HYDROGEN HUBS
848. Dr D.J. HONEY to the Minister for State Development,
Jobs and Trade:
I
have a supplementary question. Why has the minister asked for such a woefully
inadequate amount of funding from the
commonwealth government, given this amount will not even come close to
delivering the required infrastructure for functioning green hydrogen
and critical export hubs?
Mr R.H.
COOK replied:
The
sums requested are consistent with the request for proposals that were invited
by the commonwealth back in September. It is not a question of our
ambition; it is a question of complying with the grant proposals the
commonwealth sought. I must add that no state government in history has got
more from the commonwealth than this state government. We had the important
leadership that the Premier provided in addressing the injustice of the GST
share arrangement, and the great benefit of that has come to the Western Australian
people. It is something that the former
government could never do, whether there was a Labor government in power in
Canberra or a Liberal government. Both sides treated the former
government with contempt, and it was not until we had the McGowan Labor
government that we were able to address some of these fundamental imbalances
and get Western Australia back on the road.