Tim Hammond (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm delighted to rise and speak on this motion in support of my great colleague, neighbouring the wonderful federal electorate of Perth, and that is the member for Cowan, Dr Anne Aly. She's doing a terrific job in representing her constituents but also representing the great state of Western Australia.

It must be said that any discussion about the extent to which Western Australia needs vastly more investment in infrastructure than it is currently receiving can't be made in the abstract. When one has regard to the disturbing bedfellows—being a state Liberal government and a federal Liberal coalition government—over the last few years, one doesn't wonder why we are in such a mess as we're in now. It is no wonder, having inherited such a deplorable set of financial books from the inept previous Liberal government of Colin Barnett, that we have so much more ground to make up than is currently on the table with the paltry offerings, the paltry investment—the feather duster type investment—in infrastructure from this federal government.

Let's paint the picture. The last time we saw a state Labor government—in relation to ensuring that there is a healthy set of books within which to support an atmosphere of consumer confidence and strong employment prospects—was 2008. What did we see in 2008, Madam Deputy Speaker? We saw a situation where the state was in surplus to the tune of $2 billion. To the extent we had debt it was in the range of about $3 billion, as we were slowly but surely ascending into a once-in-a-lifetime construction phase of a mining boom that was to sweep the state of Western Australia.

Fast forward to a time when the Liberal Party took government. We saw a revolving door of five treasurers in the eight years they were in power. What do we see at the end of that time? What do we have to show for it in Western Australia? We have a deficit of over $3 billion and a debt that, on the forward projections, in only 12 months time will be in the range of $40 billion. The reason that is relevant is that you can't have a conversation about the need to invest in infrastructure in Western Australia without it being proportionate to the size of the problem, and the size of the problem is largely a result of either ignorance, wilful blindness or neglect—or hubris—on the part of the former state Liberal government or this current federal government.

As we come off the tail end of that mining boom and look around to see the significant nation-building infrastructure projects that ought to be there before our eyes in Western Australia, we see two things. No. 1, we see state based initiatives that have been so poorly handled or so poorly invested in that we haven't got anything close to bang for our buck. No. 2, we see that any truly groundbreaking infrastructure projects in Western Australia were brought about as a result of a federal Labor government prior to 2013. The one thing that all of our members here have in common—both sides of the aisle—is that we all jump in cars and go off to the airport. As we make our way from the west to the east we see Gateway WA, a nation-building piece of infrastructure that was brought about as a result of federal Labor advocacy. We see a Great Eastern Highway upgrade that was brought about as a result of federal Labor advocacy.

In relation to investment and infrastructure from this federal government, what do we have to show in terms of any meaningful projects? Let's have a look at the budget papers; that is where it's terrific. Apart from level crossings and facilitations, what we're going to see is assessment of business cases by Infrastructure Australia in relation to rail. What we're going to see is: 'You can have, on the one hand, your Perth funding money, but you can only have it to the extent that you do what we tell you to do.' It's not really $1.2 billion at all; it is a conditional $1.2 billion. What is so sad about this debate is that it is so conditional upon the mismanagement of this federal government and a previous state Liberal government.

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