Senator the Hon Mathias Cormann

The Australian Labor Party has no infrastructure plan for Western Australia, preferring instead to side with the Greens in the Senate to oppose the world class Perth Freight Link project.

This latest political stunt by Labor shows they are against creating thousands of jobs, slashing travel times for motorists and building Western Australia’s economic capacity.

Like the Greens, Labor now oppose billions of dollars of infrastructure projects across Australia - the East West Link in Melbourne, WestConnex in Sydney and now the Perth Freight Link.

Tens of thousands of new jobs and billions of dollars of economic activity would evaporate if the Labor/Greens alliance had their way.

The Perth Freight Link is a game-changing project which will drive economic growth by providing benefits of more than $3.9 billion to Western Australia, including $2.5 billion in travel time savings and $840 million in reduced vehicle operating costs.

It is expected to create 2,400 construction jobs, providing a vital employment boost for Western Australia.

It will also reduce freight traffic and congestion on local arterial roads with 65,000 vehicles a day expected to be removed from the surrounding road network by 2021.

The Perth Freight Link along with our other world class infrastructure investments like the NorthLink WA and Gateway WA will help transform Perth by stimulating urban renewal, improving road safety, reducing noise and enhancing amenity.

Labor and the Greens continue to make unfounded claims that no details have been released in an attempt to discredit the project. 

The truth is that a 30 page Summary Business Case was publicly released in December 2014, which details a breakdown of the Benefit Cost Analysis results, the problems the project will resolve, the current challenges facing Western Australia and the freight system and the scope of the project. 

It is usual practice not to release commercially sensitive information like traffic modelling as it could prejudice approaches to the market. 

Conditional environmental approval for the Roe Highway Extension component of the project was granted in early July – a reflection of the significant care that has been taken to minimise the project footprint. 

The federal environmental approval process is underway and proceeding as planned. 

Contracts for Section 1 are expected to be signed in September with construction to start early next year. 

Instead of outsourcing their infrastructure policy to the Greens, Labor should put the interests of Western Australia first by supporting thousands of jobs, less congestion and better roads for Perth.