Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Not long ago, the Prime Minister completed another whirlwind PR tour of Western Australia—or, more accurately, Perth, given that's where he spends most of his time when he travels west. It was a visit out of the PMO playbook, part of a continued bid to project the idea that the Prime Minister is fond of my home state and a champion for its interests. This is a priority, because he knows how important WA is to his job security. But Western Australians are a genuine people, and we see these fleeting, city-centric, stage managed visits for what they are. We see beyond the social media posts and the marketing, which are plentiful, to the lack of results, which is now undeniable. What we really want to know is what the Prime Minister and his government, including his WA based ministers, have actually done to improve the daily lives of Western Australians.

After more than 18 months, the record of this government is against them. It's not just the backflipping and failure to deliver on the big promises made prior to the last election. It's the fact the Albanese government is now directly undermining WA's future prosperity, threatening key economic sectors and livelihoods and contributing to cost and housing pressures. The live export industry is worth $120 million to Western Australia and has been a key part of our economy since well before Federation. Labor's plan to outlaw live exports would end all of that, decimating the multigenerational achievements of our farming communities across the state. That doesn't concern the Albanese government, which prioritises the views of animal rights activists and those in our inner cities over the hardworking efforts of Western Australians across its regions. The assault on farmers doesn't end there. Labor has pursued a levy forcing Australian farmers to pay for the biosecurity costs of international importers. It is, in fact, another tax for our farmers to have to contend with—a tax that comes at a time when they are already facing rising overheads, labour shortages and the ongoing effects of climate change. The Australian National University's Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, among others, has criticised this levy and outlined that it has not passed critical scrutiny.

The damage being caused by the Albanese government goes well beyond jeopardising the WA agricultural sector. The resources sector—even more significant from an economic perspective both to the west and to our whole country—is also in the government's crosshairs. Labor's industrial relations overhaul, a gift to the trade union movement, is set to cost our mining companies dearly. BHP, for example, has outlined that the changes to the labour hire rules risk costing the company $1.3 billion a year. It's hard to argue with BHP's Australian president, Geraldine Slattery, when she said, 'The government should be making it easier, not harder, for Australian companies to succeed and grow.' The Albanese government obviously disagrees. Then there's the $10 million that has been gifted to the Environmental Defenders Office, which has targeted critical projects, such as Woodside's $16 billion Scarborough gas field. The oil and gas industry employs more than 120,000 Western Australians and provides tens of billions of dollars in state and federal royalties. These are royalties that fund our roads, fund our schools, fund our hospitals, fund the NDIS and fund other essential services. At this critical juncture, placing additional unnecessary obstacles in front of vital industries and projects can only be described as irresponsible and vandalistic.

As if this all wasn't enough evidence of the ways Labor has let down Western Australia, there is also the unmodelled, unplanned immigration policy of this Labor government. Immigration has been at the core of Australia's national story and its economic success. But to ensure that success continues, immigration policy must be modelled with plans in place to manage its impact. These are not the characteristics of Labor's immigration plan, which will bring 1½ million people from overseas across just three years.

Anybody looking for somewhere to live in Western Australia will attest that this policy is already putting significant pressure and strain on Western Australians. That's because, per capita, our population has grown more than any other state over the last year. During the same period, the average cost to rent a house in Western Australia hit $600 a week for the very first time. Rental availability shrunk to below one per cent, which is now the worst in the country. It might all seem a long way away to the Albanese government here in Canberra, but these are statistics with very real consequences for WA households. Housing stress now joins the list of economic pressures on Western Australians, the victims of Labor's continued mismanagement.

Broken promises are becoming status quo under the Albanese government. The stage 3 tax cuts turnaround is the most recent of a litany of broken promises, but by far one of its most egregious. And there is so much more. One very simple one, given in its 2022 election campaign, was that Labor would back WA interests. Surely this included delivering the infrastructure our isolated and widely dispersed state relies on so heavily? But what has the Albanese government, in the form of its transport minister, Catherine King, done? It slashed more than $200 million from the Pinjarra Heavy Haulage Deviation and scrapped upgrades to the Mitchell Freeway, Reid Highway and Tonkin Highway. As a senator who often drives around the Kimberley region in the state's far north-west, the potentially life-saving improvements to the Great Northern Highway between Broome and Kununurra have always been a personal priority for me and a priority for the communities that live along that road. Those improvements are not a priority to Labor because it's axed that funding as well.

It's not an overstatement that WA has always had to shout to have its voice heard in Canberra. My coalition colleagues and I continue to fight in this place and in the other place to ensure Western Australians have a loud, if not the loudest, voice. So anything that risks lessening that voice here is a significant concern to every Western Australian. That's why the electoral reform report produced by a Labor dominated committee last year, which included a proposal to increase the size of the House of Representatives from 151 to 200 seats, should be ringing alarm bells as most of those seats would be not in Perth but in Sydney, in Melbourne and in Brisbane. Under one scenario, WA would acquire only five extra seats and would be left with a total of just 20 compared with a possible 63 for New South Wales. This is not standing up for WA. This is not standing up for WA interests. It's quite the opposite.

Labor's performance since winning government has been proof positive why our state, why Western Australia, requires a strong presence, a strong voice in the federal parliament. Earlier I mentioned Labor's record of delivering for Western Australia—or the lack of delivering for Western Australia. Each of the cuts, the cancelled projects, the broken promises, the anxious communities and families unable to find a home now form part of Labor's record for Western Australia. It's a record that confirms Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his Treasurer, Dr Jim Chalmers, are no friends of Western Australia. It's a record that demonstrates that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his Treasurer, Dr Chalmers, are no friends of Western Australia. And, of course, the Prime Minister and Dr Chalmers have a line-up of WA federal members of parliament—members of the House of Representatives and senators—who are not willing to do anything about it.

Many Western Australians placed their trust in Labor at the last election, believing the commitments that were made to them. But the Albanese government should be on notice. Western Australians are not likely to be fooled twice. As we rapidly approach the next election—increasingly tipped to be called early and not late—your failures will be front of mind for an electorate that will continue to cry loudly for a better deal from this Labor government. No amount of token good-news visits by the Prime Minister will change that.