Alan Carpenter's conference address

WA Beating the gas crisis

WA Budget shares prosperity

TAS Paul Lennon resigns

VIC The sporting capital

ACT Record job figures

NT New Cabinet team

TAS Courage brings change

SA Intervention on the lands

NT New ministry sworn in

...more

THESE ARE great times, inspiring times, the best of times. WA’s economy is bursting with opportunity and promise. It’s exciting. It’s stunning. We have the lowest unemployment on record. Not just a reasonable figure. Best ever. The lowest on record.

When Labor got WA’s unemployment figure below 5 percent, we were wondering if we could keep it there of if we could get it any lower. The rest of Australia right now is celebrating because it has unemployment figures of 4 point something. In WA, the figure is now 3.4 per cent, with record participation rates. It’s brilliant.

We’ve got economic growth figures of 10 per cent. How good is that? Is there anywhere else in the world that is enjoying economic growth rates like that with unemployment figures like that? Is there anywhere? If so, please let me know and we’ll look at what they’re doing.

But we made the decisions that would benefit Western Australia for longer term – decisions not just for today, but for tomorrow.

There’s much more to do. We will continue to invest in our people to ensure they receive the education and training they need to succeed in the modern workplace. This includes continuing to roll out the many programs that are helping our kids learn in the classroom and in the community.

Indigenous kids
All sorts of efforts have to come together, to produce a better outcome, and this work is underway. As an example, did you know that since we put the football academy into place in Geraldton, the retention rate among indigenous boys has surpassed that of non-indigenous boys.

And when we then created a netball academy for the girls we saw attendance rates go from as low was five per cent to rates comparable with non-indigenous girls. These things can be done.

On indigenous issues more generally, I know, we all know, we face enormous challenges and that we are not doing well enough. Some successes. Not enough. Plenty more to be done.

We are very lucky the indigenous heart of our culture survived concerted effort to extinguish it. Now we need to provide an economic base to indigenous communities. We need innovative programs, better targeted resources, to look again at our structures. But we can’t do it alone.

We need willing partners: in business, and I believe that we’re starting to get them; from the Federal Government, and I don’t believe the partnership is good enough; and from local communities, and I believe the opportunity is there. This isn’t easy work, but we have to succeed.

Health
Reforming our health system isn’t easy work either., but it’s underway. Over the next decade you will see a complete transformation of our hospital system. The reform agenda we’ve set ourselves and that Jim McGinty is driving is huge.

And it will deliver.

Two new tertiary hospitals in Murdoch and Joondalup – the big ticket items in a very widespread capital works program. In the regions, we’ve opened the new Geraldton Regional Hospital and new hospitals in Port Hedland and the Kimberley are planned and underway.

Since 2001 we have employed more than a thousand additional nurses – or full-time equivalents, more than 1000 extra medical support staff and almost 700 more doctors in our health system. The elective surgery waiting list is at an all time low down almost 5,000 from the 20,000 figure in 2001 while the waiting time for surgery has also been cut.

We are investing heavily in mental health programs. Next year the Government will spend more than $300 million on mental health services.

We’ve developed a new scholarship program to provide an extra 120 mental health nurses to WA’s health system over the next four years and allocated $173 million to build new mental health facilities throughout the state.

We’re employing new mental health workers, expanding mental health services for school-aged children, improving safety for mental health staff and investing in specialist mental health teams in emergency departments.

Communities
It’s money well spent on creating a healthier future for Western Australians from all walks of life and from right around the State. It’s the obligation of every Government – and one a Labor Government feels more strongly than any other – to build stronger communities, embracing the entire community.

• It’s why we’ve increased spending for the Disability Services Commission by 63% since taking office in 2001.
• And it’s why we’ve allocated 140 for more staff at the Department of Community Development over the next four years. That will mean 200 extra permanent staff will be employed and that caseloads will be reduced.
• It’s why children and victims of domestic violence have more protection now – and more practical support.
• And it’s why we’ll continue to work with parents and children alike o address the root causes of health problems, truancy, anti social behaviour and crime.

We are serious about tackling crime and its paying dividends. The other side might talk tough, but we are the Government that puts in the resources and the programs that delivers results.

Crime rate has actually fallen by 14 per cent since 2001. Holding onto that trend and keeping a lid on violence in a growing city and State means we’re in the process of putting more police officers on the front line and building no fewer than 23 police stations across the state.

We want the community to see and feel that presence – especially in regional WA where we’re building multi-functional police facilities at Bidyadanga, Dampier Peninsular, Kalumbaru and Warakurna and starting new police buildings at Jiggalong and Warnum in line with the recommendations of the Gordon Inquiry.

Environment
Community safety is bedrock Labor priority. So is the environment. Our Labor Government has brought the environment into our mainstream political thinking. The environment is integral to decision making. Its no longer a separate issue to be considered in isolation or as an afterthought.

That won’t change.

Western Australia’s recent environmental history is marked by two major decisions; both of them driven by Geoff Gallop. Geoff ended logging in old growth forests, and said ‘no’ to the development at Mauds Landing alongside the Ningaloo Reef.

Those decisions reflected a sea change in attitude in the Western Australian community. We will continue to make the protection of our unique environment an integral part of our agenda. A major part of environmental management must be focussed on what energy source we use to power our community in the future.

Energy
The debate in Australia today is focussed on nuclear energy. It should be broader than that. John Howard wants us to talk about a nuclear energy strategy – I want a national energy strategy for the future. I don’t want Western Australia positioned to become the world’s nuclear waste dump.

At the last State Conference, the Labor Party re-committed its opposition to uranium mining. We do not want to be part of the nuclear fuel cycle which will inevitably lead to massive pressure on us to become the world’s nuclear waste dump.

There are plenty of people who DO want just that. You hear them already in the Federal WA Liberal Party ranks. t’s not as if we don’t have any choices. As a nation, we can do more on renewable energy. Our Government will.

In WA, we have enormous gas reserves. What I want is for Western Australia’s gas energy reserves to figure more prominently not only in the world’s energy mix, not only in our own States strategic development, but – critically – in Australia’s national energy source portfolio for the future.

We need a national energy debate. Not a nuclear debate.

What if?
Delegates, we can never let WA slip back into the stagnant pool of directionless drifting we were in by the end of the last decade of the 20th Century.

Labor has been prepared to take decisions that make a real difference; been prepared to make decisions in the long term interests of the state. We’ve had the guts to make those decisions and the community is better for it and will be even more so as time goes on.Let’s just think about where we would be if hadn’t made those decisions.

• If we had walked in and believed that our education and training system was doing just fine…We wouldn’t have increased apprenticeships and traineeships by 60 per cent; kids would still be leaving school untrained at the age of 15, and our education standards would be falling – not rising.
• If we had continued the philosophy that public transport was simply an afterthought in transport planning…The people in Greenwood, Clarkson and Thornlie wouldn’t be using their new stations to travel on our rail network, and the people in our southern suburbs wouldn’t be getting their new rail line. That rail line will transform Perth. It took guts. It actually took Alannah.

• If we hadn’t decided the health system needed a complete overhaul…Billions of dollars would have continued to flood into a bottomless pit with no sign of improvement and no hope of a better model.
• If we had used the previous Government’s approach to regional development…Geraldton would still be waiting for its transformation, waiting for the end of the squabbling between the Nationals and Liberals.
• If we had continued the Liberal’s financial management policies…Western Power, Water Corporation and who knows what else would have been put up for sale to the highest bidder and we’d still be broke.

We’ve only just begun. We’ve taken the first few steps, just the first few baby steps, there’s so much more to be done. We need a decade of this. Or more.

NOTE: This is an edited excerpt of the Premier speech to State Conference. The full speech is available under ‘downloads’ on this page.