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Parliamentary Questions


Question Without Notice No. 696 asked in the Legislative Assembly on 17 September 2020 by Mr Z.R.F. Kirkup

Parliament: 40 Session: 1

MCGOWAN GOVERNMENT — RE-ELECTION CAMPAIGN

696. Mr Z.R.F. KIRKUP to the Premier:

I have a supplementary question to the current Premier. Why does the Premier not abolish his Labor spin machine and instead use that money to fund more police officers and nurses and provide grants of up to $10 000 for our struggling small businesses?

Several members interjected.

The SPEAKER: Members.

Mr M. McGOWAN replied:

The member did not listen to what I had to say. I have his letter here from earlier this year in which he demanded that there be more campaigns, more spend, more high-profile public information advertising campaigns and a bunch of other things that he called for the state government to do to spend more money on communications. That is what he wrote to me to say. It was comprehensive. I could choose any paragraph if I wanted to and indicate that the opposition called for the government to put in place communications.

Several members interjected.

The SPEAKER: Members, the Premier is on his feet.

Mr M. McGOWAN: The Melbourne experience shows that if there are not effective communications across government, there is a greater prospect of the virus spreading even more. That is particularly the case in multicultural communities in which English is not the first language. Resources must be available to inform and educate people, if necessary. It is all about ensuring that those resources are available to pull together if a second wave comes. Is that unreasonable? To go on and say things like ''a Labor spin machine''—what a stupid, stupid comment. It is a stupid, ill-informed, ridiculous comment. I just wish the Liberal Party would stop trying to politicise the pandemic. We are trying to deal with a serious issue and all it has done for the past seven months is try to score political points. The Western Australian public has seen through opposition members and the way they behave.