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Parliamentary Questions


Question Without Notice No. 242 asked in the Legislative Assembly on 7 April 2022 by Mr P.J. Rundle

Parliament: 41 Session: 1

CORONAVIRUS — SCHOOL CAMPS — SUPPORT PACKAGE

242. Mr P.J. RUNDLE to the Premier:

I have a supplementary question. Given that it is likely that the short notice will mean that many term 2 camps will need to be cancelled as well, will there be further financial support for school camp operators who are struggling to keep staff and maintain services until restrictions are removed?

Mr M. McGOWAN replied:

We have a significant package in place, as I just outlined to the member. It is designed to ensure that school camps receive some support over this difficult period. Obviously, we want to, based upon health advice, get out of the situation we are in as quickly as we can, but as I outlined to the member—I attended school camps as a child; my children attend school camps—it is impossible to ensure that there is mask-wearing amongst children who are sleeping in the same room often in numbers of 10, 15 or 20. We cannot do it. Obviously, in that environment, we are going to have a spread of COVID. When we have a spread of COVID, the children go home, then the family and the parents in the home—they might be nurses, teachers or journalists, or doing any sort of job in the community—are then required to stay home, and we want those people going to work.

The situation is unfortunate, but that is what we are trying to deal with in as orderly and sensible a way as we can. Because we waited until we got the highest vaccination rates certainly in Australia, but also one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, before we opened the borders, we have minimised the impact on Western Australia, because the government did things. We took actions. We took steps. We stood up to the bullies and the critics and the Liberal Party and the Nationals WA and all those people who tried to undermine everything we did. Had the Western Australian state government not done all these things over the course of the last two years, where would the country be? All that money that went to Canberra and was flooded into the other states to support them in their time of need, where would that have come from but for the fact that this government took actions to ensure that this state stayed safe, against the criticism and objection of the opposition? What the Liberals and Nationals have shown over the course of the last two years is that they are unfit for government, and until such time as they get some maturity and some quality in the Parliament, they will remain unfit for government. As the Minister for Transport just pointed out, the Leader of the Opposition cannot even speak to the leader of her federal party. She will not even meet with the leader of her federal party. I get criticism because I did not do a public event with the federal leader because I was flying to Sydney at the same time. I get criticism for that. The state Leader of the Opposition will not even meet with her federal leader, will not appear with him in public, and neither will the rest of the Nationals here. What a dysfunctional rabble you are!