Barry Haase (Kalgoorlie, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise this evening with a grievance about the lack of available accommodation for workers in the Pilbara, specifically in the area of Port Hedland and South Hedland. For a number of years now, the state government has absolutely ignored the need for worker housing in that area, an area that is providing the impetus for growth and prosperity in this nation, with iron ore exports into China creating a boom environment. The only thing that is a hurdle to improving that prosperity is the fact that we cannot source housing to accommodate workers. Every possible opportunity to place a bed and house a worker has been well and truly taken up. Companies are buying up hotels, backpacking facilities and caravan parks and converting them into accommodation for their own employees.

This problem began around the start of 2000. The government knew full well that the iron ore industry was going to have an explosion of opportunities for exports into China, but, with the government’s focus fixed on suburban Perth, there was simply no consideration of the requirement for expenditure on low-cost housing or the release of land—LandCorp were sitting on their hands. As a result, today we have a three-bedroom, one-bathroom house going for about $1,000 a week—if you can get hold of one. Each time they become vacant the rent increases by about another 40 per cent. A house, if one comes on the market, will cost you anywhere between $500,000 and $700,000.

It is an enormous problem that has existed for too long and, because the state government has done nothing to ease the problem, a mere 70 housing blocks have been released in the past four years. There were going to be some 370 blocks made available but the nesting turtles on a nearby beach took precedence and those who are more sympathetic to turtles than economic progress won the day, the 370 blocks were held and a mere 70 were made available.

We have a progressive company in the Pilbara by the name of Fortescue Metals Group that is trying to become the latest in the list of iron ore exporters and is frustrated by the lack of accommodation. We have a set of circumstances where a state government, with no motivation to analyse what is happening outside the suburbs of Perth, are the cause of restricting prosperity in the Pilbara. They are restricting the opportunities for people to live in the Pilbara and contribute to the economic mining boom that is happening in Australia today.

Recently a crowd from Kalgoorlie, some 1,600 kilometres away, had to buy the 110-year-old Esplanade Hotel, a tourism icon, because they have a number of employees on contract in Port Hedland. A hotel that has been a watering hole for generations of Pilbarites is now no longer licensed because it has been taken up to use as accommodation. The managing director of Gould Transport, Doug Gould, tried to buy land and housing, but every time a lease came up the price became so excessive that it was out of reasonable reach.

This is having the greatest impact on the service industries. With the price they are receiving for ore, the mining companies can afford to pay top dollar to buy up existing properties and convert them into accommodation. But those people who are stacking shelves in Coles, driving taxis or loading aircraft do not have the luxury of company funded houses. They do not have the luxury of paying through the nose for the housing that is available, and so service industries are closing down. That is not the sort of situation a government wants. The state government are supposedly very concerned with state prosperity and creation of jobs, but, when you put their processes and their attitudes under the magnifying glass, you find that they took their eyes off the ball and have been caught wanting.

One of the solutions that has been talked about locally for some years now, since 2004 in fact, is that of the Port Hedland detention centre. It used to be the Newman Mining single person’s quarters. It was bought by the federal government some years ago when accommodation was urgently required for unannounced arrivals—boat people, illegal immigrants; call them what you like—and it operated as a detention centre for a number of years. In 2004 the centre was closed because of the effectiveness of our border protection policies. Those people smugglers stopped plying their inhuman trade and the detention centre was no longer required on an ongoing basis.

It was a great source of frustration for local people in the Pilbara, because they saw a 400-bed facility that could go a long way to easing the accommodation problem. However, when I first inquired of the minister all those years ago it was quite rightly pointed out that, even though we had good intelligence and strong border protection, we did not know when an emergency would arise that would require those facilities for the accommodation of detainees.

The situation has changed somewhat, thank goodness. We have had some impact with our border protection policies. We have progressed with the construction of a purpose-built facility on Christmas Island and I am very pleased to say that on 1 February this year the previous minister, before he moved out of the portfolio, signed instructions to the department to urgently carry out a review of the status of the Port Hedland detention centre. I have written to the existing minister requesting that the review be well resourced so as to allow a speedy report and an equally speedy decision, which I sincerely hope will make a 400-bed facility available for lease by private enterprise to ease the housing shortage. Of course, 400 beds are a drop in the ocean of the total required, but I say again how pleased I am that, before the previous minister involved moved from his portfolio, he took that very positive decision, realising just how difficult the situation was.

The situation in Port Hedland is at crisis point and I am continually urging the existing minister, Mr Andrews, to have that report tabled sooner rather than later. I have been dealing with local government, local real estate agents and employers in the Port Hedland area. They see no other solution, although I might add that one of the submissions is for what is being termed ‘seatainer accommodation’: stackable self-contained units that are the equivalent of a seatainer in size. Landed at about $12,000 and made available at some $25,000, they are sadly the most readily available solution to local accommodation problems. I am pleased to report that local government is positively considering an application for that style of accommodation to be made available in Karratha. But the wags, the media commentators and the cartoonists have had a great deal of fun with the idea of employees living in seatainers, albeit they are very well appointed and air-conditioned and have all the mod cons. (Time expired)

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