Perth Stadium Bridge Project - Support Australian Industry

27th April, 2018

Today our Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan tweeted that if you want it done best, get it made in the west when referring to the Perth Stadium Bridge project.

Unfortunately, this project has had a checked history after the previous Barnett Government sought expressions of interest to construct a Swan River pedestrian bridge linking the Burswood Peninsula and East Perth, and then awarding a contract for the bridge's steel arches and decks to a joint venture based in Malaysia.

In June 2017, and with the deck and arches already months overdue, the McGowan Government announced that the Malaysian contract had been "ripped up" and that the components would instead be built in Western Australia, albeit with an additional estimated cost of $16 million.

In August 2017, a new contract was awarded to Civmec with a revised total cost of $83 million and a targeted completion date being March 2018, to align with the commencement of the AFL season.

In November 2017, Western Australian Planning Minister Rita Saffioti pushed back the planned opening date until May 2018 and announced the planned external cladding on the arches had been scrapped to cut costs.

Cutting out the political and government spin, this is one such project that should never have been awarded to a Malaysian Joint Venture. Western Australia and indeed Australia has world leading construction companies and a project such as this should have only ever been awarded to a local Western Australian steel construction company.

Western Australian industry, jobs and investment should never be compromised and therefore the decision to award this contract to a Malaysian Joint Venture was wrong. In Philip's response to our Premier, Philip agreed with Mark to recall the contract and advised Mark that it's incumbent on our elected representatives to support Australian industry, in this case Civmec.

Philip has also been contacted by other companies that were part of this project and suffice to say some of the comments from the companies concerned were very surprising. It's time Australian industry, jobs and companies are therefore put first and foremost in all government thinking, contracts and expenditure.

It's time Australian's are put first, and ensuring Australian industry and jobs are protected.

We're Australian and we look after one another.

Philip Couper