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

Any responsible government is going to invest in infrastructure in the areas where it's going to bring the best return for the nation, such as in my electorate of O'Connor. We produce over $10 billion worth of mineral exports every year and over $6 billion of agricultural exports. Among other industries like tourism, these sectors that bring export income into this country are particularly important, and of course we need infrastructure to get those products off the farms, out of the mines, and to the ports and onto boats.

I want to mention a couple of projects that have been particularly important in my electorate and that reflect that priority of the government. There is the Albany Ring Road. Albany is the largest regional city in my electorate. Over two million tonnes of grain and woodchip go through that ring road annually, with triple trailer road trains interacting with passenger vehicles and tourist caravans. We've announced $140 million to top up the $28 million that the Western Australian government has put up for a project to produce a bypass road that will take two million tonnes of traffic out of the ring road. There are massive road safety benefits there, and also efficiencies in getting that freight to the Albany port and onto the boats as quickly as possible.

Among other infrastructure schemes that are productive and lead to increased economic activity not only for my electorate and my region but also for the nation, is the Southern Forests Irrigation Scheme, and we announced $40 million for that. To their great credit, the Western Australian Labor government have supported this project—and I want to acknowledge the minister, Alannah MacTiernan, who has been supportive of this project—unlike some other states that we've heard about here this afternoon. That project is going through environmental approvals at the moment. If those environmental approvals are found to be okay, then that project will proceed. It will have total funding of $70 million, which will be transformational for the Southern Forests area around Manjimup and Pemberton in my electorate, and it will boost the national economy—and that's what this investment is all about.

Today Infrastructure Australia announced their priority initiatives list, and I've pulled out some of the initiatives that are relevant to my electorate and that we're already investing in. One is mobile telecommunications coverage in regional areas. In this day and age, we all rely on our mobile devices, be they phones or iPads and so on; and most modern machinery that operates across the agricultural parts of my electorate requires connectivity to interact and interface with other machines and with the owners. So this is a very important priority that Infrastructure Australia have identified. I'm very pleased to say that, so far, I've had 129 mobile phone towers announced for my electorate in the first four rounds of the Mobile Black Spot Program, and that has made a massive difference to many people across my electorate. I'm also pleased to say that at the election we announced another three rounds of the program, $50 million per annum. While Infrastructure Australia have identified that as a priority, the government is already contributing to that program.

As I mentioned earlier, the road network is critical to getting grain and minerals to port, and the Wheatbelt's Secondary Freight Network has been identified by Infrastructure Australia. I couldn't be there myself, but I was pleased when the Deputy Prime Minister came to Western Australia last week to launch that project. We've put $70 million into it, the state government has topped it up a little and the local shires are contributing. It's a great project, and I'm very proud of that.

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