Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The south-west of Western Australia is the jewel in the crown of the state's economic and cultural development, and the electorate of Forrest sits at the heart of the south-west. It is also an environmental icon, being listed as one of the world's international biodiversity hotspots.

Our major industries include: agriculture, beef and dairy cattle, sheep, fruit and vegetables, wine, and flowers; forestry, with both hard and softwoods; mining, with alumina, coal, mineral sands, tin and tantalite; fisheries; manufacturing; commerce; and tourism. The region is a tourism and holiday destination of choice for the majority of people from the Perth metropolitan area. This wide range of activity, coupled with the significant population growth of the region that exceeds both Western Australian state and national growth, has put significant pressure on the transport infrastructure of the region. Planning for, and investment in, road infrastructure has not been able to kept pace with the growth or demand in the South West, and this has been a long term trend.

There has been considerable investment in roads leading to the South West, as evidenced by the opening of the Perth to Bunbury Highway in 2009 and the extension of dual lanes on the Old Coast Road by the Court government in the nineties. It must be noted that, while these important assets have improved travel between the South West and Perth, the outcome is that even more traffic is entering and will continue to enter the South West, putting even more pressure on local roads. The completion of the Perth to Bunbury Highway was the first step in meeting the road needs of the area. There is now dual lane access from Bunbury north to Perth and beyond. This has moved the traffic bottleneck on this service corridor from Mandurah through to the south of Bunbury and has highlighted the inadequate arterial roads that radiate traffic out from Bunbury. The Bunbury Outer Ring Road and the Port Access Road are being delivered. I attended the opening of stage 1 in 2010. Stage 2 was completed by 2013. However, funding has not yet been committed for the completion of this project, and it must be prioritised.

The Bussell Highway is the coastal route that runs from Bunbury to Augusta, servicing the major population centres of Capel, Busselton and Margaret River. It links these iconic tourist destinations to the world and is the freight corridor for wine, agriculture, forestry and manufacturing industries. It contains sections of single-lane and dual-lane road. The section from Busselton to Margaret River can now be identified as containing the most inadequate and, indeed, dangerous single-lane section, with high traffic loads and poor overtaking capacity. My vision for transport in the long term includes dual lanes on this road, all the way from Bunbury to Margaret River. I recognise that this represents significant additional investment in the region, but the time to start planning is now. I want to see both of these projects on the state and Commonwealth government's plan for development in the near future.

The government has, of course, been investing in the South West, and I would like to mention some of that investment now. The Shire of Donnybrook-Balingup has received funding under round 2 of the Australian government's Bridges Renewal Programme to support vital upgrades of local bridge infrastructure. The Bridges Renewal Program underpins the government's support for local bridges, which are, particularly in rural and regional areas, vital in ensuring communities and local businesses have easy access to essential services, traffic movement and the efficient transportation of road freight. The project will be managed by the shire and involves replacing a one-lane timber bridge with a two-lane concrete bridge over the Preston River on Trevena Road. The government's Bridges Renewal Program will contribute $750,000 to the project, which is expected to cost a total of $1.5 million.

This project complements another excellent investment by this government under round 1 of the program, as construction is well underway on a new $16.54 million bridge over the Collie River between Burekup and Roelands. The Australian government is providing $8.27 million to the project. The timber Collie River bridge is 86 years old and nearing the end of its life, so this new concrete structure will help improve safety for all road users. An average of 6,000 vehicles use the Burekup bridge each day, of which around 18 per cent are heavy vehicles. These works include a new culvert across the Collie River floodway, realignment of around 1.7 kilometres of the South Western Highway between Russell Road and Raymond Road and modifications to existing intersections, including Raymond Road, Russell Road and Orchard Drive.

In the tourist area, Forrest has received a boost with the announcement of $400,000 for local projects under the federal government's Tourism Demand Driver Infrastructure Program. This investment in tourism infrastructure will help attract more visitors to Forrest and provide an even better traveller experience. It will also encourage them to stay much longer in what is the Margaret River region. The government contributed $200,000 to the Margaret River Busselton Tourism Association for their Lighthouses Project, which will see the restoration and redevelopment of eight buildings at the Cape Leeuwin and Naturaliste Lighthouse precincts. Another $200,000 went to the Busselton Jetty Environment and Conservation Association for a project aimed at attracting international tourists to the region by updating the offerings of new, high quality marine experiences. There are a lot of those in this area. Of course, direct access to the tourism market via an expanded Busselton airport is still a critical investment requirement.

The South West has also been a major beneficiary of investment in communications, and I personally want to thank the Prime Minister for his support as the previous communications minister in getting 'better broadband sooner' to the South West. Unlike the Labor debacle, when we were looking at action at least a decade away, my region is today seeing towers going up and boxes being built on street corners. Around 7,300 premises in Greater Bunbury are a step closer to getting access to the National Broadband Network, with construction on the fibre-to-the-node network now underway. It is an important milestone, with greater certainty for homes and businesses as they prepare for fast broadband in the suburbs of Usher, Withers, South Bunbury, College Grove, Dalyellup, Gelorup, South Bunbury, and Carey Park. Final network designs are now complete, and we have already seen nbn co subcontractors in the streets of South Bunbury, laying out fibre and building cabinets to house the electronics needed to supply superfast broadband. Around 376 premises in South Dunsborough are also a step closer to getting access to the NBN, with construction on the fixed-wireless network now underway. The NBN national rollout plan to September 2016 identifies approximately 55,000 premises that will be able to connect to the NBN by means of fixed-line technology and an additional 3,320 premises getting access via wireless technology throughout the South West. This was an underserviced area and now it is being prioritised, like many other underserviced areas around Australia.

The Greater Bunbury region will now see a total of 32,300 premises accessing the NBN via fixed-line technology much sooner than previously thought. The Busselton region will also see a lot more people accessing the NBN, much faster than previously thought, with a total of 16,600 premises that will now receive fixed-line access to the NBN and another 2,500 to receive wireless access. In addition it was fantastic to see the interim satellite launched, the first of NBN's two world-class communication satellites. The launch of the Sky Muster satellite from South America means the wait for access to the National Broadband Network is almost over for many of the more remote homes and businesses in my electorate of Forrest.

The South West has also been a major beneficiary of the federal government's Mobile Black Spot Program. The Commonwealth has committed $3 million towards 14 new or upgraded mobile phone towers in the Forrest electorate to provide mobile services in a number of, again, underserviced areas in the South West, especially in more regional and remote parts. The program will see mobile phone towers constructed or upgraded in: Cundinup, Darradup, East Barrabup, Jalbarragup, and Nannup East in the Shire of Nannup; Baudin, Hamelin Bay, Leeuwin, Rosa Brook and Rosa Glen in the Shire of Augusta-Margaret River; Ferguson Valley and the Wellington Mill in the Shire of Dardanup; Lowden in the Shire of Donnybrook-Balingup; and Yallingup East in the City of Busselton. In total, 75 of the 106 identified mobile black spots in the Forrest electorate will receive coverage under the program. The program includes funding from the Commonwealth, the state of Western Australia and service providers, and will see a total spend of $15.52 million across the Forrest electorate. It is urgent that the WA state government signs up to this funding program as soon as possible.

The South West has seen additional funding granted to local governments throughout the South West as part of the federal government's Financial Assistance Grant program. Councils in the electorate of Forrest have, this week, received an additional $2.2 million as the first quarterly payment for the 2015-16 financial year. This brings the total of the Financial Assistance Grant to the Forrest electorate to $7.9 million for this financial year. This is in addition to the government's $3.2 billion Roads to Recovery Program under which councils in Forrest received nearly $1.5 million in March last year to spend on locally identified road projects—locally identified, which is really important—with a top-up of $212,852 in May 2015.

The government has also committed a further $200 million under the Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program, providing councils with funding for important local infrastructure over five years from 2014-15. To further reduce crashes on Australian roads, an additional $200 million had been committed by the government over the next two years under the $500 million Black Spot Program, of which $2.3 million was announced last year to fix seven dangerous black spots on South West roads. The approved projects are: a new shared pedestrian path on the Busselton Bypass in West Busselton; the installation of street lighting at the Forrest Highway-Hynes Road intersection in the Shire of Dardanup; the clearing of roadside hazards and upgrading road shoulders and signage on the Balingup-Nannup Road and Charley Creek Road in the Shire of Donnybrook; the installation of street lighting at the corner of Bussell Highway and Spurr Street in Capel; and improving the delineation through the roundabout at the intersection of Blair Street and Clarke Street in South Bunbury.

The coalition government has also funded support work to revive and maintain Indigenous languages in the South West. There was $250,000 provided to the Noongar Language Centre to support the administration of an Indigenous language centre in Bunbury, and to undertake language revival activities on the Noongar language across the South West of Western Australia. This funding will support community-driven activities designed to address the erosion and loss of Indigenous languages across Australia. I went to the announcement and launch of this project recently in Bunbury and there was a great deal of excitement. I know that all of those involved in this project are going to work particularly hard to make sure that the Noongar language is not just recorded but also spoken and passed on to subsequent generations. It is something that the local community is particularly passionate about.

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