Ben Morton (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I want to talk about Roe 8 and Roe 9—an important part of the Perth Freight Link. I want to tell you about the jobs these road projects will create and the efficiencies that will be delivered for industry. I want to talk about the 7,000 trucks and the 74,000 light vehicles Roe 8 and Roe 9 will remove from local roads each day—roads like Leach Highway, Farrington Road, South Street, Stock Road, North Lake Road and Beeliar Drive—and about how these projects will make our community safer.

Roe 8 and Roe 9 are part of the Perth Freight Link—the 85-kilometre strategic freight route between Fremantle Port and Muchea. They are so essential, in fact, that they are recognised by Infrastructure Australia as being one of the highest transport priorities in the nation. Roe 8 and Roe 9 will create work for up to 10,000 people in WA; improve access to Fremantle Port; and will give drivers freeway access, east and west, across our city to places like Perth Airport, Fiona Stanley Hospital and Murdoch University. The majority of traffic on Roe 8 and Roe 9 will be cars. It will save 12.5 minutes travel time between the Kwinana Freeway and Fremantle. It will bypass 14 sets of traffic lights on Leach Highway and Stock Road, and people will have no reason to rat-run past homes, local parks and schools. It will enable better and safer cycling—something I am very fond of, as someone who has discovered over Christmas a love of cycling, in lycra.

The facts tell us that we must build Roe 8 and Roe 9, but these projects have become the focus of a very small and very vocal minority in the southern suburbs of Perth. Protests at Roe 8 sites have not been peaceful. Protesters have locked themselves to machinery, they have destroyed fences and they have protested naked in trees. They have been arrested for offences including trespassing, obstructing police and assault. Trip-wires were set to injure a police horse and police are on-site to protect workers, who are just doing their jobs.

What do we know about the environmental impacts of this project? We know that Roe 8 impacts only 0.49 per cent of the Beeliar Wetlands, that Roe 8 and Roe 9 will save 450,000 tonnes of CO2 by 2031, that over 1,000 hectares of high-quality conservation land has been acquired as an offset and that more than $45 million has been invested to specifically accommodate environmental sensitivities and to provide better recreational access. As confirmed in our local newspapers, Roe 8 and Roe 9 are leading the way in environmental design and construction.

The facts about Roe 8 and Roe 9 and the Perth Freight Link are indisputable. The benefits for Western Australia and my local region from building these important projects are indisputable. It is time for the protesters to keep their clothes on , stay out of the trees, help rebuild the fences they have crashed down and let the workers build Roe 8. (Time expired).