Andrew Hastie (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Tonight, very simply, I'm going to talk about roads in Canning. We all know how important roads are to people for business, daily life and commuting to and from school or work. People in Canning are waiting for roads to be built. In 2018, the coalition government announced a major $5.4 billion WA infrastructure investment package, and it included exciting news for Canning, including $253 million for the Tonkin Highway stage 3 extension and $241 million for the Byford rail extension. This was huge news for our region. Our community had worked and waited for years to get these projects, especially the Tonkin Highway extension. I know that over the last decade a lot of people have written letters, posted on social media, and advocated to their local, state and federal representatives, and here we are. We've got the money.

At that time, I explained how the Shire of Serpentine Jarrahdale is one of the fastest-growing local governments in Australia. We need this investment to make our roads safer. We've had a lot of accidents and people are sick and tired of big trucks driving through their subdivisions. So we waited, and we expected the WA government to get to work, but nothing has happened. It turned out that the WA government wanted more money. Rather than splitting the costs fifty-fifty, they wanted the Commonwealth to contribute 80 per cent of the cost, and we did that. We came to the party because we want to make sure that people have good roads. So, in March last year, the Morrison government increased its funding for the Tonkin Highway extension to $404 million of the $505 million cost. The money was committed in the budget irrespective of the outcome of the election. It was a significant investment, but one definitely worth making. As the PM said at the time:

We are prioritising investment in the major projects needed to better support regional areas, ease congestion in and around Perth and reduce the terrible impact of road trauma by delivering safer roads.

So where are we now? One year on from that announcement, two years since the federal government first committed funding and over four years since we started campaigning in earnest for it, the state government is yet the put a shovel in the ground for the Tonkin Highway. The Main Roads website says, as it has for a long time, that the project is undergoing planning and development. My community are sick of waiting. They're sick of the trucks and they're sick of the congestion. They're sick of the accidents and they're sick of people being injured and sometimes, I am sorry to say, killed by these terrible accidents. I regularly receive questions from people living in Byford, Whitby, Serpentine, Mundijong and beyond who want to know when it will get done, and my colleague the member for Darling Range in the state parliament in WA, Alyssa Hayden, wants to know too. We are asking the same question.

The WA government needs to give our region the attention and urgency it deserves. Several weeks ago, I received a letter from a Labor state member calling on the Commonwealth to commit a further $80 million towards regional road safety upgrades. It's an important issue and it's a conversation I'm always happy to have. I'm happy to collaborate with the state government and I'm happy to work with them on projects of mutual benefit to our community. But, before they put their hand out for more, the WA state government should show they can use what the federal government has already given them, because the Tonkin Highway extension is not the only Commonwealth funded project in my electorate that we are still waiting on the WA state government to build. There's also the Pinjarra heavy haulage deviation—a $27.5 million initiative that will get over 600 trucks a day out of the narrow streets of Pinjarra and around the town. We want to revitalise that town and make it a tourist town. It's situated on the Murray River. It is very beautiful, and there are too many trucks going through it with heavy loads on them. I'm really keen to see that built.

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