RAILCARS — BELLEVUE
FACILITY
533. MR S.J. PRICE to the Minister for Transport:
I refer to the McGowan Labor
government's $5.5 billion recovery plan that includes a significant
investment in bringing local manufacturing back to WA.
Can
the minister advise the house how this government's investment in a new
diesel maintenance facility at Bellevue will create more local job and
training opportunities for Western Australians and can the minister outline to
the house how this government's commitment to local manufacturing
compares with that of the Liberal opposition?
Ms R. SAFFIOTI
replied:
I thank the member for Forrestfield
for that question and for his commitment to local manufacturing.
The creation of jobs has been and
continues to be the number one priority for the McGowan Labor government. It
was a priority before the pandemic and it is, of course, now part of our
economic recovery. Last week, the Premier and I announced a $94 million suite
of initiatives to boost manufacturing in WA. As part of our focus on local
manufacturing, we are building our new railcars here in WA. As part of not only
the manufacturing and assembly of the new C-series trains, we have also
committed to a new diesel maintenance facility. This maintenance facility will
basically create more training and opportunities for young Western Australians
throughout WA.
We want to leverage the many private
sector opportunities. As we know, the rail industry in WA is so significant in
not only our commuter section, but also our mining and resources area. We want
to bring to WA more of those maintenance
jobs, more of those jobs being undertaken here in WA, the maintenance work and
also the manufacturing work here in WA. So, of course, this is again
another major focus, and, of course, as everyone knows, local manufacturing has
been our priority.
I was surprised, as I sometimes am
when I flick through my social media at night, to see the Leader of the Opposition's new focus on local jobs. The
Leader of the Opposition is now focusing on local jobs. I was surprised by
the new focus on local jobs, because I just compare and contrast the new focus
with her commentary on some of the decisions that we made. I will go first to
the Matagarup Bridge. Remember the Matagarup Bridge? We brought the fabrication
work for that bridge back to WA. What did we hear from the opposition?
Criticism and negativity. In fact, the
opposition went walking on the bridge and criticised WA workers. The Leader of
the Opposition basically said that Western Australians delivered a compromised
piece of infrastructure.
When
we announced the railcar manufacturing contract in Western Australia, what did
the Leader of the Opposition say? She said that it was a failed
manufacturing industry that was just a waste of Western Australians'
money, and that we should not be reviving industries from a bygone era. Does
the Leader of the Opposition still stand by those comments? The Leader of the
Opposition is not going to stand by those comments because, as we have seen
even as late as today, the Leader of the Opposition is all over the place on so
many issues.
Today, we are demonstrating on local
manufacturing. We saw her speaking on the borders for months saying, ''Bring the borders down; bring the borders
down''; now she says, ''I never said that.'' Of course,
even as late as today, the Leader of the Opposition stood up and said, ''We
support the legislation but we have to send it to a committee.'' The Leader of the Opposition either supports the
legislation or she does not; she either supports Clive Palmer or she does not. We have seen from the Liberal Party WA a
relationship with Clive Palmer, and we have seen a relationship trying
to undermine Western Australia's economy and trying to undermine Western
Australia's health.