Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was disappointing to learn that only three out of 78 new road and bridge projects announced by the government during the 2016 election campaign are to be located in Western Australia. It is a statistic that confirms the growing sense that the coalition takes WA for granted.

In my electorate, there is a severe congestion issue at Cockburn Central, with a clear and well-planned solution to that problem in the form of the Armadale Road-North Lake Road bridge and road duplication works. Cockburn is one of the fastest-developing outer urban areas in Australia. It has benefitted from the brilliant Perth-Mandurah rail line and it has a local government in the City of Cockburn that is working hard to develop a transit oriented community with matching local and regional facilities. But at the moment people in suburbs like Atwell and Success can find themselves caught in a traffic snarl for 40 minutes, even if they are simply trying to exit the Cockburn train station car park.

During the campaign, I was glad to secure a commitment from Labor to provide $80 million for the federal share of the bridge project, which is called Community Connect South. My Liberal opponent would not match that commitment, but was quoted in the local paper saying she was confident she could secure the funding if elected. Again, that begs the question of whether road projects are funded by this government on the basis of need or on the basis of politics alone.

I call on the government to give WA a fair look-in, to address the ridiculous disparity in road and bridge project funding, to abandon the ridiculous Perth Freight Link debacle and to support the much needed Community Connect South project in my electorate.