Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Brockman for the question and I acknowledge his commitment to rural and regional Australia—in particular in our great state of Western Australia. One of the hallmarks of the Morrison government is obviously our commitment to building the infrastructure to make our transport networks safer, more efficient and more reliable. Between 1 July 2013 and 30 June 2019 the coalition government has invested more than $5.5 billion in infrastructure in Western Australia. In fact, on 20 November 2019, the government announced an $868 million infrastructure investment boom in Western Australia, including $817 million in bring-forwards.

This accelerated investment will deliver on a range of projects, such as the early construction of the Bunbury Outer Ring Road—obviously very important for us—the Albany Ring Road and the Tonkin Highway Gap and upgrades to the Karratha to Tom Price corridor. These investments will stimulate the economy and, in stimulating the economy, they will support job creation. This government is all about putting in place the policies to ensure that we are creating jobs for Australians.

We're also investing, though, in the Wheatbelt Secondary Freight Network Program. This program of works has targeted 53 freight routes in need of upgrade that cover 4,400 kilometres of road. This is an important safety investment as well as an important economic development. In terms of the wheatbelt itself, one of the reasons this is so important is that 600 jobs will be supported during the project.