STATEMENTS BY SENATORS

Senator O'SULLIVAN (Western Australia—Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) (12:15): Today's reporting in the Australian exposes a horrifying failure of child protection in Western Australia. As the shadow minister for child protection and the prevention of family violence and as a proud Western Australian, I am deeply disturbed by what's been revealed.

The police were reportedly called more than 50 times to a house in South Hedland, where vulnerable Aboriginal children were allegedly living in appalling conditions, sometimes without parents and exposed to drug dealers, sexual predators, violence and neglect. The police reportedly notified the Department of Communities dozens of times that these children were at imminent risk of physical and emotional harm, yet the system did not act with the urgency that these children deserved.

It reportedly took media scrutiny before the house was finally cleaned up. This is not what Western Australians expect from their government. When police repeatedly raise alarms, neighbours can see children living in danger and local Aboriginal elders are demanding action, the department responsible for protecting children cannot remain missing in action.

These children are not statistics. They are not files sitting on a desk. They are children who deserve to be safe, cared for and protected.

I appreciate that this is primarily a state matter, but, as a senator in the states' house, I must call it out and say that the Cooke government has to explain how this has been allowed to continue. The Minister for Child Protection has acknowledged that the investigation took too long, and this is an extraordinary understatement. Western Australians deserve to know why repeated warnings were not acted upon and, most importantly, whether the children involved are now safe.

They also deserve to know why the South Hedland child protection office was operating with only 9.6 of its 14.4 practitioner positions filled. A vacancy lasting 138 days is not merely an administrative problem when vulnerable children depend upon that office for their safety. I want to commend my good friend and state colleague the Hon.

Nick Goiran MLC, Western Australia's shadow minister for child protection, who has worked tirelessly over many years to expose failures in the system and demand accountability for vulnerable children. His persistent advocacy has ensured that these issues cannot simply be ignored or swept aside. This follows the devastating revelations surrounding the deaths of three Hawke children in 2022.

Their grandmother Dorothy Papertalk says that she repeatedly pleaded with authorities to let her protect her grandchildren. An internal review reportedly identified at least 11 adverse findings against the department, including failures to contact and properly engage with her. She deserves an apology and the inquest that she has requested.

While child protection is principally a state responsibility, as I've said, the Prime Minister, the Minister for Indigenous Australians and the Minister for Social Services must take note and insist that the Cooke government take urgent action and full responsibility. Closing the Gap cannot simply just be about targets, frameworks and announcements. If Aboriginal children—in fact, any children—are known to be living in danger and the government still fails to protect them, then governments are failing at the most basic level.

Remember, what we do with the least of these we do unto thee. Connection to family, community and culture is profoundly important, but a child's immediate safety must always come first. Local elders must be heard.

Families who are begging to protect their grandchildren must be heard. Police warnings must be acted upon. No government should need a newspaper investigation before it notices that children are living in danger.

The children of South Hedland deserve better. Western Australians expect better. We cannot undo the harm already suffered, but we can ensure that these revelations lead to answers, accountability and, importantly, lasting change.

I turn now to another matter. While the CFMEU have emerged as the principal beneficiary of Victoria's Big Build, in Western Australia it is ordinary families who are paying the price, spending more time stuck in peak-hour traffic because critical road projects have been delayed. As month after month passes and another announcement is followed by Labor Party inaction and lacklustre excuses dressed up as progress, a number of infrastructure projects in Western Australia continue to experience delays.

First among them and taking the gold medal is the Nicholson Road and Garden Street intersection upgrade in Canning Vale. Long after Labor MPs have come and gone with their social media photos, celebrating the announcement, a rolling cascade of traffic congestion continues at this dangerous intersection. Like a marathon, infrastructure delivery is not judged by the start; it's judged by reaching the finish line.

Now, four years after its announcement, no overpass bridge has been built. In fact, there's still no bridge. Families in Canning Vale and Gosnells will once again begin a new year enduring the same traffic congestion that they've faced for many years before.

Initially, design delays and modifications arose from coordination with the adjacent METRONET. Then further delays followed due to utility relocations involving ATCO gas and, more recently, Western Power. The next issue is the non-existent Garden Island highway extension.

With the first rotational presence of UK and US submarines imminent, it became evident early on that neither the state nor the federal government had the stomach to realise this road project—one that was gazetted in the Perth Metropolitan Region Scheme as far back as 1975. The corridor was reserved to provide future access to HMAS Stirling and a proposed container port at Mangles Bay.

The road reservation is still there, but there is no road. Rather than seriously explore what can be done to get this road built, Labor has simply handballed this project to the too-hard basket. Instead of using the camouflage of a study that proposed tinkering around the edges, with modest modifications to the existing road infrastructure, they have not taken action.

This study concluded that a new highway was not warranted and that the targeted upgrades to the existing road network could be managed through forecast traffic demand. This certainly came as a surprise to local residents, who confront daily traffic congestion in Parkin Street in Rockingham. The mayor of the City of Rockingham said: If we don't get the Parkin Street Point Peron Road Junction sorted out, we face road network breakdown.

Without doubt, future generations will look back and rightly ask why the state and federal Labor governments failed to grasp the political vision and why they didn't deliver this project when they had the opportunity. There are eerie similarities with another now-abandoned road project in Perth, Roe 8 and Roe 9. Every day, Perth commuters travelling on the Kwinana Freeway, and on the Leach Highway and Roe Highway east of the freeway, move at a snail's pace and ask why that project was not completed a decade ago, before it was halted by the McGowan Labor government.

These projects are not about politics; they're about productivity, safety and the quality of life. Every day the delivery is delayed is another day that families spend in traffic rather than at home and another day that businesses face unnecessary costs. Western Australians deserve infrastructure that matches the demands of a growing state.

Moreover, if Western Australia is to accommodate the expanding defence workforce associated with HMAS Stirling and AUKUS, governments must think beyond the gates of the naval base itself. Increased defence personnel numbers will place additional pressure not only on local roads but also on housing and the availability of those houses in the Kwinana and Rockingham areas.

This is a serious issue, and failing to plan for these requirements now risks creating further congestion, worsening housing pressures and undermining the very workforce growth that governments are seeking to see happen. If Western Australia is expected to shoulder a greater national defence role, then governments must ensure that the road network is capable of supporting that mission.

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