Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I rise today to speak on an issue that my electorate will know that I have spoken on many times in this House and certainly in the electorate, and that is the Perth to Bunbury highway. The Perth to Bunbury highway is one of the most essential pieces of infrastructure that Western Australia has been calling for for many years. In fact the transport minister in the Court government, Eric Charlton, had this road planned for 2005. Here we are, almost in 2007, and it has not begun yet.

I am pleased to report today that in today’s West Australian, chief reporter Mark Drummond has a story which says that the state transport minister, Alannah MacTiernan, is finally about to sign off on this highway. This is great news for the electorate—not only the electorate of Canning but also the electorate of Forrest—and for all Western Australians. It also runs through the electorate of Brand, which I am sure the member for Brand would be interested in. This will see the completion of the Kwinana freeway to Mandurah, and it will see the Mandurah bypass through to the Preston Beach turn-off completed. It is some 70½ kilometres of dual carriageway.

I rise to speak about this because there has been so much said about this issue over a period of time. The federal government initially, after my strong representations, agreed to fund this road to the tune of $150 million. Main Roads and the state minister had told us the road would cost $300 million, so we agreed to do it fifty-fifty. Then a bidding war started at the last election. Martin Ferguson, as the shadow transport spokesman, went down with the then Labor candidate and said that they would put an extra $20 million in to make sure that this happened. The Prime Minister quite rightly said that he would match that $20 million to keep up the fifty-fifty component as long as it began by 2006. We had to have a 2006 starting date because the state minister was playing games about getting on and building this vital highway, which is essential not only for the infrastructure of the region but also for the environment and for the safety of motorists.

Interestingly, once the election was over, the state minister then started to come up with some fanciful figures, and we suddenly went from $340 million to $500 million. Today’s announcement says that the project will be $511 million—the largest road project in Western Australia. Thankfully, as part of the AusLink agreement with Western Australia, we wrote into that agreement not only the starting date but also the finishing date of 2009. Cars must travel on that dual carriageway by the end of 2009; otherwise our funding will be in jeopardy because it is contingent on that. Cleverly enough, we also wrote into that contract the fact that any further cost blow-outs would have to be met by the state. Given the record of the minister on the Perth to Mandurah rail line, which has blown out from around $900 million to $1.6 billion, we know that she has a track record of not finishing jobs on time or on budget. As a result, this contingency was to save the Commonwealth taxpayers a lot of money. We know Western Australia is flush with funds. It is the only state in Australia where they have a surplus—a $2 billion surplus—so the state government is well and truly in a position to pay for extra road funding on a road which it is responsible for.

The federal government is very keen to partner this project. As I said, the southern alliance, which consists of Leighton Holdings and WA Limestone, now have to begin this road in 24 days. If they do not have machines in there by 31 December the $20 million is in jeopardy. I understand that Leighton’s were appointed earlier in the year to do this project, but the minister withdrew permission from them and she has taken until now to reinstate it. Her excuse is that she was waiting for Commonwealth environmental approval. This information did not reach the Commonwealth until October this year. It took 12 months to get this information to the Commonwealth, and you can see how quickly we turned it around when it reached here. Minister Campbell signed off on that on Monday. Just to show how sincere we are in getting on with this road, Minister Vaile signed off on it yesterday. It is great news for the electorate. It is great news for Western Australia that this vital piece of infrastructure will now be built on time and, hopefully, on budget. (Time expired)