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

For a government polling as poorly as the Turnbull Liberal government to try to hold Western Australia's infrastructure funding to ransom is a bold move, to say the least. If members in this place have not noticed, Western Australians are more than a little angry that Colin Barnett and the Prime Minister have let our share of the GST plummet to less than 30c in the dollar. The only major funding we have been promised for infrastructure since the Liberal government came in is for what will be WA's only toll road: the highly flawed Perth Freight Link, a road to a port that does not even make it to the port it is meant to be servicing.

WA Labor has committed to redirecting this funding to the job-creating, congestion-busting projects WA actually needs: bringing forward the widening of Armadale Road, constructing a new bridge on Armadale Road and building METRONET, which in my electorate means bringing trains to Canning Vale. And what was this Liberal Prime Minister's response? He threatened to withhold the funding. Without those funds, WA's share of the federal infrastructure budget will drop down to just seven per cent. Meanwhile, WA has 11 per cent of the population and takes up a third of the nation.

Prime Minister, your threats are a disgrace. The Barnett and Turnbull Liberals have been ripping WA off for years and I can promise you that you will reap the rewards at the ballot box.

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