Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in response to an order passed by the Senate yesterday in relation to the production of documents and information related to the business case supporting the federal investment into the very important Perth Freight Link project. As Senator McGrath pointed out to the Senate yesterday, the Senate has previously passed orders for the production of documents related to the Perth Freight Link business case and the cost-benefit analysis, which is part of the business case, on five occasions. The Senate also passed an order on 12 November 2015 seeking the modelling and forecasting of freight figures, as well as peer reviews undertaken of freight figures. That motion also implicitly related to material relevant to the business case.

In response to those orders the government has provided all the information and all the documents that it could provide without harm to the public interest. The information and documents not provided in response to all these Senate orders in relation to the Perth Freight Link documents were either cabinet-in-confidence documents for the WA state government or contained information that is commercial and sensitive in nature. If they were released in a full and unredacted form they would prejudice commercial negotiations and/or would potentially damage the relations between the Commonwealth and a state government, namely the Western Australian state government.

On each occasion and as required under the Senate standing orders, other orders and conventions of the Senate, the government pointed to the public harm which would be caused by the release of relevant information and pointed to the public interest immunity grant that was claimed. Importantly, Senator McGrath yesterday tabled all of the information and all of the documents that the government has previously provided, which is the full extent of the information that the government can provide in relation to these matters. Importantly, the public interest immunity grant that the government relies on here has long been recognised by the Senate to justify the refusal to publicly release certain information and documents. In particular in this context, it is important to note that the release of the documents sought in an unredacted fashion could prejudice the settlement of the contract for section 2 of the Perth Freight Link project—or Roe 9 as it is described by the WA state government—which is not yet contracted.

We have, of course, previously released the summary of the business case in relation to the Perth Freight Link project, which was publicly released all the way back in December 2014, and further information on the project has been subsequently released by the WA government. The business case summary contains a substantial portion of key information from the business case, which was also tabled by Senator McGrath yesterday.

The reason we are having this conversation in the Senate today is because the Greens do not like roads. The Greens do not like the Perth Freight Link project—we get it. The Greens do not like Western Australia going forward. The Greens do not like the Western Australian economy being enhanced through productivity enhancing infrastructure to ensure we can reduce the cost of moving freight across Western Australia—a key trading state for our nation—reduce congestion on key arterial roads across the south metropolitan area of Perth, improve safety and generally improve the amenity for communities across the south metropolitan area of Perth. I do not have any problem with the fact that the Greens do not like roads and want to stand in the way of important investment in better roads and better infrastructure that can continue to grow a stronger and more prosperous economy where families across Australia, and in particular in Western Australia, can get ahead. They are entitled to do that in a democracy, but they are out of step with public opinion. Of course the Greens know this, which is why they are using every procedural and other trick in the book to stand in the way of this very important project, which has been independently identified by none other than Infrastructure Australia—which was established by the Labor Party in government—as one of the highest infrastructure project priorities in the country. It is an incredibly important project. It is a project that is supported by the overwhelming majority of Western Australians. Senator Ludlam knows this. He does not like it and he ignores it, but the truth is that Western Australians support the Perth Freight Link project. I point you to an article in The Sunday Times by their state political editor Joe Spagnolo in October last year when he reported this very important information. In his article he wrote:

THE vast majority of West Australians support the State Government’s … Roe 8 project, the WA Speaks survey reveals.

This was not just a survey of a couple of hundred people; this was a survey of 9,000 people. Nine thousand Western Australians have spoken and the Greens again are refusing to listen because of their ideological hatred of investment in road infrastructure.

What did this survey of 9,000 Western Australians find? If found that 60 per cent of Western Australians support the Roe Highway extension through Beeliar Wetlands and the Perth Freight Link to Fremantle. Let me not exaggerate—59.8 per cent, so just under 60 per cent, of Western Australians support this very important project and the $1.2 billion federal investment in this very important project. You might wonder if nearly 60 per cent of Western Australians support it how many are opposed to it. How many do you think? Just over 10 per cent. Thirty per cent were unsure. So 60 per cent are in favour, 30 per cent are unsure and 10 per cent are opposed—these are of course the people that the Greens are holding the Senate up for because of their ideological hatred of important investment in road infrastructure.

The Turnbull government are very proud of our record investment nationally in productivity-enhancing, economy-growing infrastructure. We are very proud of the most significant infrastructure investment in the history of Western Australia that any Commonwealth government has ever made in a single infrastructure project—namely, $1.2 billion in the Perth Freight Link project.

Senator Sterle, sadly, has left. Senator Sterle back when he used to be a supporter of the WA trucking industry actually used to be a very strong supporter of the Roe 8 and Roe 9 highway extensions to Fremantle because he could see the benefits to the trucking industry when it came to moving freight at a lower cost and more safely. The Perth Freight Link project literally will save lives. Senator Sterle used to know this. He used to get stuck into the then infrastructure minister in WA, Alannah MacTiernan. He used to come into the Senate and cry blue murder and call her all sorts of names for not supporting this critically important project.

Of course there has been a lot of misinformation spread, particularly across Fremantle and the south metropolitan area, by the Greens, particularly by Senator Ludlam, when it comes to this important project. So in order to restore the balance on this, having been given this opportunity to talk about this critically important project of national significance in Western Australia, I want to inform the Senate of some facts about the Roe 8 and 9 extensions, which are part of the Perth Freight Link.

My good friend and valued colleague the member for Tangney, Ben Morton, has provided a lot of very good information to communities across the south metropolitan region by essentially providing some facts that were circulated by the Fremantle Herald, the Melville City Herald and the Examiner. I will take you through some of the key information that is highly relevant to the debate that we are having here today. Firstly, Roe 8 and 9 are recognised by Infrastructure Australia as being part of one of the highest transport priorities in the nation.

Building Roe 8 and 9 will create up to 10,000 direct and indirect jobs. When we talked to the state government in Western Australia back in 2014 about this important project we knew we had to deal with the transition in the economy, that we had to deal with the wind down of the mining construction boom, that there would be a need to fill the gap with some other activity and that there would be an opportunity, because of the wind down in the mining construction boom with lower prices of construction, to invest in this sort of long-overdue, generational road infrastructure because we would be able to deliver it at a much lower cost than we otherwise would be able to. That is why back in 2014 we said to the state government: 'We are prepared to partner with you. We are prepared to fund 80 per cent of the government's contribution in relation to this very important project of national significance in Western Australia. We want to take advantage of the window of opportunity where construction activity across Western Australia is less than what it was, where the cost of construction is less than what it was, where we can invest in our future economic prosperity and where we can invest in our future capacity as a trading nation to get our product to market and get products from other markets moved around the Perth metropolitan area in the most efficient way possible.'

Of course the majority of traffic on Roe 8 and 9 will be cars as it provides freeway access east and west across our city to places like Perth Airport, Fiona Stanley Hospital, St John of God Hospital and Murdoch University. Previous Labor state governments in Western Australia never had any plans on how to deal with all of the traffic volume on and off the Kwinana Freeway into the Fiona Stanley Hospital. It was a complete and blatant oversight that needs to be addressed and will be addressed through this project. Roe 8 and 9 will be a free-flowing highway saving 12½ minutes in travel time between the Kwinana Freeway and Fremantle. Roe 8 and 9, importantly, will bypass 14 sets of traffic lights on Leach Highway and Stock Road, creating a safer road environment for all road users.

The last two points I have mentioned are the precise reasons why the trucking industry in Western Australia is so supportive of this project, despite the project being part financed by a freight charge. So the trucking industry in Western Australia has agreed to contribute to the cost of this project by essentially paying a toll which would apply only to trucks, not to private cars. It would apply only to trucks, because they will not have to do the stop-start that is happening at the moment with heavy loads—stop-start, which of course is very inefficient and expensive in terms of the use of the brakes and other aspects of the trucks. They will be able to have a clearer run, they will be able to cut their time, they will be able to get the products to market faster, and at a lower cost, more safely and with less wear and tear on their most important asset: their truck.

There was a second very important piece of factual information that the member for Tangney, Ben Morton, provided to communities in my home state of Western Australia, and that is the fact that the Roe 8 project is leading the way in environmental design and construction—

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

How can you keep a straight face?

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

leading the way in environmental design and construction. We have Senator Ludlam here wanting to hold up this $1.2 billion project of national significance in our home state of Western Australia because he hates roads and because, he tells us, he is so passionate about the Beeliar Wetlands. But here are the facts. How much of the Beeliar Wetlands do you think is impacted by the Roe highway extension? It is 0.49 per cent—0.49 per cent of the Beeliar Wetlands is impacted by the construction of the Roe 8 extension. Of course, this is not about facts! For the Labor Party, it is about a religious hatred of roads. I get that; we just have to agree to disagree. But do not come into this chamber and hold up the business of the nation for your ideological little vendettas. Just because you are not getting your way, just because the people of Western Australia have rejected your outdated and ideological views, is not a good enough reason for you to come into the Senate and hold up the business of the nation.

Let me continue. Over 1,000 hectares of high-quality conservation land has been acquired as offsets. So, No. 1, just 0.49 per cent of the entire Beeliar Wetlands is impacted by the Roe 8 highway extension. Over 1,000 hectares of high-quality conservation land has been acquired as offsets. And listen to this. The Labor party and the Greens kept telling us that they are interested in emissions reductions, in policies to reduce emissions. Guess what? When you stop forcing trucks to stop and start at 14 traffic lights, do you know what the effect of that is? Do you know what the effect of smoother traffic with freight, going to Fremantle port, is? It leads to a reduction in carbon emissions. In fact, this has been quantified. Roe 8 and Roe 9 are expected to save—to save—450,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions by 2031. Now, I would have thought that the Greens would be marching in the streets for us to put that money into—

Senator Pratt interjecting—

I would have thought the Greens would be marching in the streets to urge the government to get on with it, to get the Perth Freight Link built, to get the tunnel built, to get the Perth Freight Link finalised as quickly as possible so we can start reducing carbon emissions.

Let me continue. More than $45 million has been invested in Roe 8 to specifically accommodate environmental sensitivities and to provide better recreational access. We have bent over backwards, both the federal government and the state government, to ensure that this is a world-leading project when it comes to environmental design and construction. The construction is on land already partly cleared for overhead power lines, to minimise the environmental footprint. The state government in Western Australia is pursuing a restoration program at North Lake and Horse Paddock Swamp, including revegetation of degraded areas and weed control. Grass trees, zamia palms, melaleuca, Western Australian Christmas trees and native animals have been relocated. Wetlands bridges over Roe Swamp and Horse Paddock Swamp will maintain ecological connections for native animals. Top-down construction will minimise the clearing footprint.

These are all pieces of information that of course the Greens do not care about. Senator Ludlam comes into the Senate, holds up the business of the Senate, saying, 'I want to see the full, unredacted business case,' even though he knows it would do commercial harm—

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is the Senate that has made that request, not Senator Ludlam.

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

to the people of Western Australia—not because he is actually interested in information. That business case could reveal that this would lead to 10 per cent economic growth in Australia, and Senator Ludlam which still be opposed. There is no amount of economic benefit that would convince Senator Ludlam that this is a good project. But what shocks me is that the Labor Party, who used to be much more sensible than this, yet again in pursuit of Greens preferences in the inner-city seats of Western Australia and around Australia, is absolutely selling out the workers and selling out communities in suburbs of Perth in the pursuit of Green preferences. I expect this sort of garbage from the Greens, but I did not expect it from the Labor Party. And, back when Senator Sterle used to stand up for truckies in Western Australia, he was a strong advocate for this project.

Let me just finalise by making this point again: building Roe 8 and 9, the Perth Freight Link project, will mean fewer trucks and cars and fewer accidents on local roads, including Leach Highway, Farrington Road, South Street, Stock Road, North Lake Road, Beeliar Drive. Building Roe 8 and 9, the Perth Freight Link will mean free-flowing highway access east and west across our city to places including Perth Airport, Fiona Stanley Hospital, Murdoch University and Fremantle port.

Do you know what else it will do, Madam Deputy President? It will improve the value of residential properties across that whole south metropolitan area because, by removing the trucks from these arterial roads, by removing the congestion, by improving the amenity across the south metropolitan region through this record $1.2 billion federal investment in the great state of Western Australia, we actually will be contributing to a general lift across the area which will also be reflected in the property prices in this area. That is something that was confirmed by work commissioned by the state government of Western Australia which has been publicly released in full.

I will finish where I started. Senator Ludlam can come into this Senate and get the Labor Party to agree to 20 more audits. It will not change the fact that governments of both political persuasions, including the Labor government—

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And you won't comply with an order of the Senate.

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Pratt, I used to be on your side. Do you know what? We are providing much more information than your government ever did. We are providing explanations. When we do not provide information because it is not in the public interest to do so, we explain the public harm that would be caused by the release of that information and we point to a specific public interest immunity ground as to why we are not releasing certain information. The then Treasurer Wayne Swan never did us that courtesy, ever. He never did us that courtesy, ever. I could give you a conga line of Labor ministers in the Rudd and Gillard governments, supported and backed up by the Greens, who always folded when it came to a head, who always folded in the face of Labor ministers, on things like the mining tax and the carbon tax. The Greens would be side by side with us in opposition, saying, 'We need more information.' When it came to the crux, when it came to the pointy end, when it came to putting something behind it, when it came to a proposal that I put to Senator Brown, who was the leader of the Greens at the time, that as a Senate we should refuse to deal with the mining tax legislation until such time as the government complied with providing relevant information, he went to water. Of course, everything that we predicted in relation to that particular tax in the lead-up to it being legislated, with the support of the Greens, has ultimately come true.

The Greens will never like the Perth Freight Link project. It could be objectively identified with a PhD thesis going over 1,000 pages explaining why this is the best thing that has ever happened in infrastructure in Western Australia and still Senator Ludlam would not be supporting it. So this is just a complete waste of the Senate's time. We know why the Labor Party is supporting this. The Labor Party in Western Australia is quite desperate for Greens preferences in these inner city areas of Perth. They are very scared of the Greens, and that is of course why they come here, into the Senate, quite weak and support an outrageous motion like this.

It is consistent with the practice of governments of both political persuasions. We as a government have provided as much information in response to all of these orders as we can. We are not in a position to provide the additional unredacted information that was sought by the order of the Senate yesterday, and that is because it would impose commercial harm on Australia. It would also harm relations between the Commonwealth and a state government—namely, the state government of Western Australia. Some of the information that has been sought in these various orders is not information that is our information. They are WA government cabinet-in-confidence documents. I am sure that even the Labor Party would agree that it would not be appropriate for a federal government to release cabinet-in-confidence information that is actually owned by the Western Australia government.

I table the document that I quoted from in relation to the factual information circulated in Western Australia.

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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the explanation just attempted by Senator Cormann.

Yesterday the Senate resolved that if Senator Mathias Cormann did not lay key documents on the table relating to the $2 billion Roe Highway disaster in Perth that he would be required to attend the chamber at this time to provide an explanation for his failure to do so. It is the first time in recent memory, certainly the first time since I have been here, that the Senate has raised the stakes in this way. Anyone who has been in the chamber for more than a few weeks will know that orders for the production of documents are an essential, practical tool of transparency.

The Greens have an undertaking to our colleagues on the crossbenches and the opposition that unless there are unusual circumstances we will generally support them in requesting documents from the government, whether it is something that we are personally interested in or not. In my view, it is part of the Senate's job to do this. If you go to the Hansard you will see that we supported numerous Liberal and National Party orders when they were in opposition. You can spend a year getting snowed in the labyrinth of freedom of information obstruction or you can come in here and order that things be tabled on much shorter deadlines—obviously, within reason.

When I first showed up here in 2008, I remember it being a pretty big deal for a government to defy such an order. Governments either handed material over or they provided a compelling reason why it was not in the public interest to do so, or they copped the consequences. In the New South Wales parliament, they have had a mechanism for many years where, in the event of a stand-off between the parliament and a minister, an independent arbiter would be called on to determine if the minister's excuse was valid or not—and it works. Ministers know that if their public interest excuse is watertight they will have an independent umpire who will back them up. The parliament knows that there is an independent check and balance in the system to prevent the kind of abuse of process that we are bearing witness to today. I hope that Senator Rhiannon will go into more detail about how this worked in the New South Wales context.

In 2010 Senators Brown and Milne and the member for Melbourne Adam Bandt got agreement from Ms Julia Gillard to introduce such a mechanism into the Senate, and two years later the Labor Party formally reneged. I can remember at the time that one of my fiercest allies in the quest to hold the government to their agreement was none other than Senator Mathias Cormann. This is what he said in 2009:

I am sincerely shocked at how quickly this government have turned into a secretive government—

I am not going to try and do the accent, but these are his words—

I am shocked at the long and detailed presentation we have just had from the government, which essentially sums up one thing: they are running scared from openness, transparency and public accountability. This runs counter to everything they have said not only before the last election but also since. I will quote … a statement made by Senator John Faulkner at a recent conference. The speech, entitled ‘Open and transparent government—the way forward’, was made at Australia’s Right to Know, Freedom of Speech Conference. He said:

… the best safeguard against ill-informed public judgement is not concealment but information. As Abraham Lincoln said: ‘Let the people know the facts, and the country will be safe.’

That is a bit of a Russian doll of a quote—I apologise. For Hansard's benefit, that is Senator Cormann quoting Senator Faulkner quoting Abraham Lincoln. So the Senate has no recourse to an independent umpire. There is no-one we can go to to check the validity of the kind of claims that Senator Cormann is asking us to trust him on. The reason we do not have such an umpire is that Senator Cormann's crusade for such an office mysteriously evaporated right after the Liberal-National Party won government.

In the absence of such an umpire the Senate has to figure out the consequences it believes are appropriate. To give you one example, when Senator Minchin was communications minister we supported him in sanctioning Senator Stephen Conroy over key reports relating to the NBN. After Senator Conroy had defied a number of these Senate orders to produce documents, the Senate determined by majority that it would not deal with any legislation in his portfolio until he fronted up. Months later, we got a lot more than the minister was initially willing to hand over. In other words, it was worth raising the stakes. But it is a very long time since the Senate has asserted itself in this way and in the meantime standards of transparency and accountability have fallen apart. I cannot remember a time when such casual contempt has been shown to the Senate and to its role, to the crossbench and to the opposition, who hold a majority in here and are sent here to do a job.

What happened to Senator Cormann? Where is our transparency warrior today? For the benefit of those listening on the broadcast, he has left the room. Today marks the seventh time that the minister has defied Senate order drafted in various ways demanding disclosure on this $2 billion dead dog of a project. For senators not from Western Australia you probably know what I am referring to: $1.2 billion of your taxes are going to fund an environmental obscenity. The Western Australian community have every right to believe that the minister this morning was abusing his position and the very principles of public interest that he fought so hard in favour for when he was in opposition. Release the full business case and release the cost-benefit analysis. Otherwise, we have to assume that you are hiding something.

Senator Cormann made reference to the fact that the top-line figures for this project had, in fact, been released, and he is quite right. There is a summary of the business case in the public domain. There is a summary of the cost-benefit analysis in the public domain. But we know what is actually going on here. Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, the 'roads are good for the environment; roads are good for mental health' Prime Minister—these are direct quotes, believe it or not—as part of his big push to be the infrastructure-concrete-through-wetlands Prime Minister, introduced three road projects, I think effectively, on the same day: WestConnex, East West Link and the Roe Highway extension.

He basically came out and said, 'No work's been done on these things, but the Commonwealth will be funding them because I am the concrete-pouring Prime Minister. I am the infrastructure Prime Minister.' Then it was basically left to the infrastructure department and the state main roads departments' planning authorities to retrospectively justify these disastrous projects. It was a complete perversion of due process, and that happened in three states at the same time. Our Victorian colleagues managed to checkmate theirs. Our New South Wales colleagues are well on their way to checkmating theirs. In fact, in Victoria that project cost the Napthine government office. In Western Australia we are 3½ weeks away from seeing an eerily similar repeat of the same debacle, where this ghost project introduced by Tony Abbott that has had its head severed but is still shambling along like a zombie—a $2 billion zombie—apparently can only be stopped by an election. That is our task in the next 3½ weeks.

What happens is we get these top-line figures that Senator Cormann dances in here with, and maybe Senator Back, who is in the chamber, will give us some information from those as well. What we are asked to do is simply trust the top-line figures. We are asked to trust the government and the analysts who rapidly and hastily did this work to justify the pre-emptive announcement by Prime Minister Abbott and Premier Colin Barnett. 'Trust us,' says Senator Cormann, 'the cost-benefit analysis stacks up. Trust us, the business case stacks up.' We know from consultants, whistleblowers and people who have worked on these things that the numbers do not stack up. That is the reason why Senator Cormann cannot release them. That is why they are not being put into the public domain, because the numbers do not stack up. Of course they do not, because Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced these projects without the due diligence having been done.

The Labor Party, to their credit, when they were in government introduced this thing called Infrastructure Australia that created the first instance of an arms-length assessment process between a proponent and consolidated revenue, so that you would not just get National Party MPs stamping around out in their electorates announcing freeway projects, bridges, tunnels and ports willy-nillly.

As one of their first acts with Tony Abbott as Prime Minister the government reversed this process. You have these prime ministerial announcements. He gets to hang out in a fluoro vest and a hard hat for the TV cameras, announcing roads that everybody else then has to go away and try and justify. That is why they are not putting this material into the public domain.

You have these black box projects where contractors are invited to submit their bids and at that point everything disappears into this shroud of commercial-in-confidence. That is what happens. That is the other justification. What we were told was, 'While this tender process is live,'—this was that excuse from a year ago—'we are not going to release any of the information. You cannot have the business case or the CBA because that will prejudice commercial negotiations.' That is commercial-in-confidence. Personally, I was of the view at the time, and we were backed up by a majority of the Senate, that that was garbage. You redact the documents and you put them into the public domain.

The fact is it is not out for tender. Leighton won. They got wonderful value for money for their $700,000 worth of donations to the Liberal-National Party. They got the gig. We have no idea why they got the gig, but they did. So you would have thought that argument of commercial confidentiality has been wiped away. There is no possibility that an independent arbiter, if we had one in the Senate to break these deadlocks, would uphold the minister's contention that because some tender process finished up six months ago they cannot put the primary information into the public domain so that people can analyse it. Yet that is effectively what Minister Cormann just did, and I presume his colleagues are going to back him in, to stand up and say, 'You just have to trust us. It is all commercial-in-confidence.'

They are going to do that to stage 2. Former state transport minister Dean Nalder, who is gone not forgotten—he is not particularly missed either—was pushing for a tunnel under Stock Road which would cost another $600 million, $700 million or $800 million. Presumably when Labor, Independent and Greens senators and our state parliamentary colleagues try to figure out where the exhaust stacks taking carcinogenic pollution from this hideously expensive tunnel and venting it into suburban areas are going to be we will be told, 'That is commercial-in-confidence,' as well. It is obscene, but that is what we are faced with.

You will be aware that there are two key arguments against this project—there are a great many more than two, but there are two key ones that I want to focus on today. Firstly, it does not have to happen. Work that was done under the Court state Liberal government in the 1990s identified that we were going at some stage to need an overflow port in Cockburn Sound. That work was picked up and run with by the state Labor government for a period of years. A whole heap of due diligence has been done that we would have thought had cross-party support by now: that the container port in Fremantle Harbour is approaching capacity—not just the laydown areas in the container yards but in fact the approach roads—and at some point you are going to need to take either container traffic or bulk freight into Cockburn Sound, into the industrial area, which has great road links and rail links with Kewdale industrial area and the airport; and that that really is where we should be starting to move our freight task to. Fremantle stays as a working port, but the overflow traffic, particularly either the container traffic or the bulk freight goes down to Cockburn Sound. All of that work had been done, which means that really that project should be moved forward for a proper environmental impact assessment. In the Senate here we, we do not get to just stand here and say that it should go ahead. What we are saying is that that is a live option that should be investigated and submitted for environmental impact assessment. But no. The government, on the zombie commitment of Prime Minister Tony Abbott, is determined to push ahead, and now it is going to cost the Barnett government office. That is a determination and a commitment that we make in here today.

The other issue, obviously, is that the project is an environmental and Aboriginal heritage obscenity. This is four lanes, or possibly six or eight lanes, of tarmac—we are not even sure how big this thing is eventually going to get—pushing through wetlands and an incredibly important Aboriginal heritage area—40,000 or 50,000 years of continuous occupation of the Swan coastal plain. I am not in here to speak for the Aboriginal mob; they have been speaking for themselves at events that we have been to and in the courts. In here we have had delegations, and we have had people who have stood up with a great deal of determination to make their case against destroying sites in this way. It is a one-two punch from the state and the Commonwealth. The Barnett government deregisters sacred sites that have been on the statute books for decades. Then the Commonwealth government writes out a billion-dollar cheque to cover them in asphalt. It is absolutely obscene.

You always know that you are going to get done over in one of these things when the proponent—in this case the main roads department—boasts of stringent conditions that the project will be subjected to. We have observed, and campaigners on the ground doing the job that should have been done by state and federal environmental compliance officers have observed, literally hundreds of breaches of environmental conditions. Fifty-three of them are recorded with photographic evidence in a letter that I have here today, which has been sent to Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg, and what I might do—because I am going to refer to it briefly, and it has been to the government and opposition whips—is seek leave to table that correspondence now, and then I can refer to it and other senators will have it.

Leave not granted.

Well, that is remarkable. I presume that that was not from the Labor side. I believe that leave was denied from the government side. Senator Fifield, you live a long way from Western Australia. I would have thought you would appreciate having the evidence to hand. That letter has gone to Minister Frydenberg, and what it does is identify an extraordinary pattern of noncompliance with the very environmental conditions that, we were promised, would lead to the kind of world's best practice that Senator Cormann was going on about a short time ago. But guess what: we have been advised that the senior compliance manager at the EPA, the state environmental watchdog, has stated that the agency does not have the power to suspend works no matter how serious the breaches of ministerial conditions may be. No matter how serious the breaches are, the state government does not have the power to stop work. So why the hell do we bother? Why do we bother with state environmental law? The reason that we bother—the reason that governments keep these fig leaves around them—is so that they can wave around these lists of stringent conditions, and they are being violated by the dozens and by the hundreds every single day on the ground. We know that this is occurring, because it is being documented.

This letter—if the government senators had done me the courtesy, after we tipped them off, to actually be faced with the evidence; I understand why you would be a bit unwilling to do that—has 18 pages of evidence. We outline 53 very clear, photographically backed up breaches of the ministerial conditions that Minister Frydenberg believes are guiding environmental conduct at this project. Endangered quendas have been trapped just 90 minutes before bulldozers rolled in, in breach of the fauna management plan that he signed off. Why bother doing a fauna management plan if you do not care whether or not it is being upheld on the ground?

There are missing surveys of nesting hollows of the iconic and endangered Carnaby's black cockatoo. We are running out of the kind of ecosystems and habitat that can support these endangered creatures. They are iconic. Anybody who has been to Western Australia—Senator Back and Senator Reynolds will know this; we have a reasonably good cross-section of Western Australian senators here—knows that these species are going to be locally extinct on the Swan Coastal Plain unless something is done. But what the Barnett government is doing, with cheques cashed by the Commonwealth government, is wiping out another 100 hectares of their habitat and saying, 'Well, if they fly 120 kilometres further south, we've changed some lines on a map and we've created some offsets.'

We do not believe that those surveys were even done, and if that is the case—and the evidence that we have in this letter makes it very clear that it is the case—then this project is proceeding illegally. This project is proceeding unlawfully, in violation of a dozen or more of the conditions that the government placed upon it. So I want to know how serious a breach has to get before Minister Frydenberg stops the clock, because, if he does not stop the clock, the clock will be stopped by the electorate of Western Australia on 11 March, when the hopeless, bitter, clapped-out talent vacuum that we have come to know as the Barnett government is thrown out of office once and for all. That is how we will stop the clock. It will not prevent the extraordinary damage that has been done, but at least it will give us the opportunity to wind some of it back.

As we speak this afternoon, I have been advised that contractors have started clearing section 5 this morning. There is some incredibly sensitive wetland habitat. People right now on the ground have described it as beautiful. There are balgas, huge majestical tuarts, thick bushland, cockatoos circling and living in the trees, and rainbow bee-eater nests. We know that they have caught quendas, endangered southern brown bandicoots, in the area as recently as yesterday morning.

I want to acknowledge, in the brief period of time that I have left, special thanks to Andrew Joske, Naomi Caceres-Seeber, and the rest of the extraordinary team of volunteers working around the clock under the incredible guidance of Phoebe Corke. They are taking up the work that EPA and Commonwealth compliance officers should have taken up to monitor compliance breaches on site every day. It is not even that we do not have eyes on the ground. If the state government and Minister Frydenberg were interested in the evidence, the evidence is there that they are in flagrant violation of the conditions that the state and the Commonwealth put on them. There are people like Rex and Felicity who have been at this campaign for 30 years. There are people like Kate Kelly and Kim Dravnieks—campaigners of incredible standing and wisdom, and they know the history of this area. But there are also everyday people—mothers, friends and people like you—out there listening who were so moved to protect this precious place that they took on the courts and they formed an alliance with more than 30 disparate groups. They have waged a very, very powerful war against this thing.

Every local council in the area is opposed to this but ignored. Friends of mine—very close friends and colleagues—have been arrested down there in very well-disciplined, non-violent direct actions where basically you say: 'I know I'm going to be breaking the law; I will take the consequences. That's how strongly I feel about protecting this extraordinary bit of bush.' We have stood shoulder to shoulder with Independents and we have stood shoulder to shoulder with Labor MPs, both state and federal, with councillors from across the political spectrum, and with residents not just from the impacted area but right across Perth metro. This campaign has gone national, and so it should because it is national Commonwealth taxpayer dollars that are paying for it. If your hospital or transport system in Western Sydney is run down or if you are in outer suburban Melbourne and you do not have cycleways or you do not have decent schools, it is partly because Tony Abbott committed a billion dollars of Commonwealth money to this project without even knowing where it was. He probably could not even have pointed to it on a map.

I also want to acknowledge my dear colleague Lynn MacLaren MLC, who has been the state member for the South Metropolitan region for eight years and hopefully many more years. The Greens, the Labor Party, the Independents and even Pauline Hanson's One Nation party have come out and condemned it. How bad does a project have to be before One Nation sits up and takes notice? I think it will be to their regret that they then proposed to preference the very same people who are driving the bulldozers. But, nonetheless, this has very strong and deep cross-party community support, and it is going to bury the Barnett government come 11 March.

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the motion regarding the extension of the Roe Highway Roe 8 and 9 and support the explanation given by the Minister for Finance, Minister Cormann. For those not familiar with why the words 'Roe 8 and 9' are used, this particular project is part of a very extensive project that had its origins in 1955. We are not speaking about a recent project, as some might have suggested. It was the Stephenson-Hepburn plan of 1955, Madam Acting Deputy President, as you know, and the very term 'Roe 8 and 9' suggests there have been a Roes 1 to 7, and indeed there have been. Roe 1 to 7 is a large highway extending from the eastern side of Perth, including the freight areas and the light industrial areas, heading in a westerly direction and, at the moment, stopping at the Kwinana Freeway where it intersects north-south at the end of Roe 7.

You might ask, 'Why haven't we had Roe 8 and 9 completed years ago?' Well, the decision was taken back in 2004 by the then minister Ms MacTiernan who has, most latterly, been in this parliament. Indeed, she did not last long in the federal parliament. She was a minister in the previous state Labor government, and I will acknowledge she was an effective minister. In fact, she was the only one who was an effective minister because she achieved something in that state Labor government of Mr Gallop and Mr Carpenter. Ms MacTiernan, I understand, is now being recycled in the current state election in March of 2017.

Of course, at that time, to save the political skin of the then Labor member for Fremantle, state Labor member Jim McGinty, they cancelled what should have been Roes 8 and 9, otherwise known at that time as the Fremantle Eastern Bypass, which was to be the continuation of the Stephenson plan into the port of Fremantle to link-up freight traffic from the eastern suburbs and the freight accumulation areas and logistics areas into Fremantle. But, for cheap political gain, they cancelled the Fremantle Eastern Bypass and they rezoned it as residential so it could never be done. The interesting thing is, for those who are taxpayers of Australia, at that time, had it been completed, the best estimates were some $220 million to $250 million. Instead of that, to complete it today, we have to spend $1.2 billion.

I do want to draw attention to a quote from a gentleman well versed in road transport in Western Australia—so much so that he was a representative of the Transport Workers Union at that time. This is a quote from him in 2004, when this gentleman said, on the idea of removing the Fremantle Eastern Bypass: 'This will create a frightening congestion problem of mammoth proportions in the very near future on all highways and major roads leading to the docks.' That person, of course, was so influential and so knowledgeable in road transport in Western Australia that he now sits opposite me here as Senator Glenn Sterle, from the Western Australian division of the Labor Party.

Senator Sterle's knowledge of the industry was so valid that, in fact, what we come to see in 2016-17 is exactly—through you, Madam Acting Deputy President, to another old transport broken-down shearer in Senator Williams—what Glenn Sterle said: a frightening congestion problem of mammoth proportions in the very near future on all highways and major roads leading to the docks. It is exactly what the now Senator Sterle said would happen. It did happen. For those of you who do not know Western Australia, I will attempt to explain it: we have, for example, a very, very high instance of rear-end collisions on what is now the major traffic arterial road, or car park, called the Leach Highway. About 70-odd per cent of all accidents on the Leach Highway are due to rear-end accidents, simply because in the McGinty-MacTiernan era stopped doing what they should have done at that time, and that was to complete the Roe Highway through to the port of Fremantle.

To give you an understanding, Fremantle is the major southern port. It is by no means the largest tonnage port. The highest tonnage port in the world is that of Port Hedland, in the north of Western Australia, which exports about 400 million tonnes of iron ore a year. Imagine that! More than a million tonnes a day goes out of that port. But Fremantle, of course in the metropolitan area, is the most significant port. For those aware of these areas, we tend to measure the capacity of a port and its activities by the number of 20-foot sea containers or their equivalent that are moved. Currently the port of Fremantle is moving about 700,000 boxes a day and has the capacity to move up to about 1.2 million a day.

I concur with Senator Ludlam: I have long been a believer in the fact that we should be looking towards the designing and eventual construction of a container port in the outer harbour towards Cockburn Sound, Kwinana. I will go through a little bit of history. We all remember Charles Yelverton O'Connor, the great builder of the metropolitan-to-Kalgoorlie water pipeline in the early part of the last century. He was first brought to Fremantle by the then premier, John Forrest, with the objective of a project to build a port in Fremantle. History records the fact that O'Connor in fact wanted to build it where probably eventually a sea container port will go in the outer harbour. But the point is that, whether or not or when that port is eventually built, we will always need Roe 8 to take us from the Kwinana Freeway through to Stock Road. Whether or not vehicles go south towards what could become that open port area in Cockburn Sound or north into Fremantle, Roe 8 is essential.

Madam Acting Deputy President Reynolds, you might not recall the 2008 election as clearly as I do, because I was a candidate for the state seat of Alfred Cove, an area incidentally very much affected by what will be eased by Roe 8 and Roe 9. Roads such as Canning Highway, Leach Highway, Farrington Road, Stock Road, Carrington Street et cetera were all affected by the failure of the then Labor state government to give effect to the 1955 Stephenson plan. Electorates such as Cockburn, Southern River, Fremantle and Bateman have all been affected by the failure of the then state Labor government. I make this point because you will often hear people saying, 'This is something that the Liberal Party have recently rushed in.' On the front page of the newspaper leading up to the state election in 2008 was the statement 'Libs to proceed with Roe Highway'. I can recall that well because down in the bottom right-hand corner, despite my very limited funds at that time while campaigning in Alfred Cove, was my own little ad. So I remember that particularly well.

It is the case that in a democracy it is the right of all citizens to proceed legally with whatever they want to undertake by way of protest. But there is also an obligation in a democracy when the court rules in a certain direction. Then it is the right of all citizens to expect that the opinion and judgement of the court will be honoured. It is the case that those opposed to Roe 8 and Roe 9 took this case to the Supreme Court of Western Australia. It was then taken on to the appeal court. The decision of the supreme appeal court of Western Australia was that the project should proceed. As was the right of those opposed to the project, the case was also taken to the Federal Court of Australia. The appeal to the Federal Court was dismissed and thrown out. On that basis, the project has proceeded and is proceeding. It is the case now that we are looking at about a $1.2 billion project when it should have been completed back in 2004, some 14 years ago, for only $250-odd million. Nevertheless, there are significant benefits to the project.

The point has been made that some councils in the area are opposed to the project. I go to the Cockburn City Council. My electorate office is in Cockburn, and I communicate very well and often with the officials of the Cockburn City Council. Cockburn issued its own report as to what the impact might be on road and other traffic should Roe 8 and Roe 9 not be built. Because it did not suit most of the councillors of the city of Cockburn, the report was initially buried until such time as one councillor said: 'No, that is not a correct spending of ratepayers' money. Whatever the outcome of a report is, even if it is not favourable to the majority of the council, if the ratepayers have paid for it then it should be made public.' And, indeed, it was. What do you think the outcome of that report showed? It showed that if Roe 8 and Roe 9 are not constructed it is going to continue to cause mayhem on the roads in that area. In recent times we have had the Fiona Stanley Hospital and the St John of God Murdoch Hospital established in that precinct. The ability of people to get to those locations will be enhanced greatly by Roe 8 and Roe 9.

In addition to the Cockburn City Council, there is an excellent joining of various councils. They call themselves the South West Group of Local Authorities. They include Fremantle, East Fremantle, Melville, Cockburn, Kwinana and Rockingham. They commissioned a report into what the impact would be on residents, the community and transport should Roe 8 and Roe 9 not be built. Once again, as you would predict, there were those in the south west group who wanted that report buried. Why did they want it buried? It is because it did not conform to what they wanted to see in relation to the future of this area. But the Melville City Council—and here again I declare very, very proudly that I am a ratepayer of the city of Melville—said, 'No, the results of this report should be made public so the wider community can see what is going on and what the impacts might be.' Needless to say, the report strongly supported the continuation of Roe 8 and Roe 9. That is the simple fact.

As the finance minister has indicated here today, there will be dramatically increased safety as a result of Roe 8 and Roe 9 being built. The trucking industry will in fact pay a toll—not domestic vehicles, but the heavy haulage trucking industry will pay a toll. Normally, of course, you would think they would be vehemently opposed to that. For those of you not from WA, you might not know that we do not have toll roads in Western Australia; we simply do not have the population base and so we do not have them. The trucking industry is strongly in favour of a tollway for the obvious reason that they know the travelling time on the logistics trails from the large warehouses to the port and back will be significantly reduced—reduction in travelling time, reduction in costs. The trucking industry have put up their hands and said, 'We will pay a toll as a part contribution from what we will be saving.'

As we have heard this morning, the then Labor government originally developed Infrastructure Australia, and I applaud them for having done so. I have always indicated my tremendous confidence in the then director, Mr Michael Deegan; I have always considered him to be a very sound person, though he is no longer in that role. Infrastructure Australia have looked at this project, can see its benefits and strongly support the construction of Roe 8 and Roe 9. We have heard different commentary on the environmental impacts, and I respect Senator Ludlam's view on this—I do not agree with it, but I respect it. Nevertheless, the minister has outlined what will be savings attendant upon the project. Again I defer to Senator Williams because he, far more than I, has the experience of driving a truck stop-start in heavy traffic, traffic lights et cetera. We all know the impact on engine performance when you are slowing down at lights, stopping and accelerating again. All of those matters have been dealt with.

It is a project that had its origins in the 1950s. It is a project that would have gone ahead in 2004, had it not been for the cheap political opportunism of the then state member for Fremantle, Mr McGinty, and the then minister, Ms MacTiernan. It is a project that since 2008, some nine years ago, the Liberal Party has said, 'We will proceed with this project. Let there be no doubt, we will proceed with the project.' And so for the past two elections in WA the people of WA have voted for the Barnett-led Liberal government in the full knowledge that this project would proceed. That is a critically important point.

It is the case, as the minister has said, that surveys have indicated a strong support for the project—60 per cent in favour, 10 per cent against and 30 per cent could not make up their minds. That, however, was before the recent information, appearing in the local newspapers which service these communities—and tabled in this place today—which at long last are giving the facts attendant upon this project. And there will be more of it leading up to the state election. Madam Acting Deputy President, you and I attended a Senate inquiry at the Esplanade Hotel in Perth and it is a fair criticism to say that not nearly enough information had been made available to the wider community at that time. You and I had been briefed and we were able to share a lot of information which had not previously been known at that inquiry.

Since then, of course, the decision has been taken for a tunnel to be built. Earlier there had been a fear, because of an alternative route, that real estate values might be decimated and houses repossessed along some of the routes, but now we know that the exact opposite has occurred—the value of real estate has gone up and will continue to do so in those areas. You only have to think back to what is known as the Graham Farmer tunnel. Those in the public gallery might not know that there was a very great Aboriginal footballer from Western Australia called Graham Farmer and his nickname was Polly—and the day it was announced that it would be called the Graham Farmer tunnel, it was immediately renamed the 'Polly Pipe'. I draw it to the attention of the chamber simply because in the lead-up to the decision to build that tunnel by the then Court government, you would not believe the opposition to it. The world as we knew it was going to fall in; real estate prices were going to dive for the entire area of Perth. Today, of course, people go through the Graham Farmer tunnel and say, 'Where was the problem? Look at the ease, look at the speed, look at the efficiency.' We do not have all that carbon dioxide accumulating in the tunnel. In answer to an earlier question, it is being addressed environmentally; and, more importantly, the value of real estate in that area has skyrocketed, as indeed it will upon the completion of Roe 8 and Roe 9.

In the lead-up to the election on 11 March, it is necessary for the community to have the facts. It is my view that for too long there has been a set of adverse facts which have been presented but which have now been corrected with informative and useful progressions of information week after week, leading up to the state election. I concur again with Senator Ludlam that it will be up to the people of Western Australia voting in those electorates to determine whether or not they want to return the Barnett government. I, for one, will respect the opinion of the voters of WA, as I respect the courts—the Supreme Court and the Federal Court—and in my view in a democracy that is what we must honour, that is what we must respect: if a majority of people are in favour, they will vote accordingly.

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the explanation he gave to the Senate this morning, Senator Cormann failed in his obligation and in his duty to this place. His explanation did not go to his failure to table documents and that demonstrates the spurious nature of the business case that the government continues to hide. Senator Cormann, because he is a minister, can use his ministerial capacity to table whatever he likes. But instead of tabling the facts that might have outlined a business case for this parliament to see, what he instead tabled and spoke to was government advertising. He spoke to government advertising, not to the business case that he was asked for. That is the nature of the information that Senator Cormann tabled in this place.

The business case has been hidden from this place and from public view under cabinet in confidence and by, I would argue, falsely using cabinet processes to channel documents through cabinet. So what we have here is Senator Cormann speaking not to the facts but to taxpayer funded advertising as a way of trying to mount a facts based argument about this project. It is an appalling abuse of his place in this chamber.

There is only one way to stop the Roe 8 project and that is for a Labor government to be elected in Western Australia on 11 March. Again, what we see here is the state government trying to counter what is a very legitimate expression of concern from the Western Australian community about this project. The government knows it is on the back foot when it comes to this project. The Western Australian community is very concerned about the wetlands, very concerned about the sustainability of this project and very concerned about the environmental abuses that are occurring. So we have Minister Cormann tabling advertising in place of a business case while at the same time the government denying Senator Cormann leave to table his very much more fact based documents that actually outline the evidence of the environmental abuses that are taking place. I think that is an appalling act of the government.

What we saw in his contribution today was Senator Back confirming the fact that this is indeed a road to nowhere. He talked about the building of Roe 8 and what was, in his view, the wrong decision to cancel the Stephenson project. We saw the cancellation of the Stephenson project bring back a range of areas that are now firmly residential. The government is not revisiting that issue, as Senator Back confirmed. What, in effect, this means is that this project is indeed a road to nowhere, as confirmed by Senator Back today.

Again, instead of tabling any business case or cost-benefit analysis, what we had was reference to government advertising by Senator Cormann, which indeed makes a complete mockery, I think, of his obligations to this place. Instead, what he spoke to was a bunch of government advertising—what a joke; that is an absolute joke.

I would like to thank Senator Ludlam for bringing this question before the chamber today and for asking for these documents. What we have though from the government is a complete failure in its responsibility, and a complete failure of Minister Frydenberg to investigate these breaches of environmental law. So, sadly, the only way forward on this project is really to get the message out to voters that the only way to stop this project is to have people vote Labor on 11March.

We have had from the Hanson party a rejection of this project. But, sadly, if we are going to see a preference deal between the Western Australian Liberals and Pauline Hanson's One Nation, a vote for the Hanson party will be a vote for this project, contrary to their own policy. It is really important that we take the time to explain this to voters because I know that Western Australian voters are against this. We have strong environmental sentiments in Western Australia where we see these wetlands as precious environmental assets. The irony of Senator Back's comments when he talked about these road projects having been proposed for many decades was that some of our best environmental assets—and this is true of all of our cities—are the bits of land that were proposed for roads and therefore no other construction or development took place on them. It is only in hindsight that we have seen that these environmental assets should not be roads but they should be protected and maintained as environmental assets, and Roe 8 very much falls into this category.

I would really like to commend my colleague Anthony Albanese for the approach that he takes to these issues, which, as Senator Ludlam highlighted, is transparent. It is about Infrastructure Australia having a proper analysis of these kinds of projects and through that in Western Australia we have seen Perth Citylink, NorthLink, Great Eastern Highway, NorthLink and the Great Northern Highway upgrades. What we also see is support for the state Labor plan for Metronet, where we should be taking funds from Roe 8 and delivering it to our public transport system in Western Australia to make it better. In thanking Senator Ludlam for bringing this motion before the Senate, I really want to highlight the contempt that Senator Cormann is showing this place. The only way to resolve this issue is to vote Labor on 11 March.

Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also want to thank my colleague Senator Ludlam for his dogged determination on this issue because this is about transparency and accountability. It is providing information that the community needs, that we as senators need to make decisions on what major infrastructure projects should go ahead and are in the interests of the community. Without this information we cannot make that judgement. I listened to Senator Cormann's response this afternoon as to why the government is claiming this information is not available. He said that there was harm to public interest, that they were cabinet-in-confidence decisions and that it was commercial and sensitive information. Frankly, these excuses do not hold water at all. The bulk of Senator Cormann's very longwinded contribution today was basically flights of fancy, overblown rhetoric and far-fetched opinions that have no relationship whatsoever to the truth of what this major road would mean to Perth.

In summary, I think Senator Cormann was influenced by the fact that it was Valentine's Day, and the government and he were doing their best to show their undying love for toll roads:

Roses are red.

Violets are blue.

We love toll roads

And so should you.

That really was the substance of what we heard from Senator Cormann. What we know is if there were transparency, if we had had this information before us, if the business case were available—as it should be for all Australians to be able to interrogate—it would become very clear that these projects, these massive toll roads, just do not add up.

Without that information, and with the excuses being proffered by the government that 'No, we can't have this information because it's cabinet-in-confidence, because it's commercial and sensitive,' what that means is that every major project like this across the country cannot be subject to public scrutiny. Every one of them is seen to be commercial-in-confidence or cabinet-in-confidence—'No, we cannot share that information with you.' That means that these projects get to proceed without the spotlight of public scrutiny and without the justification to try to say why this is a good project and why it adds up. We know why that is the case. We know why there is secrecy. It is because these projects do not add up. If you had that scrutiny and shone a spotlight on why this road is being proposed, it would be very clear that it does not add up economically or environmentally. The major reason these roads are being proposed is to try to tackle congestion; it is very clear, when you look at information—where it is available—that it just does not work. These projects are just not effective in that fundamental aim that they have of tackling congestion. The evidence around the world shows that trying to tackle congestion in big cities just by building new roads is like trying to tackle obesity by loosening your belt. Those roads just fill up with cars and trucks, and you end up exactly where you were a few years down the track, but you have wasted billions of dollars along the way.

But we know that we have state and federal Liberal governments—and, sadly, many state Labor governments as well—who are in the thrall of the toll road companies and are continuing to do their bidding. It is not just in Perth with Roe 8; we have seen it in Victoria with the East West Link, where when we finally managed to get the information out because of people within the bureaucracy whistleblowing and saying this information needs to be in the public domain, we saw that the cost-benefit analysis meant that for every dollar you spent you got only 50c back in economic benefit. That was the reality of what came out when we put the East West Link under the sort of scrutiny that Roe 8 needs to be put under. We have the Auditor-General's report on WestConnex coming out today, and I am pretty confident that it is not going to give it a clean bill of health. Then we have the state Labor government in Victoria that similarly is refusing to release the business case for the deal that they are doing with Transurban on the Western Distributor, because they know that if a spotlight could be shone on these roads, it would be pretty clear that they are not the answer.

We have a solution. Transport planners across the country and around the world know that what we need to do to create liveable and healthy cities that people really want to live in is to shift the balance. We need to have much more investment in public transport, much more investment in freight rail and much more investment in cycling and walking facilities so that people have a choice to get out of their cars. We do not need to be moving all this freight on toll roads; we could be getting it onto rail. What we as a parliament need to do, and what governments need to do, is to redress that balance, changing and shifting away from the failures of the last 50 years. Not releasing this information and continuing down the road of Roe 8 is a continuation of our policy failure.

In conclusion, I think we need to keep the pressure up to get this information out so that we can see for ourselves that the supposed benefits of this road just are not worth the costs. When all that information is out on the table, it will be very clear that the right direction is not building massive polluting tollways; it is investing in public transport, in walking and cycling and in healthy, more sustainable and more liveable cities.

Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak about Senator Ludlam's take note motion around Roe 8. I too listened really carefully to Minister Cormann, a Western Australian senator who presumably has an interest in this road, which has managed to divide the Western Australian community, and I did not hear any assurances from him today that indeed the development of Roe 8 was based on any kind of sound principle at all. The Western Australian public does not often get upset about things. There are two recent issues, both a product of the failed Barnett government that looks like it will be swept out of office on 11 March, that have really united Western Australia. There is the whole shark net proposal where we had sharks being culled quite needlessly, and we saw Western Australians from across the metropolitan area coming together and constantly protesting against that, and Roe 8 is the other issue. Really, what should happen now, before there is further destruction and death to native species, is that this project should be held over until 11 March. The Barnett government's continuation of this project is an absolute demonstration of their arrogance. This is a state Liberal government in Western Australia that is arrogant and out of touch, because most Western Australians, regardless of whether they think Roe 8 is a good idea or not, firmly believe that this project should now be held over.

This search for documents, this search for the business case, this search for the truth, has been going on for years now—years. Alannah MacTiernan, the former federal member for Perth, started looking for these documents, and roadblocks were put in her way at every point. And she will continue to look for those documents. Ms MacTiernan first lodged a complaint with the Commonwealth Ombudsman after the department said it would not hand over details about the $1.6 billion Perth freight link, because—wait for it—the minister's job had been abolished. So, we are hearing different excuses every time. Ms MacTiernan submitted two requests under freedom of information laws to the office of the Assistant Minister for Regional Development in 2015, asking for details about the project. In October 2015 Ms MacTiernan received a short message explaining that because the portfolio had been abolished in Mr Turnbull's new frontbench the documents would not be handed over.

Again, the AAT, the Australian Administrative Appeals Tribunal, ordered the federal Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development to release the documents in 2015 and again in 2016, but the government appealed to the Federal Court. And now it would seem that we are not going to get any more information through the courts about this proposal until after 11 March, after the state election—when, hopefully, the Barnett government will be swept from power.

And of course the sorts of things we heard from Minister Cormann this morning—public harm, 'commercial and sensitive in nature', harm to the public interest—well, the public harm being done right now in Western Australia is the continued destruction of the beautiful Beeliar wetlands and the death of native species. And I have to say, I was somewhat stuck for words a couple of weeks ago when the local WA environment minister said that actually more Western Australians will be able to see the Beeliar wetlands once the road is constructed, because they will drive across them. The man was serious! He was serious when he made that statement. That is just a slap in the face to Western Australians who care deeply about the Beeliar wetlands, and there are protests down there every single day; ordinary folk are down there protesting.

Senator Cormann talked about an improved amenity. It will not be an improved amenity. The Beeliar wetlands have sat there for generations, and now it will be the legacy of the Barnett government that it destroyed them. As I said, most Western Australians want this matter held over until after the state election. And of course what Minister Cormann did not say—and that is more our commentary today—is that tens of thousands of the Commonwealth moneys have been spent keeping those documents secret. It would be good to get to the true cost, but it is tens of thousands of dollars that have been spent keeping the documents away from the public. What is in the documents that the Liberal government both here and in Western Australia do not want the public to see?

It has also been, as Senator Pratt said, a road to nowhere. The state Liberal ministers have been publicly disagreeing with one another about where the road should come up, and most recently Mr Barnett has said that there will be a tunnel under the harbour, but we are yet to see any details, any costings and so on. Mark McGowan, the leader of the Labor Party in Western Australia, has been absolutely firm and clear that a Labor government will not continue with Roe 8. Again, the federal Liberal government has tried to say, 'That's not your decision to make and you can't put public funds into other roads and the public transport that Western Australians so desperately need.'

So, again, we do not know how Roe 8 was planned. It appears that there was never a business case; it was a whim of former Prime Minister Abbott. He handed this money to Western Australia. And why did he do that? Because he knew then that the Barnett government was in deep trouble. This is the most unpopular state government in Western Australia for a very long time. It has incurred massive debts. It has shown itself to be a government that absolutely cannot complete projects on time. We have seen the debacle of the Fiona Stanley Hospital that has cost millions and millions of taxpayer dollars. We have seen the debacle of the stadium. We have seen the debacle of the children's hospital. And now we are seeing the debacle of the destruction of really sensitive native wetlands in Beeliar. And it should stop. It is tragic, what is going on there.

This matter is not going to go away. Ms MacTiernan is not going to stop in her quest to get to the truth of this through the court documents. The best the minister, Senator Cormann, could have done today would have been to not quote documents—quote from paid political advertising in the local community newspaper from the member for Tangney. It was paid political advertising that he tried to dress up as facts. They were not facts. That was a paid political ad in the local freely distributed community newspaper. And, once again, the minister hides behind trumped up political statements instead of the truth.

Again, we do not get any further to the truth about Roe 8 today, and it is really interesting, when you see the media in Western Australia, how the federal Liberal Party distances itself from the absolutely on-the-nose Barnett government, where announcements are made without their state colleagues standing next to them. One lot is going in the east and one in the west. The Barnett government is doomed. It is a government that will be voted out of office come 11 March, and then we will get to the truth of what is in these documents, because a Labor government—

Debate interrupted.