Nationals WA Member of Parliament and candidate for the seat of Geraldton Paul Brown MP, has today condemned the Labor leader Mark McGowan for abandoning the Mid West in Labor’s latest policy on fracking.
WA Labor have announced that under a McGowan government, they will ban fracking in WA’s South West, Peel region, and the Perth metropolitan area.
“This is a populist policy and clearly shows that the votes of people in the high density population areas of the Perth metropolitan area, Peel and South West regions are more valued than votes in the Mid West,” Mr Brown said.
“With industry exploration having taken place for both conventional and unconventional gas in many areas throughout the Mid West, as opposed to virtually zero exploration in the Perth metropolitan area and Peel and South West regions where Labor members have their holiday homes, the Mid West community has a right to feel aggrieved and ignored.
“It’s quite obvious that Labor Agricultural Region member Darren West, and Labor candidate for Geraldton Lara Dalton are unable to have any influence over the policies of the metro-centric thinking of Mark McGowan and WA Labor,” Mr Brown said.
“How can Mr West and Ms Dalton seriously claim that they can adequately represent regional WA, when the metro-centric thinking of WA Labor obviously prevents them from doing so?”
Mr Brown and fellow Nationals WA colleague and Member for Moore Shane Love, are advocating strongly for landowners to have the right of veto.
“Under the Mining Act (1978), landowners have the right to veto, but this is not afforded to landowners under the WA Petroleum and Geothermal Energy Resources Act (1967),” Mr Brown said.
“All landowners of freehold land, should have the ability to prevent any activity from any industry from taking place on their land.
“This is an anomaly I want to see fixed. Shane and I fully support landowners on this issue and will take a motion to implement the power of veto for landowners to the Nationals WA State Conference to be held in Geraldton at the end of October.”
Ends.