House of Representatives on Monday 21st October 2019

Check against delivery

I rise today to talk again about the Lakelands train station. Building this train station is a priority for the people of northern Mandurah. Many locals have waited over 10 years for this train station to be built. I am proud of the Morrison government's record. We are the only government to have ever committed funding towards the construction of Lakelands, with $37 million on the table. By contrast, the WA Labor government is hopelessly conflicted on this issue. There are some, such as WA Minister Paul Papalia, who have argued that no-one needs Lakelands train station. Minister Papalia's argument was knocked on the head on election night. The people of north Mandurah abandoned Labor and voted for the only party with a plan to build the station.

On the other side of Labor, there is the member for Mandurah, Minister David Templeman, who says the WA government does support Lakelands but he has failed to deliver any funding thus far. This failure comes despite David Templeman sitting at the WA cabinet table. WA Labor has a problem. Will they finally build the train station north of Mandurah that the people of Lakelands need? The people have made their views very clearly known this weekend with the election of Ahmed Zilani to the north ward of Mandurah. Ahmed has been an outspoken and at times colourful campaigner for the station—I note his hunger strike in support of the train station. Will WA finally listen? I call on David Templeman to take action to help make the Lakelands train station happen. If he doesn't, Labor will own that failure at the next election.