Appropriation (Recurrent 2025–26) Bill 2025
Appropriation (Capital 2025–26) Bill 2025
Cognate debate
Leave granted for the Appropriation (Recurrent 2025–26) Bill 2025 and the Appropriation (Capital 2025–26) Bill 2025 to be dealt with cognately.
Second reading
Resumed from 12 August.
Hon Tjorn Sibma (3:19 pm): I rise as the lead speaker for the opposition on the two appropriation bills we are dealing with cognately, the Appropriation (Recurrent 2025–26) Bill 2025 and the Appropriation (Capital 2025–26) Bill 2025. I am conscious of the fact that the processes of this chamber can sometimes be a little arcane to new members. These bills are about voting the government the money it requests to fulfil its budget ambitions. We are in an odd situation presently in that members are still giving their speeches on the virtues or otherwise of the budget that was handed down two months ago. Before the winter recess, the other place ran through a rapid-fire budget estimates examination process, which has some virtues but also some shortcomings. We are a week away from this chamber embarking on its standard period of scrutiny, the upper house estimates, which is a more focused and deeper examination of some of the budget issues. I am in a position to provide a view on the adequacy or otherwise of the monetary requirements to support the budget before the budget has been fully examined. The government will be relieved to hear that, in spite of that, I will, on behalf of the opposition, support the supply, which is absolutely within convention. I do not necessarily expect that I will get a pleasant note from the Treasurer for my active magnanimity. I have been attempting to do this for eight or nine years, and my support of some of her measures has gone unacknowledged and unrequited—and so long may that continue.
What monetary sums are being sought? The recurrent bill, which deals with the money required to fund the operations of government, seeks $33,278,408,000, with the capital requirement being $7.982 billion. Helpfully, the slimline bills are quite useful, because they categorise by line item the expenditure that the government anticipates will be required to fulfil its ambitions. I think a speaker remarked earlier that it has been only two months since the budget was handed down. That is an interesting but obvious observation, but an observation that takes on, I suppose, an added degree of resonance when we consider the way that the public health system has been the focus of legitimate concerns of the public, the media and both these chambers over the last week. Before I get to the government's additional funding announcement for the health portfolio that it made yesterday, I think it is worthwhile attempting to place in context why these sums of money are being sought and why additional expenditure was announced yesterday that is not captured by either of these bills. I will first take members through what I hope is an instructive and informative view about the way that this government has determined the health portfolio will be managed, before I get to claims that were made in the budget speech two months ago and then reflect on how we got to the point that we were at yesterday and are at today.
One of the very first media statements provided by the third-term Labor government, the first one by the honourable Premier, Roger Cook, under his own steam and, indeed, I think the very first media statement issued by the government about its strategic management approach to the health portfolio was published on 22 March, about a week after the election. The media statement was notable in that the government considered itself to be groundbreaking.
The title it gave to this announcement was "Groundbreaking Cabinet Sub-Committee to deliver new collaborative era in health". The media statement advises those who take an interest:
A newly formed Cabinet Sub-Committee will oversee a new team approach to the delivery of public health in Western Australia.
It will comprise the following individuals:
Health and Mental Health Minister Meredith Hammat to Chair new Cabinet Sub-Committee for Health Coordination
Cabinet Sub-Committee to include Ministers for Health Infrastructure, Preventative Health, Aged Care and Seniors and Medical Research
Bold team approach to health to pursue Cook Government's vision for Western Australia to be the healthiest state in the nation
What was interesting is that individual responsibilities within that health portfolio were seemingly allocated to those constituent members and there was an attempt, at least in terms of that opportunity available in a media statement, to demarcate where those responsibilities begin and end and how those responsibilities are read in comparison to one another. This statement of 22 March was provided before the honourable minister, Meredith Hammat, was sworn in to cabinet, so it refers to her as Ms Hammat and not by her proper title. I am just referring to the document in front of me, which states:
As Health Minister, Ms Hammat will have responsibility for the operational aspects of Western Australia's public hospitals and ambulance services.
As Mental Health Minister, Ms Hammat will be joined by Preventative Health Minister Sabine Winton in the effort to improve the wellbeing of Western Australians and reduce demand on our public hospitals over the long term.
Health Infrastructure Minister John Carey will drive the delivery of new capacity in WA's health system. This includes the new Women's and Babies Hospital project and associated works at Osborne Park and Perth Children's Hospital, as well as emergency department upgrades at Royal Perth and Midland.
Minister Carey will also oversee the delivery of the Cook Government's regional health infrastructure commitments
They are then detailed. It continues:
Minister Simone McGurk will be responsible for Aged Care and Seniors, a portfolio designed to work with the Commonwealth to deliver more aged care places and free up beds in Western Australia's hospitals.
Rounding this out, last but by no means least:
Medical Research Minister Stephen Dawson will lead work to support our health system and the health of Western Australians by ensuring our State is a leader in vital research and innovation.
What can we take from that? What I took from that was that the Minister for Health was purely responsible for the operational management of the public health system, including what happens in public hospitals, as well as managing that relationship between the public hospital system and the ambulance service. What I took from that statement was that the Minister for Health, along with her colleague, the Minister for Mental Health, were on a demand reduction brief to reduce demand on the public health system. Indeed, it is put in these terms:
… improve the wellbeing of Western Australians and reduce demand on our public hospitals …
The Minister for Health Infrastructure, the inimitable Hon John Carey, was purely about the delivery of capacity; that is, building and delivering the infrastructure for the health minister to operate and, in conjunction with the Minister for Mental Health, doing something to reduce the long-term demands on that system. I also took from the statement that Hon Simone McGurk would be in almost constant dialogue with her opposite numbers in the commonwealth, rattling tins, banging fists down on desks and demanding action on aged care. The honourable Leader of the House in this place will be looking at the longer term strategic requirements of instituting an appropriate health infrastructure research fund. I think there is a fair degree of work yet to go in that space. But in terms of being on the hook for the things that go wrong, the Leader of the House has probably got the best end of this bargain.
Why do I find that interesting? I find that interesting because at the same time that we are evaluating whether or not this is an appropriate recurrent and capital appropriation for the health portfolio, alongside other portfolio responsibilities, the way that money is moved and responsibilities are managed within the health system is changing. We have a new cadre of ministers responsible for discrete responsibilities within the health portfolio, or so it seems. To complicate this picture, the government is embarking on mach 2 of the machinery-of-government changes. The very first thing the government did was to change the allocation of responsibilities in the health portfolio around the same time that the next bigger, larger and more consequential thing it did for the overall mechanics of government was to reassign the deckchairs and create new departments. I have seen this happen before. We saw it happen in 2017 with the creation of mega agencies and the political purge of longstanding bureaucrats who knew what they were talking about but were considered, to some degree, to have a resonance or affinity with the previous Barnett government, which was odious to the incoming government, and so they were dispensed with. That machinery-of-government change has not been a runaway success, and it was an expensive change. The proposition we are now dealing with, which will have a material impact on the way that the budget estimates hearings will be conducted next week, is that the 2025 sittings will be constituted somewhat differently from the preceding years because the agencies themselves have changed. They have been recomposed and reconstructed. We have had new agencies created and the merging of agencies, as well as the cherrypicking of composite bits of agencies brought into others.
How does this reflect on health? It will reflect on health in a couple of ways. There has been growth in the bailiwick of the Treasurer; Deputy Premier; Minister for Transport. If there was a minister in the cabinet who is the most administratively adept and possesses the greatest intricate skill and understanding of the public sector, it is the Deputy Premier. She understands it better than any of her contemporaries. I think she understands it better than the Premier, because how else can we legitimise or characterise the construction of a department called the Department of Transport and Major Infrastructure without thinking that there was a game afoot that perhaps the Treasurer is in the midst of empire building? I think that is exactly what is going on. That department, on one reading of the budget papers and media statements and the like, has a real responsibility for the delivery of this additional public health capacity. That is why it is relevant to the health discussion, aside from the fact that that minister is also the Treasurer and has the final say in the Expenditure Review Committee about the appropriate levels of funding for the health portfolio. A media release of 1 July, which was the day the MOG changes were enacted, states:
Department of Transport and Major Infrastructure – includes the Office of Major Infrastructure Delivery (OMID), created to enhance major building capacity from across government including responsibility for building hospitals;
This is the Treasurer's department or the Minister for Transport's department. She is not a health minister. She is not in the constellation of health ministers in the super team subcommittee group there to make Western Australia healthier and happier and achieve great things in health. Those responsibilities fall under her agency—indeed, the agency that she has constructed and is now being brought to fruition after the changes were operationalised at the commencement of this financial year. The Department of Health reference in this document is telling. With major health infrastructure to be delivered by the Office of Major Transport Infrastructure Delivery (OMTID) within the Department of Transport and Major Infrastructure, the Department of Health has a renewed focus on the delivery of health services. A renewed focus on the delivery of health services—that, to me, is telling. One might ask: Was there a lack of focus? Had that department been captivated or confused, or had its resources for and focus on the delivery of capacity been taken away? Was that going to explain record high ambulance ramping figures, the elective surgery waitlist that continues to grow or the blowouts of the four-hour rule and the like? Is that why? Is that why all the publicly facing metrics on the performance of the health system have been so deleteriously bad over the course of the last four or five years and trending south? The argument from the architects behind the construction of these machinery-of-government changes would seem to be that the Department of Health and preceding health ministers had been distracted. I think that is a fair assumption to be drawn on the basis of the Cook Labor government's own media statements—if members know where to look.
In the budget speech delivered only two months ago, there was a section devoted to the health system. It was quite an extensive section—this is budget paper No 1, the Treasurer's speech. Among a range of announcements made by the Treasurer, or by the government via the Treasurer, was that there was a record spend of $3.2 billion allocated to boost system capacity. The government was investing in more nurses and doctors. It said, in this term of government alone, it had delivered 709 new beds. I think this figure was ripped apart in the other place just last week. It was very forward leading. It was an attempt to say, "We are very assertive. We've got things under control. We are doing the best we can. We have the best-funded health service. There's nothing to see here; just trust us." There is perhaps little need to again outline the catalogue of front-page news stories that besieged the government last week. Day after day, there was a new front page telling the truth about the state of Western Australia's public hospitals after eight years of Labor government and telling the truth from the people on the wards. People were taking photographs of the conditions that they work in. Patients were talking about the conditions that they experienced on the wards. This precipitated a range of other disclosures in the media. There were anonymous calls from clinicians, doctors and nurses telling their story about what it is like to provide the very best possible service they can in conditions that are completely and utterly inappropriate and run down. We had stories of black mould, human excrement leaks, legionnaire's spores, some radioactive material—potentially—and mushrooms growing from the roofs at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital. When the stories first broke and the catalogue of outstanding maintenance tasks was provided to The West Australian and then reported, the first response of the Cook government was to deny it and say that it was not true. It said, "There aren't that many outstanding maintenance task requests—that never happened. That's not right. Check your facts."
I think journalists in this state are very interesting people. They do a very difficult job. They provide a public service, even though members sometimes feel we get the rough end of the stick. In my dealings with them, I have always attempted to be as honest as I can, knowing that it is the only way to be. However, I have never attempted to ever bully or verbal a journalist, or get an underling to call up a journalist, subeditor or editor and say, "You have to back off. This isn't true. Where have you got your facts—blah, blah, blah." The pushback against the opposition on Tuesday last week was understandable—that is politics as normal. We point to a problem, the government denies a problem, the government throws stones at us and we throw them back. That is the way it goes. The government also took on The West Australian and was then denying the professional integrity of the clinicians it employs to work in these substandard conditions. But that was the first response. That is a template Labor response to anything—deny, bully, harass and ignore. It is absolutely the response of a bully, and a bully who is not match fit, because on the second day there were more stories. Then I think there was a recognition that perhaps there is a problem here. Perhaps the mask has slipped: "How much longer can we get away with this?" The Premier was still pretending on the Wednesday that the public health system in WA was First World. That was not a line that any other minister agreed with at all.
The interesting thing, too, was how the issue was politically managed. The minister they got out to take the brunt of this was Hon John Carey, whose role it is to build capacity. Apparently, his job is to build capacity. His job is to build new hospitals. He likes the attention and he likes the fight, but it has been unclear up until last week that he was also responsible for hospital maintenance. That would not appear to be his remit—at least not in anything that has been publicly disclosed or actually scrutinised in this chamber yet. That might be the case, but that is absolutely not how his new ministerial role has been sold. He is there, apparently, to deliver major infrastructure, including the new women's and babies' hospital and upgrades to emergency departments at Royal Perth Hospital, as well as a range of regional health commitments. Apparently, that was his job. We could at least understand that, but, apparently, maintenance in a hospital—ensuring that hygiene is maintained in a hospital—is now not an operational KPI. I find that quite concerning and alarming because it is the express wish under the government's machinery-of-government changes and machinery-of-health changes that the Minister for Health is the individual minister responsible for operational performance in hospitals.
If hospitals cannot be kept clean, and if they cannot keep black mould away and scrape mushrooms off the roof, how is that not operational? The minister is responsible for the operational environment. How did Hon John Carey find himself dragooned into this responsibility? I do not know whether he was willing or unwilling. I suspect that he was willing because he is the kind of individual who loves attention, and that is fine. We are all in this place for reasons of calling as well as ego, and sometimes finding the right balance can be more difficult for some than for others.
I do not wish to make light of the situation, because it introduces a problem for scrutiny. There are two points of an accountable government in a Westminster tradition. The first is cabinet solidarity, which is composed of ministerial responsibility. The only way one can observe and hold a minister to account in this system is for there to be a clear and common understanding of what they are responsible for. What is the Minister for Health; Mental Health now actually responsible for? What is the Minister for Health Infrastructure now responsible for? Is he now responsible for not only new hospital builds and delivery, the planning and design and all that goes with that, but also the daily maintenance of our wards? That was not the original brief. He was the individual whom the government rolled out. I do not know whether that was to the relief of the Minister for Health, Hon Meredith Hammat. But it is absolutely unsatisfactory for there to be even a skerrick of doubt around this, because I do not want to see what happened in an exchange about tourism-related matters in the other chamber whereby one minister passed the buck to the other. If a member were to ask a question about health infrastructure in the estimates period next week, and if someone from the Department of Transport and Major Infrastructure said that that is a health portfolio issue, and then on the same matter someone from health said that it is not in their portfolio, that would be terrible, because that would also mean that there is confusion at the level of the bureaucracy that pays the political professionals whom we expect to get on with the job. I think there is an absolute need for a demarcation.
We understand that after a week of pretending that there was nothing going wrong in the health system, yesterday, the Premier announced a $50 million health asset maintenance fund. Let us just understand that. That $50 million is welcome. We cannot say there is any problem with that. We are glad that the government has at least begrudgingly acknowledged that there is a problem in the way that it has maintained its hospital estate and is now prepared, after a week of embarrassment, to provide an additional $50 million. I wonder whether that was sought during the budget process? I wonder whether the previous Minister for Health, Hon Amber-Jade Sanderson, saw a problem but was knocked on the head in the Expenditure Review Committee, or whether it was acknowledged as a problem?
If we listen to the government's rhetoric, we will hear that the government is about achieving great outcomes for health in Western Australia. The fact that it has been doing this for eight years would encourage one to take its aspirations with a measure of salt. But we are expected to believe that, over the weekend, the government suddenly woke up to the fact that it had a problem with health maintenance and thought that the best way to deal with it would be at a presser on Monday: "Let's just deal with that and then we'll get on with the rest of our governing agenda." It is welcome money, but I suggest that it is going to be far too little and it has come far too late.
I reflected on the accountability of issue management and portfolio allocation for another reason. One advantage of the upper house system of scrutinising budgetary performance is the opportunity for members, if they so wish, to ask longer questions prior to the hearings being held and agencies being confirmed. I would suggest that, if they have not already, members submit questions visit the Standing Committee on Estimates and Financial Operations website, because I think it has now published the majority of the answers to those previously submitted questions. One of my questions on portfolio management structure and, of course, the funding implications of this, which ties directly back to the two appropriations bills that we are considering here, was what the machinery-of-government changes within Treasury and now the Department of Transport and Major Infrastructure actually mean. A couple of things are happening in conjunction, and it can bore some to the point of absolute tedium, but it is important, so I will try to compress it.
Two things are happening in major project management. First, there was a section in the old Department of Finance that used to manage some major infrastructure projects. The Department of Finance has been merged with the Department of Treasury. I mentioned empire building before, and it seems that this is what has happened. But, in addition, some of those finance functions will be merged into the new Treasury agency; others will be thrown into the new transport and infrastructure agency. One question I asked prior to the hearings, which has been published, and anyone can go and see, relates to public sector reform, dealt with in the Department of Transport and Major Infrastructure budget papers. I asked a question:
Which projects currently managed by the former Department of Finance will be migrated into the new agency as part of—
This is stage 2 reform. There is a stage 1 reform, which has already happened. Stage 2 reform is the full delivery. It might interest people who take a particular interest in health infrastructure, and particularly regional health infrastructure, to note the following. I asked:
Which projects currently managed by the former Department of Finance will be migrated into the new agency as part of the 'stage two reform'?
The answer was:
Projects managed within OMID's remit for delivery are:
New Women and Babies Hospital Project
Bunbury Hospital Redevelopment Project
Geraldton Health Campus Redevelopment Project
Peel Health Campus Redevelopment
Bentley Surgicentre
Graylands Reconfiguration (includes Claremont Therapeutic Riding Centre)
Midland Hospital Emergency Department Expansion
Royal Perth Hospital Emergency Department Expansion
Albany Health Campus Expansion
Meekatharra Health Centre Redevelopment
Tom Price Hospital
Paraburdoo Hospital
State Biosecurity Response Centre
Primary Industries Research and Development Facility
Casuarina Prison Expansion - Stage 2
Acacia Prison Expansion
WA Emergency Training Centre
Aboriginal Cultural Centre
Art Gallery WA
Screen Production Facility (Film Studios)
Malaga Sports Precinct
State Hockey Centre
Dorrien Gardens
Warwick Stadium
Perth Convention and Entertainment Centre
That last one is interesting. There is a range of infrastructure, but the majority weighting of those—more than 50%—are new hospitals or upgrades or expansions of existing health campuses throughout the state.
Infrastructure is not being managed in the health portfolio, and I would observe there is no department either for health infrastructure. All these projects have been migrated into the agency whose paramount chief is the Deputy Premier. It is not the Minister for Health Infrastructure but the Treasurer of the state who is responsible now for health infrastructure in a way that has never been the case. This is the agency, the empire, that she has built. It is hers. What I would be interested to know is what interaction the Minister for Health Infrastructure has had with this department. He is one of the subordinate ministers who is allocated some provisional relationship with this agency, but it appears to me that all roads lead to the Treasurer. All roads lead to the Treasurer, and I cannot believe that the penny has not dropped among members on the other side. The reason, other than sheer denialism and arrogance, that we had the catalogue of withering and demoralising headlines last week was that the Treasurer has never seen fit to manage the health budget properly. She is not committed to meeting demand at all. It is well known, throughout this city, throughout this state and outside these halls, that the most powerful person in the government is not the Minister for Health and it is not the Premier; it is the person who wants his job—the Treasurer; Minister for Transport and infrastructure. She is the one whose portrait is in her bottom drawer, and she is looking for the opportunity to take it out and hang it on the walls of this house at some stage.
The Premier has been, frankly, daft enough to allow machinery-of-government changes to, on the surface, attempt to put his stamp on this government but permit the Treasurer to expand her powers even more widely and deeply throughout government. Yes, we had a succession of failed health ministers, including the Premier, but the reason that health maintenance in this state—the basic maintenance—was underdone was that the Treasurer has never seen fit to fund it. This is why the rolling out of the Minister for Health Infrastructure to talk about maintenance in the hospital strikes me as being particularly strange. He has, on this reading, absolutely no responsibility at all for the cleanliness of a ward. His job is to build hospitals. But the person who holds the purse strings for both those outcomes is the Treasurer, not him, not the Minister for Health and, by all accounts, absolutely not the Premier—none. I cannot believe that Hon Rita Saffioti got off the hook last week in the way that she did, but I think that is testament to her superior political abilities, and I am happy for those remarks to be conveyed to that person. If she is one thing, she is a fighter; if she is another thing, she is a hardened political operator—probably the best they have got. But I do not necessarily think she is pulling in the direction of the government; she is pulling in her own direction. That is why the government was landed with the failure it had last week. I think the government will continue to have these failures and deal with these issues on a sort of reactive, grudging basis, like the $50 million allocation yesterday, for the continuity of this government. That is almost guaranteed.
There are other aspects about these appropriations bills that I also find interesting when we read them in conjunction with the budget papers that they are there to support. It is with some reference to the presentation of the budget papers—another item of obscure and arcane knowledge that will bore some to tears; many of those who will cry are people I am happy to disappoint from here to eternity—that there is an interesting change in the way that the budget papers have been presented. Budget papers are presented in a way that is quite formulaic. There is effectively a template that one follows. It starts with the allocation of ministerial responsibilities—there is the minister, the agency and the services that are funded. On the next page we have the appropriations table; it is what recurrent budget we need, what capital budget we need and what the expenses are. We then have a spending changes table; it shows how things are changing in relation to previous budget settings, how things reflect or an election, if we have just had one. Then we typically have a section called "Significant Issues Impacting the Agency", and this was a very interesting section. It is interesting because what it provided an opportunity for the senior officers of a department to talk about the kinds of matters that they were facing in the delivery of government projects and policies. I have done this role before in a previous iteration, and, in the end, it becomes a government document, but what I have noted—not uniformly—in particular areas of acute need and interest is a winnowing away of content and of this becoming a media statement–lite sort of section. I thought: perhaps I am being unfair. Perhaps I am seeing a conspiracy here to denude the value of the budget papers, at least in their written form, more than is actually the case. But then I did a direct comparison, and I invite members to do their own.
For example, if we compare like with like, in 2021–22, in the budget after the enormous McGowan election win, the Western Australia Police Force division in the budget papers was really interesting. There was a section called "Significant Issues Impacting the Agency" in which it had 17 paragraphs of issues, including dealing with the tail end of the COVID-19 response and acknowledging the significant impact that illicit drugs have on the community, particularly methamphetamine and how the implementation of the methamphetamine action plan was going. The budget papers referred quite explicitly to the increasing prevalence of family violence and the police force's responsiveness to that; its contribution, its mission, to improve the wellbeing of Aboriginal people in this state through increased culturally appropriate engagement and the like; stuff it was doing around hazard management; the interaction with its Commonwealth counterparts on national terrorism threats and the like; technological advancements in policing measures and countermeasures; and road safety issues. There was a rich, rich vein of interest, and that allowed members to interrogate more of the detail, because aside from "We're delivering such and such expansion to the PCYC", which is very important, the budget papers referred to the strategic issues that the force was dealing with and how it was responding. It was useful because it gave us a foreshadowing of what the force might have to ask for in future budgets or whether there might be a need for a midyear review adjustment.
When I compare this level of presentation—this level of information, which comes with some political challenge, at the absolute apogee of the Labor government—with what was presented in the recent iteration of the Western Australia budget papers , it is deeply disappointing in terms of both content and volume. We have gone now not to a section called "Significant Issues Impacting the Agency", but to something called "Significant Initiatives". We find in this section only seven paragraphs, not the 17 that existed four years ago, and five of these are just the government patting itself on the back about the delivery of election commitments, plus some other initiatives, including the firearms reform program, which is probably best left to another occasion.
There has been an absolute reduction in the content and value of this section of the current budget papers, which in a way impedes the ability of the upper house to do its job of interrogating whether the Western Australian police are adequately provisioned for their responsibilities. If we were to read this as effectively indicating the most significant strategic challenges bedevilling the police, we would be forgiven for thinking that Western Australia is not in the midst of a methamphetamine scourge and that Western Australia has no problems with its organisation, as it has been historically constructed, delivering upon the welfare and wellbeing of Aboriginal people in this state. There is no reference to an increased threat environment at both a federal and state level. There is no meaningful reference to road safety. This has been a cognitive dilution. This is not even a pass grade. This content is absolutely severely disappointing.
It is not always the case with the budget papers, but I am particularly aggrieved that there is no real opportunity to interrogate more deeply what the commissioner thinks about the adequacy of the methamphetamine action plan, now that we have incontrovertible data from national wastewater monitoring that indicates that Perth and regional Western Australia again have the highest use of methamphetamine in Australia. This, to me, is an obvious problem. It is not the kind of problem that needs to descend into rapid-fire partisanship, but it is a problem. If the government does not admit that it has one, it is going to have a bigger one. I use the analogy of what happened at Charlies last week. If the government denies that there is a problem, it metastasises and gets worse. I am deeply disappointed in the content and calibre of the budget papers, because it impedes to a degree—I would argue a significant degree—our ability to do our job. We should say, "If there's no methamphetamine problem, surely we can cut the government's methamphetamine action plan budget." Obviously, that is not true. I think there has been a deterioration in not only the quality of the written material, but also the calibre of some of the people now occupying senior positions in the government—at least at a political level—and it permeates official publications.
I should also note in the time available an issue that now has greater economic resonance in the national dialogue, and that is the matter of productivity. On this budget and its connection to productivity, I would say thus: the appropriation bills to support the delivery of the budget will deliver a budget that is largely funded by previously wise decisions of longstanding but largely of a happy coincidence of geology—royalty payments, China's demand and the like. We have also had a surge in population. I am going to give the government some relief, but I cannot understand why it has not made more of an issue of this. Western Australia's population growth has been extraordinary, and extraordinary over a condensed period. That growth is largely from overseas migration. The volume of migration is placing demands on Western Australia's health system obviously, road transport system, electricity system and the like. We need skilled people. It is important that we have complicated conversations in a measured and sensible way. But we are dealing with outsized demand the likes of which few governments in Western Australia's history have dealt with. Any national conversation about productivity must focus on the adequacy of our migration system and whether it needs to be re-calibrated. We are a nation built on migration. We all understand that. Most of us here are the children of migrants, with some of us being within one or two generations. We all make a valuable contribution to this state, but the volume in a tight period means that the system is groaning, particularly in relation to housing affordability. What we do not want to see in this nation is a conversation about productivity being one for the eggheads. It has to be focused on improving underlying quality of life and the material standard of living for all Australians, particularly Western Australians. To some degree, our own good fortune has obviated our need to focus on these issues to the degree that I absolutely think we should. We need to see something productive come out of the economic summit that is focused on genuine productivity uplift and not business as usual—not business as usual in terms of "We'll announce a machinery-of-government change", "We'll restructure this department", "We'll create a new minister for this" or "We'll introduce a new raft of regulations." That is stifling economic growth and productivity not only in Western Australia but in the country more broadly.
With that reflection, although there is no official position yet because we have not seen the detail, I acknowledge the desire to establish a productivity commission–style body for Western Australia. There are similar government bodies in other state jurisdictions. I think there is one in Victoria, one in South Australia and one in New South Wales. It is not the worst idea. However, it would be, on the announcement of the Treasurer and the Premier, the outcome of a merger between Infrastructure WA and the Economic Regulation Authority. I think that is potentially problematic. They are different organisations with discrete focuses. In fact, neither of them necessarily has a productivity focus at all. They are, to a degree, narrowcast. I would be keen to read about the product of the Economic Regulation Authority. I do not think that has been the case more recently, not through any diminution in quality, but I think there has been a reduction in output. I have been completely and utterly underwhelmed by the outcomes of the composition or the construction of Infrastructure WA, which seems to me in large part to be there to provide the rubber stamp for major infrastructure whims of the Labor government, without any genuine countervailing assessment or analysis, and the very slipshod superficial summary released on Westport in the last few months is an indication of that.
The government's magnum opus, released two or three years ago, was just a wish-list of infrastructure items across every conceivable portfolio without any concept of value or cost or any sense of prioritisation. I think that experiment has been an absolute failure. I am a little bit apprehensive about the genuine output that a future Productivity Commission in Western Australia might have if it is to draw from the well of Infrastructure WA. Perhaps I might be surprised and the roles and objects of that organisation might be properly constructed. But if it is properly constructed, it has to be a genuine, independent organisation, not one that is considered an appendix to the government and certainly not as part of the Treasurer's growing empire. That is why I look at proposals that come from Hon Rita Saffioti with a fair degree of suspicion and circumspection. I think that is the only way to go.
I will bring my remarks to a conclusion. The opportunity for appropriate budget evaluation in its orchestrated sense is next week. I hope members take the opportunity to participate in the process—I refer to government members and non-government members in various capacities—particularly new members. Members only get the value of Parliament by participating, even if members do not want to ask 100 questions, and I hope they do not! The government certainly hopes members do not unless they are all put on notice. I do not want to confuse roles, but although the opportunity for proper scrutiny occurs next week, it is also there all the time. It is a perennial, everlasting obligation of members of this house to hold the executive government accountable for what it is doing, and particularly for the money it seeks to do it. With that, I will take my seat and vote the government the money it needs!
Hon Samantha Rowe (Parliamentary Secretary) (4:12 pm) in reply: I thank Hon Tjorn Sibma for his contribution this afternoon for the Appropriation (Capital 2025–26) Bill 2025 and the Appropriation (Recurrent 2025–26) Bill 2025, and for supporting the passage of both bills today. The budget that was handed down by our Treasurer some months ago now really cements Western Australia as having one of the most responsible budgets we will see here in WA, definitely, but probably also around the nation. We are investing in economic and social infrastructure so that we are able to power new jobs as well as make sure that we invest correctly in this state. As a government, we have been able to prioritise key economic infrastructure, whether it be things like pipes, poles or wires. Those things are really important to make sure that we are economically sustainable into the future. We are also embarking on major housing construction transformation and delivering new opportunities for affordable living, not just affordable housing. Of course, we are also investing like never before in health, whether it be in our hospitals or health services. Just yesterday we announced we are establishing a $50 million health asset maintenance fund to prioritise maintenance of the state's older hospitals. That fund will roll out across 2025–26 and 2026–27, and will focus on projects such as Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, Royal Perth Hospital and the Armadale Health Service. The dedicated fund is, of course, in addition to the state government's existing hospital maintenance budget for 2025–26, which is $271 million.
I appreciate that the honourable member opposite raised a number of issues and points that I suspect he would like to be able to delve into further. No doubt he will use the budget estimates process next week to do that when we have all the advisers here to be able to respond accordingly.
Again, I thank the member for his contribution and commend the bills to the house.
Questions put and passed.
Bills read a second time.
Leave granted to proceed forthwith to third reading.
Third reading
Bills read a third time, on motion by Hon Samantha Rowe (Parliamentary Secretary), and passed.
