Barry Haase (Kalgoorlie, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Infrastructure, Roads and Transport) Share this | Hansard source

It will come as no surprise to members of the House that I rise to speak tonight on the Western Australian election. Saturday-next in Western Australia the opportunity arises for the people of Western Australia to break this yoke of wall-to-wall Labor governments across the nation. It gives me a great deal of pleasure to have the opportunity to voice the opinion of so many of my constituents about what is wrong with the west today—and how much better it could be. Already, we know that we are the economic powerhouse of the nation. My own electorate—some 30 per cent of Australia—produces much above Australia’s average production, but so much more could be done if it were not for the head-in-the-sand attitude of the current Western Australian Labor government.

We have, for instance, the $200 million Yannarie salt project being proposed by Straits Resources. This has been knocked on the head by the Western Australian EPA in chorus with the Western Australian government. The reason it was knocked on the head by the EPA is because the bitterns would discharge from the project and upset the balance of salinity in the gulf. There is no bitterns discharge from the project. It is an absolute nonsense. In league with the Western Australian government, we have got a Labor federal government who wish to bash Woodside shareholders to the tune of $2½ billion over the next four years, because they want to welsh on a deal that was pivotal to Woodside getting off the ground. We have got an INPEX petroleum project—

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