Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Trade) | Hansard source

I rise today to welcome the many Western Australian delegates attending this year's National General Assembly of Local Government who have visited Parliament House today. WA has the most local governments of any state. My vast electorate of O'Connor has the most local governments of any federal division—57 in all.

This year the LGAs of O'Connor have much to buttonhole the government on. Many delegates are from the great sheep-producing areas of WA and are very concerned about the government's plan to ban live exports. Another issue of concern for many O'Connor shires is the deal struck between federal and WA Labor on a statewide designated area migration agreement, or DAMA. The fear is that the all-new statewide DAMA will undermine regional agreements that LGAs in the Goldfields and the south-west regions worked so hard to secure under the former government.

Delegates from Katanning, Broomehill-Tambellup, Plantagenet and Albany are no doubt concerned about a draft DAMA for the Great Southern region that's been gathering dust on the desk of Immigration Minister Andrew Giles for more than a year. Those four LGAs are joined in Canberra this week by delegates from the Goldfields municipalities of Kalgoorlie-Boulder, Coolgardie, Dundas, Laverton, Leonora and Ngaanyatjarraku. The Shire of Manjimup in the state's south-west is also here. O'Connor is a diverse electorate, and I'm so pleased that representatives of so many municipalities have come to Canberra to make their voices heard.

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