2025-01-05
Lamenting Labor’s efforts in this term on housing, climate action, youth justice and more and suggesting Greens’ solutions
By Hon Brad Pettitt, MLC, Member for South Metropolitan
The 41st Parliament of Western Australia has now been prorogued until the writs for the 2025 state election are issued on 5 February and the election itself is held on Saturday 8 March!!
The window has now closed on Labor’s only ever opportunity to govern with a majority in both houses of parliament and a multibillion-dollar bucket of budget surpluses. But what have they actually achieved?
There are fewer social houses per capita now than when Labor came to power.
There’s been a belated attempt to turn this around in the last year by throwing money at the problem but the reality is that we are in too deep of a crisis to just build our way out of it.
The WA Labor Government overcommitted to massive new infrastructure projects during COVID to help stimulate the economy; unfortunately, none of these projects were for housing. Instead, they threw billions at the Bunbury and Albany outer ring roads which only contributed to the lack of capacity to build housing by drawing essential construction workers away from the areas of need!
Rents have gone from the cheapest to the highest in the country, with reporting earlier this month showing Perth is now the country’s least affordable rental market – worse than Sydney!
We’re the only state without minimum standards for private rental properties – including energy efficiency standards like air conditioning and insulation – and we’ve already seen a couple of days approaching 40 degrees as we head into another sweltering summer. Couple that with no-reason evictions that strip tenants of any power to make their rental property a home and its no surprise WA is hardly a haven for renters. And this is less than 12 months after labor pushed through rental tenancies legislation that still left us at the back of the pack.
Coming into another hot summer, we’re also at the back of the pack when it comes to climate action.
Not only did this Labor government quietly kill off their own climate bill that would’ve have at least seen a legislated pathway to net zero by 2050, but they’ve also approved Woodside’s Burrup Hub, paving the way for the biggest and dirtiest fossil fuel project to be approved.
It’s no surprise, given this approval will allow Woodside to continue extracting, processing and exporting gas out to 2070 which is completely incompatible with net zero by 2050. We’re now the only state where emissions are still rising and the only state with no 2030 emissions reduction or renewable energy targets.
The Government has also made sweeping reforms to the environmental protection authority undermining its independence from government, removing public appeal rights and getting rid of any state regulation of emissions, making it easier and cheaper for big corporations to fast-track environmental approval.
Let’s be very clear about why these things have all happened under a Labor government who promised to take action on climate and protect our environment...
In terms of state capture by the gas industry, there is very little to distinguish Labor from the Liberals. In fact they have responded more viciously to peaceful climate campaigners than the previous government.
WA’s youth justice system has also hit rock bottom over this term of Parliament. We’ve continued to support the families and advocates for the kids locked up in Banksia Hill and Unit 18 and through Parliament we’ve helped to expose the government’s fundamental failure to reform what is a broken and racist system that has seen two young people tragically lose their lives in the last 18 months.
But it’s clear that the system needs urgent reform and so too does the Department that runs it; we’ll keep pushing for kids to be treated with compassion and given a second chance in the next term of Parliament.
Over the last four years we have also managed to achieve some wins, despite being the only Greens MP in WA Parliament.
We pushed the government into an inquiry into homelessness, which delivered a report with concrete recommendations we can push for in the next term.
We worked alongside the LGBTQIA+ community to push for reforms to the Equal Opportunity Act and, while we didn’t get everything we wanted, this advocacy spelt the end of WA’s archaic gender reassignment board. In the next term we’ll push to strengthen this reform with self-identification as the leading principle, an end to conversion practices and stronger consent laws for intersex kids.
We’ve also been pushing really hard for an end to Greyhound Racing and finally, just before the year was over, the only non-Labor dominated committee that I sit on managed to launch an inquiry into this cruel and inhumane “sport” that found a proper investigation and a pathway to ending greyhound racing once and for all must be implemented in the next term; a huge win!
It may have been a disappointing four years, but the fight is not over – we can stop the Burrup Hub, save Scott Reef and protect our beautiful south-west forests from mining. We can fix the housing crisis and improve renters’ rights. We can reduce the cost of living so that families no longer have to choose between putting food on the table or paying their bills. We can make our society a more compassionate, equal and sustainable place to live.
We just need more Greens in state parliament.
That’s why I can’t wait to get out there and campaign in the new year to get more of us in the upper house and hopefully the balance of power!
Header photo: Protest against Woodside on 13th December prompted by approval of the North West Shelf extension Tim Oliver