Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present an interim report of the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee on aspects of road safety in Australia, together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee.

Ordered that the report be printed.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

I present the interim report of the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee on the Perth Freight Link, together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee.

Ordered that the report be printed.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

The committee held a couple of hearings in Perth that were well attended by Labor and the Greens. The government came to one and could not be bothered coming to the second. We believe that the Commonwealth should withdraw its support for this failed project. It is an absolute cluster. The government was invited to attend to explain their position to the people of Western Australia. They refused to attend. They would not come. What do they have to hide? On that, I could go on for hours and hours, but I am mindful of my colleagues who worked just as hard on the committee who want to speak on this.

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Sterle for the courtesy but also for the way in which he chaired this inquiry. This is a unanimous report and I think it is highly significant that those coalition senators who did bother to attend one of the hearings have not submitted a dissent or a minority report—in other words, we have a unanimous report that condemns, in the strongest possible language, a government appropriation which will be in tonight's budget of more than $1 billion of Commonwealth funds for a road to nowhere. This report buries the case for the Perth Freight Link once and for all. It became clear during our work why the Barnett government was so desperate to hide the business case and to hide the assumptions that went into the cost-benefit analysis. This project is desperately flawed and completely unworkable. It is now turning into such an electoral liability that even the coalition senators who participated were unwilling to defend it.

When Mr Turnbull visited Western Australia only a couple of weeks ago he was very happy to take selfies on public transport. It is almost as though any time he rides on public transport, which is wonderful, he sees the need to document it. I guess that is fine, but in Perth we had the Abbott government cancel out of all public transport funding and just kill it stone dead. Instead, we have this behemoth of four to six lanes of tarmac proposed to be bulldozed through a wetland and obliterate more than 100 hectares of banksia woodland.

This report makes the case and brings the evidence together for the very first time that there is no need for this road and also there are viable alternatives. There is another way. Fremantle Port Authority records show and the evidence in this report shows that the port of Fremantle will be at capacity at about the time that the Perth Freight Link is meant to come online. However, the government intends to actually get it into the port of Fremantle. We did hear evidence, coherently and cogently put for the first time, by groups like the Kwinana Industries Council and the cities of Kwinana, Rockingham, Cockburn and Fremantle that there is another way and that what is needed now is proper rigorous assessment of an overflow port in Cockburn Sound, which will provide a durable and scalable solution to Perth's freight task.

I want to thank everybody who was involved in this report. I thank Senator Sterle again for the courtesy of giving me a few minutes to make some comments on this report. The government needs to think twice. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.