Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Earlier on I was listening to the member for Perth and I was quite incredulous that someone could have such a hide on the issue of transportation infrastructure. Let's just get things in perspective here. On 5 May the member said Freight Link is a 'scandalous squandering of taxpayers' funds'. Let me tell you what is a scandalous squandering of taxpayers' funds. A minister in the WA government decided that she did not like Roe stage 8 and that she also did not like the Fremantle Eastern Bypass. So what happened is that Roe 8 was designed in a spaghetti junction deliberately to try to prevent any further staging from Roe stage 7 into Roe stage 8. It was designed to terminate. I asked the engineers at the time, 'Why have you designed it like this, so that it cannot continue?' They said, 'We had instructions to do so.'

The fascinating thing is that she removed the Fremantle Eastern Bypass. I was on the standing committee of transport and I asked the head of her department what research had been done to indicate that the Fremantle Eastern Bypass should be removed. His answer was: 'It was a state government decision.' I asked him again: 'What studies have been conducted that indicate that this is the right thing to do?' He answered in exactly the same political way again: 'It was a state government decision.' In other words, there were no studies. It was just a purely political decision to wipe the Fremantle Eastern Bypass off the map.

Ms MacTiernan interjecting—

The incredible thing is that the member for Perth is complaining now about how much it is going to cost for the tunnel to go to Fremantle. Boy, talk about 'pot meet kettle'! The Fremantle Eastern Bypass which would have given a surface road that would have enabled easy access to the port has been deleted and the land has been sold by the member for Perth. Now we have to tunnel underneath to get to the Fremantle port because the minister had the audacity to sell off a bypass reserve purely to satisfy her colleague's constituents in that part of the Fremantle electorate. So removing the Fremantle Eastern Bypass was effectively all about vote buying.

Here is something that is a further concern. If you speak to, for instance, a whole lot of road engineers and councils and so on in my electorate, they will tell you that they are very concerned. We have the Fiona Stanley Hospital coming up to full steam at the moment. It is causing massive congestion in that area.

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