Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister. Both the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister have failed to respond to the fact that Western Australian Premier Colin Barnett said, in relation to the stage 2 of the Perth Freight Link, there is no route or design, there is no planning and the connection is still a long way off. Given stage 1 of the project is 80 per cent federally funded, how will the government ensure that stage 2 of this project is actually completed by the Barnett government?

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I answered this question on Thursday and it is practically exactly the same question. The reality is, as I have just mentioned, this government has a $5.4 billion infrastructure program for Western Australia. They are significant projects. One of them includes the Perth Freight Link. Some of these projects are at an early stage of development and some are advanced. Indeed, the Prime Minister opened one on the weekend. That is all a part of the program we have in place. So not everything about every project is being done this week. It is a program that will be spread over a few years.

We are committed to the Perth Freight Link. The early advanced stages are under way. It would be a lot easier to build this project if the honourable member had not, when she was planning minister, sold off the corridor. Now we need to have tunnels and other more complex ways of building this vital piece of infrastructure—because the honourable member for Perth tried to sabotage it when she was planning minister. She tried to sabotage this vital project for Western Australia. Our government's commitment to this project is real. It is progressing. It is progressing in a logical way, and we will deliver it for Western Australia.