“It’s going to reduce congestion, and, importantly, it will allow Bunbury and those suburbs to continue to grow.”
Credit: Department of the Premier and Cabinet
It’s estimated more than $500 million was injected into 360 local businesses with nearly $50 million allocated to Aboriginal suppliers.
Senator for Western Australia Varun Ghosh said training programs led to work opportunities for local Aboriginal people.
“It’s fitting that the name of the road will recognise the traditional owners, the Menang Noongar people,” he said.
“The Yaka Dandjoo program has provided on the job training opportunities to nearly 200 local Aboriginal people, with 125 going on to gain full-time employment as a result.”
But the road development, the largest in the south-west’s history, has not been without controversy.
In December 2022, the Friends of the Gelorup Corridor argued in a federal court that the state’s roads authority and federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek had side-stepped environmental approval processes.
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The group’s lawyer Angel Aleksov accused the federal government of handing Main Roads WA blank-cheque conditions to clear 70 hectares of land to make way for 10.5 kilometres of the highway – home to tuart and banksia woodlands and habitat for the critically endangered western ringtail possum, the black cockatoo and the black stripe minnow.
But lawyers for the minister and Main Roads defended the approval, insisting conditions applied were adequate and that there had been extensive work done into the impact of the project.
Main Roads’ lawyer Fiona Seaward told the court the authority had swathes of information about the environmental impact and what would be required to produce a satisfactory offset strategy.
The case was ultimately dismissed.
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Source Agencies
