All public commentary to date suggests it is still on track for that price tag, but in today’s inflated construction market, there is absolutely no way it is still going to cost that.
Another issue dogging Labor is health and housing.
Artist impression of the new Royal Perth Hospital S block.
Ambulance ramping hit records above 7000 hours this winter flu season and maintenance issues at its ageing hospitals have created a perfect storm in health.
In response to pressure from the opposition over its management of the health portfolio, the government has announced $64.6 million in extra hospital maintenance and refurbishments to get on top of the ageing infrastructure.
It has also set aside $1.5 billion to complete three major health projects up until the next election: an entirely new hospital at the Peel Health Campus, purchasing the Mt Lawley Hospital from St John of God and adding a new ward and ED to Royal Perth Hospital.
Peel and RPH won’t open in the next year, so Labor will still be dealing with a constrained system, and if the next winter flu system is also a shocker, it could end up in more horror headlines.
WA’s skyrocketing population growth and heated construction market continue to drag on any progress made in housing.
The public housing waitlist is stubbornly high at more than 23,000 applicants and 7800 priority applicants and while the government is making inroads by, as Housing Minister John Carey frames it, being bold, it just can’t build the homes at the rate it needs to.
Expect more left-of-centre announcements like the purchase of the Fraser Suites hotel.
There remains a ticking time bomb in Perth’s southern suburbs as Hakea continues to be rammed with prisoners who are triple-bunking in cells with some men sleeping centimetres from the shared toilets, according to prisons inspector Eamon Ryan.
On Christmas Eve some guards were injured in an “incident” at the remand facility. The government’s worst nightmare would be for a guard to be severely injured or worse at Hakea when all the warning signs were there.
Hakea Prison.
It’s clear the state needs a new adult prison, but with an expansive infrastructure program on the cards, including an expansion of Acacia and the Unit 18 replacement alongside Banksia Hill it will take years to open, leaving the government exposed in the near term.
The Cook government and WA Police have a good relationship with the state’s Jewish community but as the fallout of the Bondi massacre continues, they will feel more pressure to do more to stamp out any anti-Semitism in the state. This will include agitation from the opposition and the Jewish community to support a national royal commission into Bondi and anti-Semitism.
It’s just four years until 2030 when Labor has promised to end coal-fired power in the state.
There are still monumental hurdles to overcome, including building transmission lines to support more renewables on the grid as well as building or supporting private capital to build their own.
Opposition
Unbridled by the need to make any actual decisions, being opposition is a comfortable position to be in and with a bit of experience under his belt now, Zempilas’ job for 2026 is to keep at the government, find more chinks in their armour and hammer them.
Zempilas will need to win over the hearts and minds of the electorate who either aren’t impressed or downright detest him.
A big cohort he needs to prove himself to is women and social progressives, of which there are many in his own electorate.
He needs to continue to walk the tightrope between pleasing his own voters on issues like climate change and social justice while appealing to the conservatives in his own party.
Leader of the opposition of Western Australia, Basil Zempilas.Credit: AAPIMAGE
Expect some more public stoushes with Canning MP Andrew Hastie.
He also needs to start building the foundation this year for his party’s 2029 campaign. That means sorting out a workable model for a Nationals and Liberals formal coalition which will not be easy given the Nationals got dudded by the Liberals on upper house seats at the last election.
He will also need to address his party’s penchant for preselecting awful candidates that do nothing but detract from the Liberals’ campaign.
Greens
There was much ado made about the Greens holding the balance of power in the upper house after the March election but in the end, Labor didn’t require it.
It’s hard to foresee any legislation that will require their support this year either, but you never know – a year is a long time in politics.
