Western Australian opposition wants to build 2.54 billion dollar railway system

The Western Australian opposition Labor Party has pledged 2.54 billion Australian dollars (1.95 billion U.S. dollars) to build a public railway system called Metronet if it wins in next month's state election.

The project will develop four new rail lines across Perth, adding to the five it currently has.

"This will revolutionize transport planning across Perth," Western Australian Labor leader Mark McGowan said.

"We need to plan for the future, we need to have proper public transport that lets people get out of their cars and allows us to plan our suburbs properly with the right mix of density and jobs in proximity to where people live."

The infrastructure plan does have a few obstacles, however, as the project is reliant on 400 million Australian dollars of Commonwealth funding.

The Federal government has pledged 1.2 billion Australian dollars to the state of Western Australia, in order to develop a freight-Link road project next year, however, the Labor Party says that plan will be cancelled and replaced with Metronet.

But Federal Finance Minister Mathias Cormann has rejected this notion and said the money will not be reallocated to fund any other developments.

Despite this, McGowan is confident a win at the election will give Labor a mandate to implement their plan.

"Metronet will create jobs, it will fix the transport situation, it is congestion-busting, affordable, achievable and financially responsible," McGowan said. (1 Australian dollar = 0.77 U.S. dollar) Endit