METRONET PROJECTS
519. Mr R.S. LOVE to the Treasurer:
(1) Can the Treasurer confirm that the total costing
for Metronet at the 2017 election, which was $2.945 billion, has now
blown out to more than $7 billion in this budget?
(2) Can he
outline the total capital cost of the Metronet project when finalised; and, if
not, why not?
Mr M.
McGOWAN replied:
(1)–(2) There
is $5.7 billion allocated for Metronet across the forward estimates and there
are 15 projects. Originally, it was fewer than 10, I think. Now 15 projects are
being funded as part of the Metronet arrangement.
The commonwealth has put in in the vicinity of $1.8 billion of that—perhaps
even more than $2 billion. We have worked constructively with the Liberal–National
federal government to support the project. It will mean a range of important
improvements. Some of the new projects include the level-crossing removals
on the Armadale and Midland lines, the Lakelands station, the Greenwood
multistorey car park and a couple of other new projects that take it to a total
of 15 projects across the metropolitan area.
On
top of that, we are undertaking a whole range of road improvements all over the
state. When we analyse the total transport spend, Metronet is actually a smaller
component of it than the road spend. A great amount of the road spend is
around regional WA, including in the member's electorate, on
agricultural and grains roads. That will be an important addition to those
parts of Western Australia.
Just
to clarify: there is $5.7 billion across the forwards and $2 billion or so is
paid for by the commonwealth government. We recently expanded the number
of projects by five, but since the 2017 election, there have been more than
five.