Western Australia (WA) Labor has promised to “power up” cost of living relief and boost local manufacturing if it’s re-elected in what is widely tipped to be an unlosable poll.
Less than two weeks from the March 8 state election, Premier Roger Cook outlined the party’s vision for WA at its official campaign launch on Sunday.
“Our vision—WA Labor’s vision—is one that takes this state forward,” Cook told about 400 party faithful, including former premiers Mark McGowan and Peter Dowding.
“We’ve used our time to establish powerful economic foundations but that’s just the start.
“From a position of strength, we can and will do even more.”
Cook said WA wasn’t a “one-trick pony” focused only on mining, as he launched the “Made in WA” plan to bring locally made products, innovations and manufacturing to the forefront of the state’s economy.
“We’re now at the beginning of Western Australia’s next economic chapter,” he said to cheers.
“This is our plan to elevate our skills and industries ... and set our economy up for the future.
Cook said Labor would also “turbocharge” the rollout of home batteries linked to solar panels if it won a third term in office.
“Under WA Labor, the residential battery revolution will begin,” he said.
“It’s the start of a people-powered future” with $5,000 to $7,500 to be made available to households to buy batteries,” the premier said.
The government holds 53 seats in the lower house with the Liberals and Nationals holding three each after Labor’s unprecedented landslide victory in 2021, under then-Premier Mark McGowan, primarily due to the party’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and its closed border policy.
Experts are tipping a comfortable win for Labor but its massive majority is likely to shrink as the conservatives claim back seats lost in the last two elections and it could lose power in the upper house.
The WA Liberal Party also launched its campaign on Sunday, with leader Libby Mettam promising “a return to common sense government.”
Mettam said if elected, her government would restore upper house representation for the disenfranchised regions following electoral boundary reforms under Labor.
“We will fix that and not add to the country-city divide at a time when regional Western Australia needs support,” she said.
“We will engage with farmers, landowners, Aboriginal people and the community as a whole with the intention of amending the Act,” she said.
Mettam also pledged to protect small businesses from red tape and ease licence requirements for commercial fishers.
She also spruiked the party’s measures to tackle the cost-of-living crisis and crime and bolster health.
“We will apply common sense solutions to common sense problems,” she said.
The Liberal Party, which has an uneasy alliance with official opposition National Party, has been rocked by instability in recent months amid leadership speculation.
Multiple candidates, some of whom have resigned, have been accused of being “bigots, dodgy builders or One Nation rejects.”
Early polling starts on Monday.
