Opinion: Highway to hubris

Highway to Hubris.

So, another letter to the editor about Roe 8. “Yay” i hear you all say, “that’s just what we need”.

Well the federal funding is gone, redirected into Metronet and talk is going around about beginning re-vegetation.

You could almost be excused for thinking that the last nail in Tony Abbott’s thought bubble of a 2013 election issue was finally hammered in.

You would be half right. Roe 8 won’t be built. Not under Labor.

The problem is, there is more to this than what Labor wants.

Legal challenges didn’t stop roe 8.

Community pressure didn’t stop roe 8.

Losing the AAA credit rating didn’t stop it.

A $3 billion dollar deficit didn’t stop it.

The only thing that stopped Roe 8 was the fact the Liberals lost the election.

For those celebrating that loss still, I have an unfortunate question.

“What happens when Labor aren’t in power any longer?”.

In four years (probably not), eight years, 12?

There will come an election where the Liberals win power again.

When that happens, you can bet that it will be straight back onto the agenda.

Have a look at Mike Nahan. He is still dedicated to building it.

Every chance the Liberals get they are still pledging themselves to its construction.

They aren’t attributing their electoral failure to Roe 8, which is the right choice, because it wasn’t what lost it.

Their completely inept economic management did – losing the State’s credit rating and blowing the deficit out will do that.

However, just because it wasn’t what lost the election for them, doesn’t make it all of a sudden a good idea.

Long story short. Roe 8 and 9 aren’t gone. They’re hibernating.

Expect them to rear their divisive heads again in about three years time.

The only way to make sure it’s dead and buried is to do what the Liberals did to the bushland in Bibra Lake.

Progress the construction of the outer harbor so far by the next election that there is no point not continuing it to completion.

You can replant bushland, but I’m going to wager the Liberals won’t go as far as destroying a half built outer harbor just to justify building a highway to a constrained port in Fremantle instead.

MICHAEL SEPAROVICH

Spearwood