On Every Measure, Labor is Failing

Last week’s official close of this year’s Parliamentary sitting was an important moment to put on the record just how badly Roger Cook’s Labor Government has let West Australians down in the first nine months of its third term.

Everywhere I go, I hear the same question - in a State as wealthy as Western Australia, how can our hospitals be in such a state of disrepair and delay? Why is it so hard for young people to find a secure home? Why is violent crime on the rise? Why are so many students still learning in ageing demountables instead of proper classrooms? And why are families being forced to choose between essentials, the power bill, the groceries or their rent, in a cost-of-living crisis?

Western Australians deserve better.

I am incredibly proud of the Liberal Parliamentary team, which has worked relentlessly this year to hold the Labor Government to account and push for practical outcomes to make a difference to people’s lives. Some of the wins we’ve secured include:

• Health:

Our sustained pressure on chronic maintenance backlogs, record ambulance ramping and the strain on our public hospitals forced the Government to commit an additional $1.5 billion to health. It should never have taken as long as it did this long, but without relentless scrutiny, that money would not be on the table.

• Law and Order:

We shone a light on serious failures in regional electronic monitoring and chronic police understaffing right across the State. These are real risks to community safety, and they would have remained hidden without Opposition scrutiny.

• Housing:

We called on the Government to extend support for renters doing it tough, and the program was extended. We will continue to push for more to be done so that people can actually find a home in this overheated market. Because Labor ignored warning signs from the housing sector for years, they are now scrambling to catch up – and Western Australia is on the brink of a full-blown housing emergency.

• Education:

We exposed more than 10,000 outstanding maintenance defects in our schools. Only then did the Government act, announcing $11.3 million in funding to start addressing issues that should have been fixed long ago for students and teachers.

This Government is big on headlines and light on delivery. 

After nine years of Labor, there is still not one new hospital delivered. Perth has become the most unaffordable city in the country in which to rent. Violent crime is at record highs. And the project Labor seems most determined to fast-track is a race track at Burswood that no one asked for.

It is the clearest sign that the Cook Labor Government is obsessed with announcements, weak on outcomes and focused on the wrong priorities. 

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