[acknowledgements omitted]
Friends:
Fifty-two years ago, Western Australia’s longest serving Premier, Sir David Brand, delivered his last speech in the Legislative Assembly.
The Liberal leader said:
This is a great State with a wonderful future.
It will only remain great if we believe in its future and in the vast opportunities that lie ahead.
It will remain great if we are prepared to work and to produce in order that we may be able to enjoy a better way of life.
He added:
I believe that development will proceed rapidly – whether it be the bringing of water and gas from the north, or the development of nuclear energy for power.
I believe all these developments will come.
Friends:
Sir David Brand knew that the prosperity of this great state was centred around prospecting, producing and providing.
As Premier, his decisions helped unleash the mining-pastoral boom of the 1960s.
Western Australia transformed as a result.
From a state dependent on Commonwealth money.
To a state contributing money to the Commonwealth.
And since the 1960s, the story of the West has been one of astonishing success.
Booming industries – especially the resource sector – have generated revenue and royalties that have not only benefited this state.
The work done by Western Australians – and the wealth generated by Western Australia – have done wonders more widely.
The success of the West has helped fund the NDIS and our aged care system.
The success of the West has helped build new roads and infrastructure across the nation.
The success of the West is helping to equip our defence force with long-range missiles and nuclear-powered submarines.
When this state rises, it lifts the nation with it.
When Western Australians prosper, Australians across the country prosper.
Just like Sir David Brand, I believe in this great state.
I believe in its future – in the vast opportunities that lie ahead.
I believe in Western Australians.
Because Western Australians work hard.
Because Western Australians are productive.
Because the endeavours of Western Australians not only create better lives for themselves, but also for their fellow Australians.
Indeed, Western Australia’s economic contribution per person is 60 per cent higher than the national average.
Western Australians need a Prime Minister who has at heart their best interests and the national interest.
A Prime Minister who understands that when you support the West, you also support the rest.
But Western Australians are not getting the strong support they deserve from this weak Prime Minister.
Anthony Albanese hasn’t just turned his back on the West.
He has betrayed the West.
And the country is worse off because of it.
The front page of The West Australian on the 12th of September said it all:
The headline read: ‘Labor’s War on the West’.
Those sobering words speak volumes.
About the Albanese Government’s attack on sectors critical to Western Australia’s economy.
About Federal Labor’s scornful attitude towards this state.
Many Western Australians are asking this question:
‘Why is Labor waging a war on the West?’
The answer is because the Labor Party has changed.
Gone is the pragmatic and patriotic Labor Party that many Australians knew under Bob Hawke and Paul Keating.
Today’s Labor Party has abandoned its working-class roots.
And Australians are waking up to four key features of modern Labor.
First, Labor’s rank and file is increasingly dominated by activists.
The priorities of these activists are to wage environmental and social crusades – especially against primary industries.
This is a party which has sidelined the national interest for niche interests.
Second, Labor has embraced a radical policy platform.
It’s worried about bleeding votes to inner city Greens candidates.
It’s allowed itself to be dragged further to the left in adopting positions to appease that voting constituency.
Third, Labor is even more beholden to its paymasters today than once they were.
The Government has implemented an antiquated workplace agenda to give the big union bosses exactly what they want – new power in national life.
And that’s come at the expense of what’s in the best interests of everyday employers and employees – as well as small and family businesses.
Fourth, Labor is unashamedly pressing forward with a Big State agenda which involves the following:
Unprecedented interference in the private sector, increasing the size of the state and putting government at the very centre of people’s lives.
Labor has rejected the lesson of history – that prosperity comes from empowered citizens.
Instead, it has embraced the mistake of history – that prosperity comes from expanding the power of government.
It’s these four features of modern Labor which are shaping so much of the Albanese Government’s policy platform.
That’s why we’re seeing environment, industry, industrial relations, and energy policies that are ideologically-driven – but economically irresponsible.
That’s why the Government is targeting miners, manufacturers, energy producers, small businesses, farmers, fishers and foresters across the country.
Western Australia has a large concentration of sectors that are in the Government’s crosshairs.
That’s why this state is on the frontline of Labor’s assault.
And here’s the most contemptible part:
When the Prime Minister visits the West, when he stays for longer than a fuel stop on route abroad, he has the gall to utter soothing words of support to Western Australians.
In Perth on the 8th of May, the Prime Minister spoke about the importance of gas for our nation’s wealth and energy security.
Two days later he was on ABC Radio Canberra.
He told listeners that ‘not a single government dollar’ would be invested in gas under his Future Made in Australia plan.
At the same conference in Perth, the Prime Minister talked-up his ‘pro-trade’ agenda.
Three days later, the then Agriculture Minister announced the ban of live sheep exports.
Murray Watt couldn’t even look farmers in the face when he delivered that devastating news.
Weasel words have become the norm for this Government.
A Government which says one thing on the west coast and the opposite on the east coast.
A Government lacking conviction and maturity because it’s always trying to walk both sides of the street.
Friends:
Western Australia has been weakened by the Albanese Government.
Australians are hurting under Federal Labor.
The forthcoming election matters more than others in recent history.
The stakes are higher.
The next election will not only define the next political term.
It will define the future and fate of this state – and our nation.
Australians can’t afford three more years of the wrecking ball which is the Albanese Government.
Labor returned in majority government will simply see it double-down on its damaging policies.
Australians certainly can’t afford three years of a Labor minority government.
One in which the green-Teals or the extreme-Greens hold the balance of power.
Our economy will tank if we don’t have 24/7 power.
Yet almost all the Teals are demanding that there be no new gas projects.
The economically illiterate Greens have called for a $500 billion ‘Robin Hood’ tax.
That tax would de-industrialise our economy as we know it.
Consider Monique Ryan, Kate Chaney, Adam Bandt and Max Chandler-Mather.
They all advocate for policies which will have disastrous implications for Western Australia and our nation.
Alarmingly, they are the very people who could hold the balance of power in a Labor minority Government.
Friends:
From today through to the day of the federal election, we must continue to warn our fellow Australians about what’s at stake.
As we draw closer to the election, I believe more-and-more Australians will realise the risks of a returned Labor Government – in majority or minority.
There are three questions every Australian of voting age should be asking themselves.
Three questions we should be asking of our fellow Australians on the campaign trail.
Three questions I’ll ask of you – so I can hear your response:
‘Are you better off today than you were two years ago?’
‘Do you feel safer and more secure today than you did two years ago?’
‘Do you think our country is more socially cohesive and united today than it was two years ago?’
I’m sure most Australians would also answer ‘No’ to all these questions.
Just consider the following:
Across the nation, the cost-of-living crisis continues to bite.
And there’s no relief in sight given Labor’s three reckless, wasteful and inflationary budgets.
The Government also presses ahead with its renewables-only energy policy trainwreck.
Electricity bills haven’t come down by $275 as was promised.
Instead, Australians are now paying some of the most expensive power prices in the world.
We see conflicts being waged abroad.
There are tensions in our own region.
And yet, the Government is cutting funding from defence.
It’s moving at a snail’s pace to bolster our military deterrence.
Instead of standing with our allies, our Foreign Minister treats Israel like an adversary.
Meanwhile, our Immigration Minister grants tourist visas to 3,000 people from a terrorist-controlled war zone without conducting thorough background checks.
We all recall the former Labor Government losing control of our borders when it allowed 50,000 people to arrive illegally by boat.
Well, this Labor Government has allowed 50,000 asylum seekers to arrive by plane.
Having opened the migration floodgates, Labor has brought in a record one million migrants in just its first two years.
Single-handedly, the Government has turned a housing challenge into a housing crisis.
At a time when we need unity, the Prime Minister’s Voice referendum divided the country.
And in a vacuum of leadership, youth crime and anti-Semitism have surged on our streets.
Now as I’ve said before, Anthony Albanese is a decent man.
But he has proven to be a Prime Minister out of his depth.
He has failed three key tests:
Managing the economy.
Keeping us safe.
And keeping us united.
His record in just two years is a litany of broken promises, wrong priorities, poor decisions and policy disasters.
The Prime Minister said he wanted to change the country.
He certainly has.
He’s changed it for the worse.
Friends:
Do I think the Coalition can win the next federal election?
We can – and we must.
Not because we seek to win for winning’s sake.
But because we must stop the national decline before it becomes irreversible.
We must get our country back on track.
I’m determined to ensure that one of the weakest and most damaging first-term governments in our nation’s history does not get a second term.
And in the federal election contest to come, Western Australia is a key battleground state.
We know Labor will resort to its usual dirty tactics.
They will unleash more scare campaigns – as they’ve done on nuclear power.
They will throw mud.
They will play the man and not the ball.
When we speak truths and facts, they will call it misinformation or disinformation.
But Australians are not mugs.
They will see through Labor’s tactics – just as they did during the Voice referendum.
And in the great Liberal tradition, we will engage in a civilised battle of ideas.
We will put our faith in the common sense and experiences of everyday Australians.
Friends:
The Coalition isn’t simply a formidable and united Opposition.
We go to the next election ready to govern.
Together with our Nationals colleagues, we’re a patriotic party, with a patriotic vision, for patriotic Australians.
We have a plan with the policies to match – which all patriotic Australians can get behind and unify under.
There’s much we have announced already:
We will rein-in Labor’s reckless and wasteful spending to lower inflation.
We will restrict social media use for children under the age of 16.
We will remove indoctrination from our classrooms and reinstate critical thinking.
We will develop national uniform knife laws and toughen bail laws.
Importantly, we will tackle our housing crisis head-on by addressing supply, construction and ownership.
We will free-up more than 100,000 homes over five years by cutting the permanent migration program by 25 per cent for two years and by banning foreign buyers and temporary residents from purchasing existing properties for two years.
But we won’t change negative gearing or capital gains tax benefits.
This morning, we committed $5 billion under a new program to support the building of essential infrastructure for new housing – like water, power, sewage and access roads.
Funds will be provided on a strictly ‘use it or lose it basis’ – an incentive to fast-track the building of detached housing with backyards.
And we’re confident we can unlock up to 500,000 homes.
We will also freeze any changes to the National Construction Code for ten years.
The building industry will have the certainty it needs to get on with the job of constructing homes.
As we’ve already announced, we will allow Australians to access their super to buy their first home.
These are just some of our policies.
And I’ll touch on others shortly.
The energy of our cause will build as we release more bold policies in the times ahead.
And I want all Western Australians to be clear about what a Coalition Government under my leadership will mean for them.
Let me put to bed one of Labor’s scare campaigns.
When the Coalition was last in government, we put in place a GST deal with the then Western Australian state government.
I say again today, under a government I lead, this deal will not change.
The deal is set in stone.
I want to see confidence and certainty returned to Western Australia’s economy – and our national economy.
And that includes restoring certainty and confidence for small and family businesses.
That’s why a Coalition Government will increase the instant asset write-off to $30,000 and make this arrangement ongoing.
And why we will revert to the simple definition of a casual worker in support of our nation’s 2.5 million small businesses.
Australia’s resource sector has been treated like dirt under the Albanese Government.
Labor’s excessive red and green tape – and its funding of advocates to wage lawfare – has created hardships, hurdles and headwinds for the sector.
Nationally, almost 60 per cent of iron ore, coal and gas major projects have been delayed, disrupted or put on hold.
Thousands of jobs have been lost – or put at risk.
No more so than in Western Australia’s nickel operations.
Australia has a pipeline of 421 resource and energy projects with an investment value of more than $525 billion.
Almost 40 per cent of those projects are Western Australian.
I repeat the commitment I made during Minerals Week:
A Dutton Coalition Government will be the best friend that the resources sector in Australia will ever have.
We will defund the Environmental Defenders Office.
We will remove the complexity and draconian parts of Labor’s workplace laws.
We will slash project approval timeframes in half.
We will accredit states and territories to provide approvals.
We will re-introduce geological assessments to unlock new projects.
We will include gas in the Capacity Investment Scheme – to drive investment in recognition of the crucial role gas plays in our energy mix.
We will build on our strengths in iron ore, coal, gas, gold and copper.
We will grow opportunities in critical minerals, rare earths and uranium.
Under a Dutton Coalition Government, more excavators will dig, more gas will flow, and more trucks will move.
I want to turbocharge our resource sector so it thrives.
A thriving resource sector will help see us through the current economic troubles and usher in new prosperity.
Just as the minerals beneath our ground are a national asset, so too is our prime agricultural land.
Farmers helped forge this country.
They continue to grow crops and raise livestock of the highest quality – under some of the highest standards in the world – which are sought after by countries around the world.
The enterprise and exports of our farmers remain critical to our national resilience and prosperity.
Last month, I was proud to join farmers who had flocked to Canberra – including many who had travelled all the way from WA.
And I will reiterate to you what I said to them:
We will keep the sheep.
We will end Labor’s live sheep export ban.
And I promise farmers here in Western Australia – and across the nation – a Coalition Government will have your backs.
Playing to our natural strengths, I want to make our nation a mining, agricultural and manufacturing powerhouse again.
But to do that, we need to get power prices down and shore-up our nation’s future energy security.
Friends:
If Labor continues to take us down the renewables-only path, they will cheat our country out of future opportunities.
They will deny future generations of Australians the prosperity that previous generations have known.
Weather-dependent and intermittent sources of energy on their own cannot power a nation.
Reliable baseload power is critical.
To grow our sovereign and heavy industries.
To accommodate increasing electricity demands of a larger population – one that will be increasingly reliant on data and AI.
We can only get cheaper, cleaner and consistent energy if Australia joins the growing league of nuclear-powered nations.
I make no apologies for taking an energy policy to this election that’s in our long-term national interest.
Alongside gas and renewables, zero-emission nuclear power is an essential ingredient for our energy mix.
With nuclear, there’s no need to carpet our landscape and coastline with industrial-scale solar and wind farms.
Or the 28,000 kilometres of new transmission lines needed to make them work.
The Government is steamrolling over communities with its ideologically driven renewables-only roll-out.
But we understand the concerns and anger of residents whose lives, communities and industries are impacted.
That’s why – yesterday at Busselton – I announced that a Coalition Government will rescind the Indian Ocean Offshore Wind Zone.
And I call on the Albanese Government to follow suit.
With a miniscule environmental footprint, zero-emission nuclear power is better for our environment.
And if Labor is serious about acquiring nuclear-powered submarines, it would join us in this civil nuclear industry endeavour.
A latest generation nuclear plant at Muja will not only deliver social, economic and industrial benefits for the local Collie community.
It would also complement the work taking place under AUKUS at HMAS Stirling and the Henderson shipyard.
Last Wednesday, the Government announced a modest investment in the Henderson precinct.
We welcome that investment.
But for a Government that often speaks about the precarious times in which we live, it’s drip-feeding dollars to defence.
The Albanese Government has adopted the naïve position that diplomacy alone can always save the day.
In contrast, a Dutton Coalition Government will make a significant investment in defence.
Not only to build munitions and platforms at speed and scale for deterrence.
But also because we recognise the nation-building potential of AUKUS.
Work on nuclear-powered submarines, undersea capabilities, AI, hypersonics and other cutting-edge technologies will have more than military applications.
AUKUS has the potential to transform our civil industrial base and be a new arm of our economy.
I see Western Australia as central to that national endeavour – just as it has been for mining.
Friends:
Through our commitment, courage and composure, I am sure that in growing numbers and with growing confidence Australians will back us to get our country back on track.
If they give us that opportunity at the next election, it will be their victory.
It will be a victory for Australia.
And it will certainly be a victory for Western Australia.
Thank you.
[ends]