The government about nothing
I met a traveller from an antique land who said “Literally what is the point of the West Australian government?”
Is Roger Cook on opiates? The waxy skin, rubbery relaxed facial muscles and slightly slurred speech all point towards it, but I’m not convinced his inner tranquility is all prescription. There’s a certain political serenity that comes with the West Australian equivalent of ataraxia, the Ancient Greek concept of equanimity poised between knowing and unknowing that was the ultimate outcome of Stoic or Skeptical non-attachment. Roger Cook is basically the Buddha is what I’m saying, and the West Australian government is negotiating with the Void. Where robust Athenians sought freedom from perturbation by distinguishing the things we can control from those that are outside our agency, the WA government has thrown up its hands and surrendered all ambition to a kind of quietism that dissolves the status quo into a miasma of nothingness.
Take, for example, the state budget last week. Now, all right, there’s a bit going on globally. Even allowing for this though, it was even more low-key than ever. Infrastructure that amounts to nothing. Metronet, a race track at Burswood that no one wants. Another, yet another, multi-billion dollar surplus in Western Australia, and still almost nothing to show for it.
“Small gains, big gaps,” was the Shelter WA response. “The budget fails to deliver any bold or substantive initiatives to meet the scale and urgency of the crisis,” the head of the housing peak Kieran Wong said. “This was the year the government aimed to end rough sleeping, but we are nowhere near meeting that goal and it’s disappointing to see no announcements in this budget to help us get there.”
“The forecast budget surplus of $2.4 billion will bring WA’s total budget surpluses to $25 billion since 2020, and our state is touted as the economic powerhouse of the nation. Yet there are more than 22,000 households on the social housing waitlist and more than 2,300 people sleeping rough. The average waiting time for social housing is now 151 weeks. Where will WA’s most vulnerable people go for three years, while they wait?”
“The state government has never had a stronger mandate or a clearer crisis to implement bold and urgent actions that are needed to solve the housing and homelessness emergency.” Strong stuff, especially allowing for the standard reticence of the sector to engage in anything approaching criticism of the government that funds their services.
On health, the other local crisis issue, the Australian Medical Association lamented the absence of a plan. “It was disappointing but not altogether surprising to see no meaningful acknowledgment in the State Budget of the deep and worsening crisis of public hospital bed capacity in Western Australia,” the union said. “We will continue to wait to see such a plan.”
In the absence of investment in anything aside from electrical utilities and a couple of roads upgrades, it was left to Basil Zempilas to steal lines from the Greens and lament the lack of action to address social collapse. “It could have gone to health, could have gone to housing, could have gone to our most vulnerable,” he said on a very impressive live-cross with Channel 7 where he looked just like the co-host he used to be, nailing all the lines he would repeat on Instagram later that day. “What’s the point of these surpluses if we can’t look after everyday people?”
That’s the stuff, Baz, and Roger Cook could never. If it’s all about style not substance, as it has always been for this Labor government, what happens when the guy they’re up against is gonna beat them on points (pocket square and all) every time there’s a camera on him? They might need to come up with something a bit more meaty before 2029 - but based on the last eight years it’s really unclear they’ve got it in them. The only times they’ve ever delivered was when both health and housing were subject to sustained pressure campaigns from a coalition including sector peaks and grassroots unions. As soon as that relaxed, so could Treasury. But the pressure will be back, and this time it’s backed in by a bunch of Greens in the upper house and an Opposition Leader who inhabits any persona that suits.
Meanwhile, ABC Pilbara had a nice little story on the weekend about the North West Shelf. Budget revenue from the largest gas export facility in the Southern Hemisphere is projected to drop more than 70% next year to less than 1% of WA’s total revenue. The same budget papers showed that iron ore royalties are down 40% over the same four year period. The good times won’t last forever, and nor will this government. What is it all for, then? Fading memories of press conferences with the PM and a few Alston cartoons? It’s not even Ozymandias territory. Look on their words, ye mighty, and despair.
