DEPARTMENT OF PRIMARY
INDUSTRIES AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT — OFFICES
1147. Hon COLIN HOLT to the Minister for Regional Development:
I
refer to the relocation of the Department of Primary Industries and Regional
Development offices to the Perth CBD.
(1) Did the minister consider
relocating DPIRD to a regional location and was any analysis done?
(2) If yes to (1), can the minister
please table the relevant documents?
(3) Were any
specific roles considered to be decentralised to regional WA; and, if so, which
roles and to which locations?
Hon
ALANNAH MacTIERNAN replied:
I thank the member for the
question.
(1)–(3) Member,
I find this extraordinary. The member was part of a government for eight and a half
years that took out all the money that was in the 2015 budget for the
development of a new premises for the then Department of Agriculture and Food.
When we came into government, absolutely nothing had been done. In fact, during
its time in charge of the portfolio, the Nationals WA managed to cut 300
agricultural jobs from regional Western Australia.
There were massive cuts; for example, the Esperance staff were cut from
44 FTE to 23 FTE.
We had to act very urgently in the
middle of this year when it became very obvious that a couple of those buildings at South Perth were no longer able to
provide a safe place of employment for staff. It was necessary for us to
act as a matter of considerable urgency. We have been negotiating to get some
premises not too far from the existing South Perth premises to relocate 500 of
those staff while we are spending some $20 million to ensure that the 250
technical and scientific staff can continue to operate at South Perth. I think
that over the long run we should look at decentralising some of that
employment. That is a very clear agenda of the government. We had to do this as
a matter of urgency. I would love members one day to explain why they had all
this money in the budget, but in the dying days of their government, they took
it out of the budget.
An opposition member interjected.
The
PRESIDENT: Members, I might just
remind you again that we are in unusual circumstances. Not every member is
seated in their normal place here. That does not give you the right to speak on
your feet away from a seat.