ROYALTIES FOR REGIONS — REGIONAL
DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM
977. Mr R.S. LOVE to the
Premier:
I have a supplementary question. Given the Premier's
stated support for the program, when may we expect an announcement that the
$2.7 billion in cost shifts and underspend in the current state budget will be
returned to the royalties for regions program?
Mr M. McGOWAN
replied:
The royalties for regions program is about $1 billion a year
and all of that is devoted to regional WA. It is very clear that in the lead-up
to the next state election there will be two sets of commitments from the
opposition. This is a very big issue, because if the opposition is elected,
both sets will have to be added together. There is no coalition between the
Liberal Party and Nationals WA. Two parties would have to form government and
each party's commitments would be piled on top of each other. The last
time the opposition was in government, it nearly bankrupted Western Australia.
The Liberals and Nationals could not work together. Two budget processes drove people mad within the former government—the
Treasurers and the Premier—because of the difficulty of governing
with that arrangement. I just say to the people of Western Australia: do not
risk the Liberals and Nationals. In the midst of what this country and this
world is going through, Western Australians cannot risk that. The opposition is
not ready for government. It is too big a risk to the people of this state.
There are many reasons the opposition is risky, but one of them is that two
massive sets of commitments will need to be added together. We went through
that the last time they were in office when we were not in a pandemic. They
basically took the state's debt load from about $5 billion to over $40 billion
in the midst of a boom time. Clearly, the people of this state cannot risk the
Liberals and Nationals, with the way that they governed last time, being put
back into office at the next election.