GERALDTON HEAVY VEHICLE BYPASS�
484. Mr
I.C. BLAYNEY to the Minister for Transport:
I have a supplementary question.
Why is the minister continuing to ignore and delay critical road planning in
Geraldton and the midwest that means further critical investment decisions
cannot be made, such as the previous government's decision to build the
new Greenough River Bridge that included funding from royalties for regions?
Ms R.
SAFFIOTI replied:
I am glad that in eight and a half
years the previous government did something. It built a bridge in eight and a half
years—congratulations, National
Party! The premise of the member's question is completely false. We are
spending more on regional roads than
the National Party in government ever did. We are spending record amounts on
regional road safety. The single biggest cause of deaths on our regional
roads is the single vehicle run-off. We have secured $100 million to work on
improving 1 400 kilometres of roads around regional WA. The Premier outlined
some of the roads in regional WA—I will probably outline more tomorrow—that
will have a widening of the shoulder and the installation of audible edge lines
to try to save lives. One would think that National Party members would
appreciate the effort that we have undertaken. They should not come in here
with those false allegations; they should appreciate that this government is
doing more for regional road spending than they ever did.