Government of

Department of the Premier and Cabinet

Media Monitoring Unit

TRANSCRIPT

DATE: Wednesday, August 8, 2018

TIME: 5.10pm

PROGRAM: ABC Regional – Drive (NICHOLLS)

SUBJECT: DAVIES – Interview

This transcript is produced for information purposes only. Although all care is taken, no warranty as to its accuracy or completeness is given. It is the reader’s responsibility to ensure by independent verification that all information is correct before placing any reliance on it.

BARRY NICHOLLS

Mia Davies, good afternoon. Do you deliberately set out to create a wedge between the city and country in what you say?

MIA DAVIES

Absolutely not. Our members are elected to represent their constituencies. I know the team that I have sitting around my table spends its time thinking about the policies and initiatives that actually do good things for the regions, help them build, invest. I think, having listened to the playback of what the Premier said, is that he is underestimating regional people. That’s the only takeaway I can… I have from that interview.

BARRY NICHOLLS

He…

MIA DAVIES

In my nearly 10 years, Barry, as a regional representative, I have found regional people pretty astute. They’ve got a great deal of integrity. Of course we have supporters out there and some of them are vocal, but I tell you what, there are many more that aren’t members of political parties that walk up to us and tell us exactly what they think of this Government, and they are disappointed with how they are being treated when they live in regional WA.

BARRY NICHOLLS

He did make the point of the debt that was left and I did ask him later in the interview as to how long you can blame the previous government. I mean, it’s a fair point to say, well, you know, he was… the State Government was left with a considerable debt. Do you think that he… that was caused by the government you were a part of. Do you think he’s got a point there?

MIA DAVIES

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Well, we went to the last State election with a plan to actually try and mitigate some of the debt. The Labor Party came to government without a plan and they came to government with a plan to spend, and they had no way to actually pay for that spending. And you know as well as I do that there is an enormous focus on major projects like Metronet, and to do that they have made cuts. So this… this Government is making and prioritising things in the metropolitan area. That is just a matter of fact.

And when you are starting to see some of those cuts bite into communities like the Carnarvon aged care project that had $10 million taken off it, like the Moora Residential College, like our community resource centres, well, that is when regional people start to say, hang on, how come we’re getting projects that could be pushed back in the metropolitan area in favour of making cuts in areas that are really essential services for us in the bush.

BARRY NICHOLLS

I just need to point out to you that Brendon Grylls got voted out as the Member for the Pilbara because of the iron ore tax that you refer to, that was going to be this… money source, so…

MIA DAVIES

… we had a $4 million campaign from the two major companies running against us, don’t forget that…

BARRY NICHOLLS

… but it didn’t win. It didn’t win did it? In regional WA, so you know, you get a sense of what… what the electorate thought. Look, I just want to ask you, you’ve outlined, you’re saying there that really from your perspective the State Labor Government is really prioritising the city over the country. And that’s part of Mark McGowan’s criticism of you, that you’ve create this… but he has in the budget there were significant announcements for the regions. There was the Geraldton Hospital, which… as he described long overdue that nothing was done about from the Liberal or National government in the previous decade. There were significant road upgrades to the Indian Ocean Drive, the Great Eastern Highway announced. You can’t really say that he’s doing nothing.

MIA DAVIES

And I’ve never said that Barry. I’m not on record anywhere saying that any Government doesn’t spend anything in regional WA. What I’m saying is what I am hearing in regional communities is that there… the focus on regional development, the focus on the things that are important to them has seemed to have been pulled back, and there is projects in the metropolitan area that get funded and prioritised ahead of what we would consider essential services in the bush. And Royalties for Regions is also being pulled away from our communities, people are telling us that they are finding it very difficult to access that fund. And that’s because they’ve actually pushed a whole raft of normal everyday government expenditure into that program.

BARRY NICHOLLS

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They say they’ve made it more efficient. That’s what Mr McGowan said, he said yesterday we’re still rolling it out, which they are.

MIA DAVIES

… are they still… absolutely, Royalties for Regions is still there, but what it’s got now is all of the consolidated revenue funding that used to be paid to the Water Corporation to keep out water prices at the same levels as our metro counterparts is now coming out of Royalties for Regions. The orange school bus service that used to be paid from the Department of Transport that’s now in Royalties for Regions.

They are essential services, we deserve, we pay taxes and we deserve to have those funds allocated. It is insidious the way they are doing it, and this is our criticism. What it does is freeze up funds in those department’s budget so that they can apply more of that funding in areas that they see is priorities, which is Metronet and other metropolitan projects. I’m not making it up Barry, I can assure you that it’s in black and white in the State Budget, and we take a lot of time to go through that, and highlight some of those issues.

BARRY NICHOLLS

Alright, Mia Davies thank you very much for that.

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