‘A year of mixed fortunes’: Moore MLA Shane Love criticises the government for a lack of action in 2022

2022 was a year of many announcements and statements from the State Government but little work getting underway, according to Moore MLA Shane Love. The Deputy Opposition Leader, who will mark 10 years in State politics this year, said there were many issues the Government had either ignored or brushed away last year. The delayed process of delivering relief after cyclone Seroja, with less than $7 million allocated of $104.5m committed by the Government as of November, was a key issue for the Mid West, according to Mr Love. “People are still unable to get their lives back on track, getting their repairs underway, very, very little of the more than $100m allocated towards the recovery has been spent, and we just don’t seem to see anyone taking responsibility for the situation,” he said. Mr Love said the relief process needed to be handled by a non-partisan figure, bringing more accountability to the program. “I think there needs to be an independent person in charge of that recovery and not a government employee, and that person really should have been a person who is experienced in public life, who is no longer involved in politics or perhaps never involved in politics, someone who could call out the problems and get solutions,” he said. The relief process and the delays to upgrades to Geraldton Hospital were two major issues for the local community, and both were signs of a government able to make statements and allocate funding, but not able to get that money where it needs to go, Mr Love said. “I think the government needs to admit there are problems and seek solutions ... money is getting allocated but it isn’t getting to the ground, the Government’s record at making programs run is quite poor even though they make many announcements,” he said. The Government has attributed these delays to the pandemic and the economic difficulties that have been felt in Australia and across the world, causing shortages of labour and rising supply costs, but Mr Love said more accountability could go a long way. In terms of labour shortages, particularly in the health sector, Mr Love said the Nationals would have expanded the definition of an essential worker to help address the issue, if they were in government. “We would tried much harder in terms of recruitment of key staff, we were calling on the government to do this right in the depths of COVID, to broaden the definition of essential workers was, warning that there would be shortages of nursing staff,” he said. The McGowan Government remains popular, with 70 per cent of respondents approving of Mark McGowan as Premier, according to a People’s Voice Survey from Painted Dog Research from October. Mr Love still believes the Nationals have done well in opposition at holding the Government to scrutiny, despite only having six members in WA’s Parliament. “I think we have provided the requirement holding the Government to account quite remarkably,” he said. “It gets very hard given the demands on people’s time, it is very difficult moving forward but we have a great team and I think people notice the difference in the amount of work the Nationals MPs do and their Labor counterparts.” The Moore MLA did, however, say he was concerned about the party’s future, with reforms to the Upper House, which will mean MLCs are elected on a one-vote, one-value basis to represent the entire State rather than through a system that guarantees regions six members each. As a party that aims to represent the regions, Mr Love said he was concerned the Nationals would be hurt most by what he described as an attack on regional voices. “We’ve had the dissolution of regional boundaries which has removed regional representation from the upper house completely ... so in the next election we will see less representation of regional voices,” he said. In 2023, Mr Love said he hopes to see the building industry recover, so that Seroja relief could continue, but also said he was concerned about electricity supply in the Mid West. “I think that we’re going to see the continuance of a lot of the long terms problems we’ve had in the Mid West with power, that’s not really been seriously addressed by the government, and so I will say I think we will see a lot communities suffering from power outages this summer,” he said. For his electorate, Mr Love said it had been a “year of mixed fortunes”, impacted by COVID, lockdowns, labour shortages and the aftermath of Seroja, but also a year which has seen farmers achieve some of their best output on record. “It was great year for some of the farming community, and it was great to see them getting back on track after all the stress they’ve been under these last few years,” he said.