Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes:

(a) that from 2013-14 to 2023-24, the Government will provide a record $6.2 billion under the Roads to Recovery Program, with an ongoing commitment of $500 million each year following; and

(b) the significant benefits to the 128 Local Government Areas which will receive an additional $138.9 million in Roads to Recovery drought support funding; and

(2) recognises the real and meaningful difference Roads to Recovery is making to communities right across the country.

I rise to speak today on the Roads to Recovery Program. As the member for O'Connor, my electorate covers around 886,000 square kilometres. It's great to see the member for Durack here, who represents the other two-thirds of Western Australia. Between us, we represent around one-third of the Australian continental land mass, and of course that encompasses a massive road network, much of which is maintained and built by our local governments. I have 38 local governments in my electorate. I know the member for Durack has some 40-odd local governments. The Roads to Recovery Program, which will deliver $6.2 billion from 2013-14 to 2023-24, is much loved by those local governments. It's untied funding direct from the Commonwealth to those local governments so that they can pursue road projects that make a difference within their local road networks.

Mr Deputy Speaker Llew O'Brien, I know that you're very passionate about road safety, as am I and as is the member for Durack. With our massive road networks, we have a disproportionate number of fatalities on the country roads in our electorates. Tragically, around my home town of Katanning, a town of only 4,000 people, in a seven-day period in January we had three fatalities. These rocked the community and left us wondering what more we could do. And while I don't know the exact reasons for those accidents, obviously roads always play a part in road fatalities.

It's with great pleasure today that I also commend the government for committing another $124 million to the Roads to Recovery Program for those drought affected shires. Unfortunately, that hasn't been extended, Member for Durack, to Western Australia, but we can work on the Deputy Prime Minister for that. But certainly, amongst those drought affected shires on the east coast, there is another $128.9 million—I think that's the exact number—that has been committed to the Roads to Recovery Program, which will allow those local government authorities to get stuck in and do some road works, and get their crews and the local contractors working at a time when there's significant downturn in their local economies.

The Roads to Recovery Program complements many other very important road safety and road funding programs that the Commonwealth government is funding. The Bridges Renewal Program is particularly important, once again, for our local government authorities, who may have many bridges across their shires and a small rate base, and struggle to find the funds to upgrade and maintain those bridge networks. So the Bridges Renewal Program is very important.

The road Black Spot Program—Minister Buchholz very kindly appointed me as chair of the WA road black spot committee—the other day committed $13 million to road black spots across WA. But, importantly, 40 per cent of that money went to projects in regional Western Australia to make sure that, where danger spots have been identified, they are worked on and upgraded to improve our safety.

The Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program, which is about providing adequate and appropriate pull-over space for particularly heavy road haulage drivers. They need to have their mandated breaks and they need to be able to do that in the right sorts of facilities. That project has invested in several very large projects across my electorate, which is much appreciated.

One last project that the Deputy Prime Minister was in Western Australia talking about only last week was the Roads of Strategic Importance. There's $70 million that the Commonwealth government has invested in this program. It's about our grain freight network through the central and southern Wheatbelt that crosses both my electorate and the member for Durack's electorate, and also runs into the member for Pearce's electorate, and upgrading those roads. We've got a lot of heavy vehicles, multicombinations and, sometimes, up to three trailers operating on roads that are built and maintained by the local governments. These are roads that are outside the main roads network, and they need support to maintain and upgrade those roads.

I commend the Deputy Prime Minister and the committee that put together that program. I also commend the Roads to Recovery Program to the House.

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