—in fact, for the entire life of the AUKUS project, which of course started under the coalition government.

However, quite frankly, this is too little too late. It is just reflective of the failure of this Labor government and the state Labor government in Western Australia to seize the urgency of the requirements of AUKUS and make the concrete building blocks necessary to see this come to fruition. I had the current status of Henderson and AUKUS in Western Australia described to me, by someone who knows this very, very intimately, as a debacle under this Labor government, a debacle under the state Labor government in Western Australia, because—for one reason, at least—the building blocks have not been started. Yes, this bill is a positive step, and we will support it; however, the requirement for the US presence at Stirling is for thousands of accommodation units to be available, starting in 2027-28. Passing legislation to start a process to build houses just two years before you're going to need those houses to be finished shows how unserious this Labor government actually is in this space.

I'll give another example—and this has more of a state Labor focus, but the federal government could use its influence to make a difference in this area. The major road into the Henderson precinct, the Australian Marine Complex, the intersection of Rockingham Road and Russell Road, is an intersection where I have stood and watched trucks and cars get banked up for hundreds and hundreds of metres. It is a horrendously dangerous intersection. It's effectively two Ls, with traffic lights at both intersections of the Ls. It's a very slow, very inefficient intersection that has needed realignment for a long, long period of time. It last had significant work done in 2002; that's 23 years ago. Currently, as far as I can tell—maybe there's some work happening behind the scenes—nothing has been significantly planned to make sure that intersection is fixed before the significant naval shipbuilding projects in the Henderson precinct hit their straps, such as the new Mogami build that should be starting in Western Australia this decade. The fourth ship is meant to be built in the Henderson dockyards this decade, and these basic, fundamental building blocks, such as having an efficient road into the precinct, have not even been started yet.

This is an extraordinary failure of leadership. We've had 3½ years of Labor government federally and we've had, sadly, eight years of Labor government at the Western Australian state level, and every single one of those senior ministers, premiers, prime ministers and ministers have talked about their support and the need to actually get these fundamentals in place for my home state of Western Australia to take advantage of things like Mitsubishi Heavy Industries' willingness to come into Western Australia to partner in Henderson to build the Mogami class frigates. They've talked a big game, but they have done literally nothing. Here, we have the federal Labor government trying to pass a bill that will start a process, which will then start a planning process that will let houses be built at some point. This is a very non-serious way to approach the most serious issue in Australia: ensuring that AUKUS is a success.

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