Dear Editor

RE: Extend Freeway call ‘heard loud and clear’, North Coast Times, 13 December 2011

Here we go again, the Liberals promising infrastructure for the northern suburbs but never delivering.

In 2008 the Liberal Candidate made promises in election flyers about “extending the Mitchell Freeway to Clarkson to ease traffic congestion in Kinross”.

In an article in the North Coast Times on 26 August 2008 the local Liberal candidate promised they would “organise a feasibility study, public consultation and design work on the project, starting work straight away to ensure it was included in the state budget”.

Now over three years later that same Liberal Member says he hopes there will be public consultation in the new year and even if it gets funding in the State Budget it would still be “three to four years” away.

This is not new for the Liberal Party, they have a long history of promising infrastructure for the northern suburbs and simply not delivering.

WA Labor built and extended the Joondalup Railway and has built the majority of the Mitchell Freeway. In the 1980s we extended it from Karrinyup Road to Ocean Reef Road and in 2008 we extended it to Burns Beach Road. In the last 30 years the Liberal Party has built a paltry three kilometres of the freeway.

Planning for the extension should have commenced three years ago as the Liberals promised. In that time the Liberal Government has spent money on the new “Palace for the Premier” and $20 million on planning and propaganda for a road to nowhere in the southern suburbs.

We will also now need to wait in line behind the widening of the Graham Farmer Freeway to three lanes and associated road works, that could cost hundreds of millions of dollars, because of the bad decision by Mr Barnett’s to rip up Riverside Drive as part of the Waterfront project.

Northern suburbs residents need to see the actual bulldozers and graders on site before they should believe anything the Liberals promise.

We need Members of Parliament who will stand up and fight for this region, not sit and watch money get spent in every part of the state except Wanneroo the state’s fastest-growing local government.

Yours sincerely

Ken Travers MLC

Member for North Metropolitan

Shadow Minister for Transport