Buswell launches attack on socialist councillor in parliament

State treasurer Troy Buswell launched an attack on Socialist Alliance member and Fremantle City Councillor Sam Wainwright in state parliament on December 5.

True, the try-hard treasurer was probably too busy keeping track of which election promise he was planning to break next to get Sam's name right. (He confused Wainwright with prominent actor Sam Worthington - admittedly an easy mistake to make.)

He also described Wainwright as being a member of the "socialist loony party" which isn't a strictly accurate rendition of the party's name.

The issue at hand was the motion moved by Wainwright (and adopted by the Fremantle Council) to oppose state government plans to widen High Street by knocking down houses and gutting the Fremantle Environmental Resource Network in order to allow more trucks on the road to increase asthma rates by increasing diesel particulate pollution. (Increased lung cancer rates and knocking down the largest stand of remnant Tuarts in the area were simply added bonuses of the state government plan.)

The fact that Freo Road to Rail campaign has demonstrated that there is huge community opposition to the government's plan indicates that the "loony" label could more appropriately be directed to some of Buswell's front bench colleagues than honest community campaigners like Sam.

Buswell's answer? Compulsory acquisition of the land against the Fremantle Council and against community opposition. Just one more reason to fight back against the Barnett/Buswell agenda.



Troy Buswell's comments from Hansard:

I spoke to our project coordinator this morning. Interestingly, Main Roads lodged — either last night or today — a formal request with the City of Fremantle to excise land from the A-class reserve, which I think is to the south of High Street, the Fremantle Public Golf Course and the Fremantle Environmental Resource Network. My hope is that the City of Fremantle concurs and does not try to frustrate this process by going off on another round of consultation and its own round of engineering, which I suspect it will. I do not know what happened at the City of Fremantle meeting on Wednesday, 27 November — I do not follow it that closely — but a motion about this matter was moved by, I think, a fellow from the socialist loony party called Worthington. I do not know what the result was — it was not on the City of Fremantle’s website this morning — but we will not be agreeing to parts of that motion. The ball is now in the city’s court. I have told the department to move forward with compulsory acquisition and to get legal advice about what we can do if we form the view that the city is trying to frustrate the process. I want to get on and build this upgrade and get a much safer outcome for everybody.