LABOR and the Greens have continued their tit-for-tat over a 1.5km stretch of the old Roe 9 Highway road reservation set to be rezoned “urban”.

On Tuesday Greens MLC Brad Pettitt lodged a disallowance motion in Parliament’s Upper House aimed at knocking the amendment out, a move Fremantle Labor MLA Simone McGurk branded a “stunt”.

“One thing is that if we miss this opportunity to amend the MRS and it is pushed into next year, then after the election the Upper House, which does not change its composition until May, could be dominated by the Conservatives,” she said.

“I understand that Brad was making a point that he wants more green space.

“The plan incorporates continuous green space as much as it can, but housing on that reservation is one of the ways to protect it, and in this environment there is no doubt that we need more housing.

“The thought of stumbling at the last hurdle frustrates me.”

Ms McGurk said colleague Peter Tinley had driven the public consultation phase over alternatives for the corridor, and she says there was strong support for the outcome.

But Dr Pettitt said the community which backed Labor in the 2017 election where deleting the bypass was a commitment, and then fought for a continuous green corridor, were the same ones asking him to force a government rethink.

He says concept plans produced by the state’s planning commission showing additional green space within the urban corridor had no statutory weight and he fears that without something more weighty the land will simply be carved up for “more boring housing”.

“They could make a state masterplan, something along those lines,” Dr Pettitt said.

He said Ms McGurk’s claim his motion could spill into the next Parliament “deeply disingenuous”, saying under the rules if it wasn’t dealt with before the current Parliament was dissolved, it would simply become null and void.

by STEVE GRANT