CORONAVIRUS —
REGIONAL BUSINESSES AND TOURISM — INCREASE
636. Mr V.A. CATANIA to the Premier:
I refer to the significant
population increase and pressure placed on essential services and volunteers in
tourism communities, such as Exmouth, Coral Bay and Shark Bay, which have seen
their usual population increase tenfold for a sustained period. Does the
Premier acknowledge that there is now an urgent need for additional police,
health and emergency service staff —
Mrs M.H. Roberts
interjected.
The SPEAKER: Minister for
Police, I call you to order for the first time.
Mr V.A. CATANIA: —
and volunteers in these communities —
Mrs M.H. Roberts
interjected.
The SPEAKER: Minister for
Police, I call you to order for the second time.
Mr V.A. CATANIA: Does the
Premier acknowledge that there is now an urgent need for additional police,
health and emergency services staff and volunteers —
Mrs M.H. Roberts
interjected.
The SPEAKER: Minister for
Police, I call you to order for the third time.
Mr V.A. CATANIA: —
in these communities to help them cope with a greatly increased population; and
what is the state government doing to help these communities?
Mr M.
McGOWAN replied:
We have done a great deal for the
tourism communities of the north, including Exmouth, Broome, Kununurra and
Karratha—which I personally think is a great town to visit—Newman,
Tom Price, Hedland, Geraldton, Carnarvon and Denham. They are all wonderful
communities to visit. We have ensured that the tourism industry is vibrant.
That is the main thing that we have done. We have got economic activity back in
these communities. There was a period for a number of months, of course, when
we had border arrangements within Western Australia to try to prevent the
spread of COVID, which had a small prevalence in the community back then, and
that arrangement was successful. We brought
down those borders and launched the Wander out Yonder campaign and we have had huge
success in getting tourists into these communities across Western Australia.
The reports I have had from Geraldton, Exmouth and Broome are that there has
been a massive number of Western Australians holidaying in Western Australia. I
regard that as a success and I think the communities themselves would be
saying, ''This is a good outcome from what could have been a catastrophic
situation.'' If we have a look at other places around the world, we see
that the tourism industry has died. In Western Australia, certainly in the
regions, overwhelmingly, it has been successful.
On the additional resourcing of police officers, as I have said
on numerous occasions, as the last Premier and every Premier going back to Sir
John Forrest has said, the deployment of police is a matter for the
Commissioner of Police. He deploys them on the basis of the assessed need on
any given day or month. We have deployed additional resources up to the
Kimberley to deal with the borders and the matters surrounding the remote
communities. That was a matter that the police commissioner, of course, put in
place, and I think that has worked well. I heard the Minister for Police
interjecting. She said that there have been no reports of significant
additional crime across the north of the state. Again, I say that rather than
bemoaning the success of our tourism strategy, I think we should be out there
singing the success of Western Australia's marvellous tourism industry.