Labor Party arrogence in Regional WA
24th September 2021
Regional Western Australia has much to fear as a result of the landslide victory of the Labor Party at the 2021 state election given the brutal arrogance on display in the last month.
Once again regional West Australia is under attack from a Labor Party that has total control of both houses of state parliament and is intent on using it to maximise its own political benefit, to the detriment of country people and communities.
The so-called Upper House electoral reforms are perhaps the most obvious example of Labor’s contempt for regional areas, but they are not the only ones.
Labor’s legislation to get rid of geographical regions and have one state wide Upper House electorate fulfills Labor’s long held ambition to gut regional representation.
As the Minister for Electoral Affairs John Quigley said on the day it was the achievement of 120 years of Labor ambition to slash country MPs.
That position might be understandable from a city based MP with little regional presence, but it was appalling to hear the Minister for Regional Development Alannah MacTiernan back that opinion, saying “there has been a battle for reform for more than 130 years”.
She is, well in name anyway, currently representing the South West Region in Parliament.
To have a supposedly regional Labor MP who is the Minister for Regions crowing about the gutting of regional representation is ironic in the extreme!
Labor managed to shift eight country seats from the Lower House of Parliament into metropolitan Perth under their 2005 legislation. I remember it well because my seat of Capel was one of those lost.
Based on the maths they will now probably shift eight seats in the Upper House as well.
The loss of sixteen regional representatives in total in this state may well serve Labor’s agenda, but it will be a disaster for regional communities.
Representation is not about the number of votes per MP; it is about serving the community.
In my view most regional people believe that their ability to access politicians is critical to democracy. They think their parliamentary representatives should have visited their community and have a working knowledge of it.
They believe that it is the role of MPs to be a local champion for the issues that impact them.
And in what might come as a surprise to the Labor Party they believe they should be able to see their local MP face to face and eyeball them sometimes. We’re not all content to just be Facebook followers.
Frankly I would be surprised if most of our city cousins disagreed with this concept. I don’t think too many city voters who are not rusted on Labor acolytes want to see things made tougher for regional families simply to benefit Labor electoral position.
Up until now regional WA has elected 18 of the 36 Upper House MPs, but only represents a quarter of the population. Has that really provided an advantage?
Have the additional regional Upper House MPs ensured that the services and facilities in country areas are better than those in Perth?
Try comparing health services, educational opportunities and job opportunities in Perth with any of our far-flung regional centres, and you will discover that the metropolitan area is getting a much better deal despite having more votes per Upper House MP.
Of course, the slashing of regional representation is just one of Labor’s attacks on regional communities; just ask our timber towns in the South West.
Labor was happy to sacrifice regional towns and businesses without any advance warning, secure in the knowledge that it was about to also get rid of those people’s best opportunity to fight back.
I’m sure Mark McGowan was confident he could manage the local community backlash by getting rid of the politicians that would have been there to look after their interests.
The Premier is sitting on the biggest pile of cash in out history, thank to the iron ore boom and GST floor, but the budget delivered little for regional Western Australia. It really only funded Labor’s March election commitments and not much more for country people.
The McGowan Government has undermined the Royalties for Regions program, admitting in the budget that it is manipulating the fund to get the best political outcomes for the Labor Party.
R4R is now a Labor plaything instead of a fund underpinning the economic growth of the regions.
Regional communities can no doubt expect more of the same, and worse, in the years to come.