2022-05-04
Here’s what matters to WA voters this election
By Senator Dorinda Cox
Western Australia will be a deciding state this election, with the Greens in a strong position to grow our vote and be in the balance of power.
In shared power, we can tackle the climate crisis, create hundreds of thousands of jobs and make big corporations pay their fair share of tax ‒ so that we can create a safer future for all of us.
In this great state of Western Australia, our Greens vision is more important than ever. In the past few months, I have travelled across WA ‒ from Kalgoorlie, to Geraldton, to Albany and Denmark, I have met with many in our community who are fed up with the status quo. People are fed up with the petty state of play in our national politics. There are so many people who want to believe that things can, and should, be different. And that’s what the Greens uniquely have on offer.
Our state is in a climate crisis ‒ a crisis that is caused by, and accelerated by, the fossil fuel industry and the burning of coal, oil and gas.
West Australians get it. They know the world has pivoted towards a cleaner and greener future powered by renewables, and that the climate crisis is the largest threat to our families and our communities. They know something is seriously wrong when billionaires like Gina Reinhart and Clive Palmer have more than doubled their wealth during a pandemic ‒ and when our state gets more revenue from car registrations than we do from the multi-billion dollar gas industry.
Our clear message ‒ that by phasing out coal and gas power, we can create low carbon communities, jobs and a safer future ‒ strongly resonates out west.
Unlike the Liberal and Labor parties, our vision is grounded in science, and in reality.
Housing unaffordability is also a crucial issue in many communities across WA. As a mother of two girls, I don’t want my kids to grow up and not be able to buy a house anywhere near where they live. Across WA, it’s often too expensive for many people to both pay rent and save for a deposit at the same time. Our housing market is in crisis ‒ and rates are on the way up.
The Labor and Liberal parties are the Coles and Woolies of politics. For the Liberals, affordable housing just isn’t on their radar. Sure enough, Anthony Albanese came to WA and had a bit to say about housing ‒ but as usual, it didn’t go far enough to tackle the real issues we face out west.
Housing unaffordability is not inevitable ‒ it is the result of deliberate public policy choices made by governments. It’s time to make a different choice.
Whether you are renting a home or buying one, a housing system should work for people, not profit. That’s why the Greens will push to build 118,900 homes in Western Australia over the next twenty years as part of our plan to build one million affordable homes across Australia to tackle the housing crisis.
But we won’t stop there. Taxing the billionaires and making them pay their fair share of tax would also mean investments in those areas that for too long, have been neglected ‒ like WA’s chronically underfunded health system. By taxing the billionaires, we can deliver a world-class hospital system for WA, and free mental health and dental care, into Medicare.
For decades, both Liberal and Labor governments have given billionaires and corporations massive tax handouts and tax breaks. But the gig is up.
By making every billionaire and corporation pay their fair share, we can build a safer future for all of us.
Dorinda Cox is a Yamatji Noongar woman and the Australian Greens Senator for WA.