Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's only your first one. Certainly, members from the Western Australian Liberals have been here before, raising this in private members' motions. I know it for a fact, because I believe I've spoken on it before. I was going to name the member for Tangney—it's practically the whole WA Liberal members of parliament here who like to pop their heads out of their Liberal Party hutch to check whether the shadow has fallen this way or that way! They call it their own little groundhog day, wondering, if they keep talking up the discredited Perth rail link in private members' motions over and over again, whether that will change the electoral result in WA on March 2017 that saw the WA Liberals get wiped out of state parliament. It was an election where Roe 8 and Roe 9 were talked about nonstop. It was a clear election issue.

A government member interjecting—

Well, I suppose there's something to be said for magical thinking, but I prefer an evidence based approach and all the evidence shows that the Liberals lost that state election and Labor won. And they won by a lot. Even yesterday, recent polls show how deeply unpopular the Liberal Party remains in WA. So you might note that. I remind all WA parliamentarians, especially the Liberal parliamentarians in their Punxsutawney Phil imitations, that it was the Western Australian people who turfed out an unpopular, erratic, opaque and fiscally irresponsible state government. This government had put the deeply unpopular Perth Freight Link at the heart of its campaign, and that's the result it got.

I'm proud that Mark McGowan's Labor team was handed an overwhelming mandate to govern, to get hold of the purse strings of the state's finances, which were, as we all know, spiralling dangerously out of control due to the mismanagement and poor economic decisions of the Barnett Liberal government. I think sometimes that the Liberals think they're born to rule over Western Australia, like it's some kind of Liberal fiefdom they can play with. Well, I think the Western Australian people are onto you mob. They got sick of the groundhog day the Liberals were stuck in that saw poor decisions—like the agreement between the former WA Liberal government, under Colin Barnett, and the Abbott-Turnbull-led coalition government, here, to fund the deeply unpopular Perth Freight Link. And as we heard before, from the member for Grayndler, it was a plan that had no business case and the state Liberal Party wasn't even aware of it.

Perhaps the plan was well meaning. Any well-thought-out policy to get more trucks off the road and ease congestion in WA is worth a look at, but this plan was riddled with potholes and hazards. It was and remains a plan for a road to nowhere that stopped short of the port of Fremantle. There is no final link in the Perth Freight Link. In fact, a 2015 report from Infrastructure Australia concluded that the entire project was hurriedly prepared and detailed assessments were not finished in order to find adequate alternatives. There was no business case. Two years ago a Senate inquiry was unanimous in denouncing the entire project and made the suggestion that funds be redirected to other important WA infrastructure proposals, including a future outer harbour in Kwinana.

You might think that was game over and end of story. But then we had the election, and we were right in the middle of that. One would have thought this would have sent a clear message to the Liberals that it was deeply unpopular. But, no, here we are again—groundhog day—with a private member's motion, having to refute a project that has been rejected several times in just as many iterations. What is it with the WA Liberals that they think they can just keep saying things over and over again, and maybe no-one will notice and maybe it'll make it right or appropriate? It's just nuts!

The fact that we're here talking about this again today is ludicrous. The fact that the WA Liberals can stand here and try to raise this project again, when everyone knows it's pretty much done and dusted, is just ridiculous. Why don't you come in here and talk about important infrastructure projects that people in Western Australia actually like? How about talking about METRONET? You remember METRONET. Remember when Colin Barnett—

A government member interjecting—

I know, but remember, when you canned the Ellenbrook line, you withdrew all funding. This is the party of Sir Charles Court, who stopped the Fremantle to Perth line. This is that party. They do not believe in public transport. They don't really believe in METRONET. Do you know why they believe in METRONET now? Because the member for Pearce's seat is on the line, and he needs a rail line to save the seat of Pearce so he can continue to be Attorney-General in this parliament. This is ridiculous. They should really get in behind METRONET and support it with their hearts and their minds. They just come in here to try to get some money to save their seats.

An honourable member interjecting—

They have. They have committed $500 million to the Ellenbrook line, and that's great, but, jeez, it's a bit late for Colin Barnett and the WA Liberals, who remain deeply unpopular in WA, and long may that reign.

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