Nats’ big guns fire in the city

Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack has backed the Nationals party to take Geraldton in next month’s State election, with the party opting to officially launch its State campaign there.

Nationals Federal leader Mr McCormack visited on Friday to attend the launch, where WA party leader Mia Davies, deputy party leader and member for Moore Shane Love and incumbent member for Geraldton Ian Blayney announced $1.4 billion in election promises to the State.

“March 13 is going to be a watershed day for WA voters. On that day, those people in Western Australia who live in the regions have a very clear, a very stark choice,” Mr McCormack said.

“They get the sort of delivery ... that is going to create opportunities, most importantly jobs, to lift the prospects of these regions, or they get the choice of just a Perth-centric, a city-centric administration.

“Now, of course, the capital city is important for Western Australia. There's no doubt about that, but so to other regions. It’s the regions which are creating the mining, it’s the regions which are creating the agricultural wealth.”

He said he wouldn’t have visited if he didn’t think the Nationals and Mr Blayney had an “absolute winning chance” of taking Geraldton.

Ms Davies detailed three new election commitments, which included a $100 million investment of Royalties for Regions to deliver sustainable and affordable housing, $200m for upgrades to agricultural freight road and rail networks and a $900m regional road safety program to upgrade more than 17,000km of WA roads.

Later on Friday, Mr Blayney promised extensions to Geraldton sporting facilities worth $5.15m.

The biggest items were $3m for the Geraldton Basketball Association to extend and renovate its stadium, and $1m for Towns Football Club to upgrade change rooms, develop its stadium and build coaching boxes.