Peter Watson MLA is stepping down at the next election in March 2021. It's going to be a stange contest with several people well credentialed with Community Involvement. The probable 3 front runners are Delma Baesjou (Nationals), Scott Leary (Liberals) and Rebecca Stephens (Labor).
Scott Leary's chances are said to be improved by the rise of Zak Kirkup as party leader but whilst that's possible Liza Harvey was a good leader & in any case, she's staying on and is backing Zak Kirkup by all accounts. Both Liza & Zak visited Albany as Party Leaders. Scott has had a long history of community involvement in business & sport as well as the local TAFE,Delma Baesjou is in a similar spot but her party's leader Mia Davies had visited Albany more times in the last 18 months than both Liberal & Labor leaders combined so they are serious on elevating Albany. Their party's State Conference in Oct 2020 was in Albany & add onto that Delma was the successful candidate in a political first for WA "Community Pre-Selection" so Delma really is a political candidate put forward by the community & voted in by the community...not a Perth based pre-selection committee and she's had a long linkage with local community groups, developers and community groups.
Rebecca Stephens also has a good history with local community groups and has run a local small business as well as sitting councillor on the City of Albany. She's going to have trouble building upon Peter Watson's legacy because for the last 4 years he's been Speaker of the Hourse so he hasn't built much at all. As Speaker he cannot have any part of cabinet decisions, has no part in Government business, cannot represent & speak up for Albany on the floor of the Parliament so Rebecca is starting off on a blank slate just like the other candidates.
She also has a few other barriers that only a well funded campaign can over come. In an ABC Radio interview she was asked about Deregulated Trading Hours and she said "No comment" which was a most curious reply. When further pushed she explained she would have to see what the electorate felt about it. Now this is curious because as a City Councillor she voted against it. Either she knows what the community wants or she doesn't or she voted without knowing what Albany wants or doesn't.
It's actually what is best for Albany regardless of what some do or don't want.
There's also some other differences that only an expensive campaign with lots of visits from the Premier can over come.
If Rebecca wins you can guarantee the Labor Party will celebrate her as the first woman to represent Albany in Parliament. It's odd because WA Labor has a stance, according to Simone McGurk MLA the Labor Minister for Women's Interests that a woman is someone who is a woman or lives as a woman. In other words anyone of any gender. Unless they can check to confirm all previous men lived & identified as men not women they have a funny claim to make. If you're a woman, your "interests" involve allowing anyone to be a woman. Ironically by elevating women's interests as they do, they're de-womaning the gender completely.
Rebecca has several other obstacles. She cannot cross the floor and vote on a matter in the best interests of the Albany community. If she does, she will be expelled fromt he party. This isn't such a problem for the Nationals & Liberal Candidates. Nationals MPs have put their electorate first & crossed the floor and indeed the Nationals have an ex-Liberal MP & an ex-Labor MP in their parliamentary ranks, but very renouned for putting their electorate first and they can cross the floor now.
Rebecca on that front is required to be a Labor representative in the electorate, not an electorate representative in her party, the government or the floor of the house. Its very unfair and will restrict Rebecca from the best results Albany needs to move forward.
Then there's yet another problem that only an expensive campaign can gloss over or distract from, Labor's close affinity with the Chinese Government & the prerential treatment for WA billionaires when it came to COVID quarantining. In amongst this, Labor has not been very regional friendly.
Labor's plan to abolish the School of the Air without any stakeholder consultation, indeed even their own far north MPs only learned about it via the press. Labor's plan to shut Moora Residential College because it wasn't worth the money & under used (?)...federal money was sourced and it's been kept open, renovated and now fully booked.
There was also the additional problem that in their first budget Mark McGowan's Labor Party pent more money in 2 years on Rockingham Basketball than 2 years of drug rehab in Albany. You won't remember Peter Watson raising this in Parliament or crossing the floor over it. He represents Labor in Albany so golden silence.
Labor also said they would not bring in a Gold Tax, soon as they were elected Mark McGowan went back on his pre election committment & tried to introduce one...TWICE. Rebecca will need to rely on an expensive campaign & the old "that was before my time and I'm not familiar with Kalgoorlie". Well she'll have to vote on many things outside Albany & had that passed, Kalgoorlie would ahve gone into a serious economic slump and the entire drilling & exploration sector would have closed.
Royalties for Regions...many hundreds of projects, some were duds but now, its been skinned & gutted and used to pay for normal items within general expenditure and basically cost shifted a billion dollars a year from the regions to Perth.
2.6 million square kilometres outside the Perth/Mandurah/Metro Area & R4R was to ensure a small portion of royalties was quarantined into the regions. The programme is effectively dead and you probably shouldn't be surprised.
As people starte getting the picture, expect the Labor money poured into the Albany Campaign to increase greatly as rural people including those like us in a rural city have been short changed badly.
Would you vote for a Democratic Communist Party?
Would you vote for a Democratic Fascist Party?
Would you vote for a Democratic Dictatorship Party?
Would you vote for a Democratic Khmer Rouge Party?
Assuming you would answer no to all 4 questions, ask yourself why on earth would you vote for a Democratic Socialist Party? That is what Labor is, the ALP Constitution says so in black & white.
So my expectation for the State Election 2021 in the seat of Albany...expect a massive campaign from Labor, a very costly one the other parties can't match to try & white wash over the facts you'll get & the poor results we've had. Expect the Premier & ministers to jump on the Lear Jet WA used to hire but then bought and head to Albany. They've had plenty of campaign flights Perth to Albany to Denmark (or Manjimup) then back to Perth. Whirlwind face dropping.