WA gets mystery $650 million road funding pledge in late-night letter

Western Australia has been promised a mysterious $650 million in Commonwealth funding for infrastructure projects, but it won’t be available until after 2029, WA Treasurer Rita Saffioti revealed.

The promise came in the form of a letter sent to Saffioti’s office on federal budget day which revealed WA would receive just 2 per cent of new Commonwealth infrastructure spending.

Treasurer Rita Saffioti speaking with media today.Credit: Hamish Hastie

That money is $350 million to cover half of the Kwinana Freeway widening project, with the state footing the rest of the bill. The Commonwealth will also spend $90 million to upgrade the Manning Road Leach Highway intersection and $5 million to plan for upgrades around the Murdoch Station.

Saffioti would not be drawn on whether the state had been shortchanged in the budget, only pointing to the promise of more money beyond 2029.

“Well, we did get notification last night about $640 million of extra funding, which wasn’t highlighted in the budget, but highlighted as a provision, and that will be allocated to the state,” she said.

Saffioti dug in when pressed on the mystery surrounding the money and why it would not be available until after the 2028 election.

“We’re very confident as we move forward, we’ll continue to have new projects in those years to continue a strong momentum of delivering transport initiatives across the state,” she said.

“Over the next two to three years we have a number of projects we will be delivering in conjunction with the Commonwealth, that includes the Tonkin Highway extension, the new interchanges in particular on Welshpool [Road] and Tonkin [Highway], the Reid Highway interchanges and a number of projects around the state.”

An excerpt of the letter sent to her office by Infrastructure Minister Catherine King and seen by WAtoday suggested that the extra $645 million could not be allocated because of the WA government’s caretaker conventions, which prevent major decisions being made ahead of state elections.

Saffioti acknowledged WA was the only state to have its road funding go down in the forward estimates, but denied the west was being neglected due to it being considered a safe Labor state.

Other states, such as Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria – where Labor is trying to sandbag support ahead of the federal election – received the lion’s share of the infrastructure funding.

Saffioti suggested WA’s share was also impacted by its ability to build road infrastructure without the size of blowouts seen in projects in the eastern states.

“I know there’s been some criticism of our rail projects, but we’ve delivered real value for money,” she said.

“Over east they’ve got billion-dollar projects that when they blow out, they blow out by $2 billion $3 billion and so as a result, those numbers over there are very, very large.”

A spokeswoman for King confirmed WA’s caretaker provisions resulted in the $650 million unprovisioned money.

She said WA was benefiting from $3.74 billion in road and rail funding this financial year but now that Metronet projects were wrapping up that funding was wrapping up too.

“We have a 10-year program for infrastructure and typically each states’ funding fluctuates from year to year as projects roll on and off,” she said.

“This years’ budget sees the bulk of the Metronet coming to completion, which means project payments go down.”

One project notably missing from the federal budget was the $450 million Erindale Road-Reid Highway interchange upgrade.

WA Labor promised to fund half of the project, matched by the state Liberals but the Albanese government has not yet outlined a position.

Saffioti said work would begin on that project before the next state election, but, asked how the government could embark on that work with only half the funding committed, she said she was confident it would get funded.

“We’re very confident with our program of works, which will see us undertake the detailed planning and commencing those works before the next election,” she said.

“They have the ability to make election commitments just like we did during our election campaign, and then they will deploy for those through their first budget.”

Chamber of Commerce and Industry WA chief economist Aaron Morey said the state’s slice of the infrastructure pie was not enough.

“That does not represent fair share for Western Australia, and we’ve got full faith that the state government understands and will be pressing the case, as will CCIWA,” he said.

King was contacted for comment.

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