Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

There is one question Western Australians need to answer: have you actually been better or worse off since Labor came to government in 2022? In WA, we know Labor has delivered higher costs of living, higher mortgages, 12 interest rate rises, higher costs of doing business, shortages of housing and rental properties, and shortages of skilled workers in spite of record immigration. Western Australians are paying higher prices, higher taxes and higher mortgage repayments because of Labor's homegrown inflation. Labor is trying desperately to manipulate headline inflation through taxpayer funded subsidies, subsidies that will be paid for by current and future generations of WA taxpayers.

Over and above this, let's consider how Labor is deliberately and actively damaging Western Australia by closing the live sheep trade. As a farmer myself, I well understand why WA farmers know that the Labor government believes that we are expendable, that we simply don't matter. Axing the live sheep trade is a prime example. We Western Australians know that Labor is totally east coast, city, elite, activist focused, dictating to and actively sacrificing WA farmers and our communities. Every family and farming business matters in regional communities. That is something that Labor either doesn't understand or couldn't care less about. Each one of these businesses keeps their community going by buying locally from other small businesses and contractors. Livestock transporters, shearers, truckies, stock agents, schools, vets, mechanics and other small businesses are the lifeblood of rural and regional Australia. They're the ones that support our local volunteer emergency services, and sporting and community groups. Every local dollar that circulates in these communities helps to keep the whole community sustainable.

How about the dreadful financial and personal stress this is forcing onto our farmers and their families? Labor couldn't give a damn in WA. When I watched the then Labor ag minister smiling as he held up Labor's document to end live exports, I thought, 'How disgusting for WA farmers—an eastern states federal Labor minister celebrating an end to a farming industry in WA.' Labor is coming after WA farmers one sector at a time.

It's not just WA farmers; it's also our beautiful, productive regional communities. Labor is planning to build hundreds of around 300-metre offshore wind turbines in our iconic Geographe Bay, off my electorate. Labor will ride roughshod over our south-west by literally forcing our communities to bear the massive burden of Labor's intermittent, unreliable renewables-only obsession. Like the live sheep closure, Labor is targeting Western Australians once again. Its ruinously expensive green offshore wind dream is our regional communities' worst nightmare. Picture 4,000 square kilometres of hundreds of these 300-metre turbines in our pristine Geographe Bay. What a dreadful and appalling blight on our marine environment in an area that is a major tourist and recreation attraction in the south-west of WA.

People come to enjoy the sheer beauty and the amazing marine recreational area. They don't come to see visual pollution or bird-killing 300-metre wind turbines or the prospect of significant damage to our marine life. With each one of these actually needing exclusion zones, no-go zones, you can imagine the amount of ocean that won't be able to be enjoyed by our local people and tourists alike. With hundreds of turbines, these exclusion zones will excise and lock out all other activities all around the areas of the bay, with hundreds of kilometres of undersea cable, substations and onshore transmission lines.

Of course Western Australians will be guaranteed to pay more for their power because of the enormous cost of offshore wind. According to a CSIRO report last year, it's at least three times more expensive than onshore wind and the massive turbines will only last 25 years before they have to be removed and replaced—or south-western WA will be left with rotting wind towers in our pristine Geographe Bay. The community says no, and the coalition has said no. Our south-west and WA can be confident there will be no wind factory in Geographe Bay under a coalition government. That's in contrast to a Labor Government that continues to punish WA and our critical mining and resources sector, with changes around industrial relations, the nature positive act, layer upon layer of red and green tape, and uncertainty over approvals. They are continuously biting the hand that feeds them that is Western Australia. We on the coalition side will stand up for Western Australia every day of the week.

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