BUILDING a heavy rail project featuring tunnels to the northern suburbs will be seriously considered, according to Premier Colin Barnett.

During PerthNow’s latest Coffee with Colin interview, Mr Barnett conceded that the tunnelling idea which was first raised by his Transport Minister Dean Nalder had “real merit”.

He said the government would compare the light rail option with heavy rail tunnelling before announcing their decision ahead of the March 2017 election.

“We did at the last election commit to light rail through the northern suburbs. We haven’t stepped away from that but we certainly couldn’t deliver on that during the last term of Government,” Mr Barnett said.

“But since we made that commitment, a couple of things have changed. The technology and the cost of tunnelling have come down dramatically. That’s a worldwide phenomenon.

“Dean’s comment that maybe we can tunnel through the northern suburbs has got real merit and it would move more people far quicker than light rail.

“Now Dean probably blurted that out a little bit and people may have misunderstood but I actually think that he’s on the right track.”

Camera Icon Transport Minister Dean Nalder Credit: News Corp Australia

Mr Barnett said that because of budgetary constraints imposed by GST inequities, the Government could only afford to build one major rail project at a time.

He said the current rail project priority was the Forrestfield-Airport project, which involved major tunnelling, with construction due to start this year.

Once that project was near completion, the Government would then focus on the northern suburbs rail project.

“That (northern suburbs public transport) is the big gap in the system and it will either be light rail or a tunnel.

“My gut feeling is that a tunnel, a rail tunnel will probably service those suburbs better than light rail.

“It will certainly move more people and move them more quickly and help develop sub regional nodes around railway stations.

Asked about when a decision would be made about whether it would be light rail or heavy rail with tunnelling, Mr Barnett said an outline of the project would be expected ahead of the 2017 election.

“If we’re re-elected we will be building a project out to the northern suburbs.”

Mr Barnett said he was looking forward to a “contest about transport” with the Labor Party which he said only had Metronet as a slogan, “not substance”.

Here is the full transcript of the Coffee with Colin interview:

Reporter: Premier, we’re here today at the St John of God Midland Public Hospital. Why did you want to choose this location?

Premier: I was fortunate enough to be involved in the opening of the hospital in late November so three months on, I’m curious as to how the hospital is going. And by all reports it’s going very well.

Reporter: What are some of the main figures to come out which show how the hospital is performing?

Premier: I’m told 48,000 patients have been treated at the hospital since it opened its doors to the public on November 24. There’s been 15,200 people through the emergency department, 1900 surgical procedures and 310 babies have been born here so it’s doing its job.

The hospital is also expected to get busier with the opening of the 12-bed critical care unit later this month. This unit will allow the hospital to undertake more complex cases.

For the hospital overall, I’m told it’s on track to manage 60,000 emergency presentations, 102,000 outpatients and 29,000 inpatients in its first year.

The old (Swan Districts’) hospital had been here for a long time, so to have a modern investment in Perth’s health services in the eastern suburbs has been long overdue and I’m very proud this Government has been able to deliver it.

Reporter: There were some initial teething problems for the hospital particularly in regards to ambulance ramping but that kind of smoothed out. Have you been informed about the ramping issues at all?

Premier: I think you can expect a little bit of that at any hospital and to some extent that shows that the hospital is being used and probably a lot of people who may have previously gone into Royal Perth Hospital are now finding they can get the care they want at Midland, which is a good result.

All of the new hospitals are very busy because they get used. Good medical staff and emergency departments — outpatients come to them, it’s a problem of their own success.

Reporter: The Health Minister Kim Hames had previously said he wanted to stamp out ramping. Do you think that was a bit optimistic?

Premier: You can always get peak periods. But trying to allocate ambulances to where the capacity is, it’s a management task. But people aren’t left waiting for long periods of time in ambulances now, and obviously when there are ambulances arriving at the same time, when one patient is critical that patient will always get priority. I think most people accept that can happen.

Reporter: As a quick scorecard on your Government’s performance, what do you see as your best three efforts and your three duds?

Premier: Our best efforts have probably been in health. And I know a lot of criticism comes by the way of health but this Government has virtually rebuilt the public health system in a very short period of time — Fiona Stanley, this hospital in Midland, the new Perth Children’s Hospital about to open, the hospitals in Albany, Busselton, one being built in Karratha and a lot of upgrades to country hospitals. So in the space of seven years, we’ve rebuilt the health system. It’s a huge achievement.

I think another achievement has been in education where we’ve got the strongest public school system in the country. WA is the only state where the portion of children going into government schools is actually increasing. Before this government we’d been losing students to the private school sector and we’re actually going the other way and I think the independent school program is leading Australia and giving school principals, senior staff and school communities a greater say on how their schools run, that’s been a huge achievement. And ever since we’ve been in government, we’ve had a teacher in front of every classroom at the beginning of the school year. Now that didn’t use to happen so I think education is well received. And you don’t hear much about education so I think that’s a sign that it’s been very successful.

The third one I’d pick out is the environment. And maybe this is not recognised but this Government has acted to protect the Kimberley for future generations, creating four major marine parks, preserve the Horizontal Falls, Mitchell Plateau and create Australia’s biggest national park. So that will be something that future generations might look back at and say “thank you”. We set out to do that (these environmental achievements) when we came to power and I don’t think people believed that we would but we’ve done it. And the marine parks along the Kimberley coast are only second to those in the Great Barrier Reef so we’ve created one of the greatest wilderness and heritage conservation areas in Australian history.

Those three achievements come to mind.

Camera Icon WA Premier Colin Barnett outside St John of God Hospital in Midland. Credit: News Corp Australia

Reporter: Just going back on to health when you talked about the achievements there, a lot of that had to do with building infrastructure, and yes, people would look back and say there’s been a great number of buildings built but the criticism with health rests with the management of those facilities including the commissioning of Fiona Stanley.

Premier: I think it’s fair to say there were certainly (issues) in the ICT area, for example the plans for a paperless hospital were overly ambitious. And there’s been similar experiences elsewhere in Australia where the automation of IT in hospitals hasn’t worked out. It’s very complex, to have all the patient records on line, that’s been a difficulty and it hasn’t gone as well as we’d hoped but that is getting sorted out now.

I think with the management system, you can always find something that goes wrong and I’m conscious that one of the heads of one of the major private hospitals came up to me recently and said look, I really sympathise with the criticism around Fiona Stanley Hospital but I can tell you that every hospital in Australia, private or public will have similar issues every day of the week. And I think that people are under stress, you’ve got very badly injured people, you’ve got children, you’ve got people turning up to emergency departments either drunk or under influence of drugs. It is very complicated. I would say to those who have criticism, sure it’s not perfect, we acknowledge that, but I also ask the rhetorical question tell me where else in the world would you want to be if you were seriously ill or badly injured other than in WA, in terms of the quality of hospitals, quality of health care and you probably won’t pay anything for it. There needs to be a bit of balance.

While there has been a bit of media criticism, and I accept that, I think that the majority of people using Fiona Stanley are impressed and thankful for the services they get.

Reporter: There has been a lot of criticism about Fiona Stanley and it goes across ICT, across the commissioning issues, and the Serco contract.

Premier: There’s been a political attack on the Serco contract, but tell me what’s wrong with the Serco contract? I go there, there’s people working as orderlies, in reception, in cleaning. They’re not the highest paid people in our community, they’re not medical professionals. But I go out to see them and for a lot of them, this is their first permanent job. They’re smartly dressed, they’re in uniforms, they’re proud of what they do, and they’re proud of the hospital. So I take some resentment when they criticise Serco and their employees. I think it’s very unfair. A lot of them have got their first good job and they’re proud of it, many are new to this country.

Reporter: The people I’ve spoken to about the concerns relating to the Serco contract are not talking about the employees but about the profit margin that comes under the contract arrangements and that it’s just putting money into the pockets of a global organisation.

Premier: That may be a philosophical problem but the cost of all those services where you use someone like Serco is less than having government employees do it, significantly less.

Reporter: So you think the government still comes out on top?

Premier: On that, we are better off contracting out. We don’t need to directly employ the support staff to help run the building, the catering, the orderlies, and all that. We want to concentrate on health care and let someone else look after that and pay them to do the job and I think they do a good job.

Reporter: Seeing as we’re talking about Fiona Stanley, how does the Government hope to address the issues with Fiona Stanley, how do you fix Fiona Stanley?

Premier: The issues are progressively being fixed. The IT has been the biggest issue, without doubt, and it was overly ambitious and it is being sorted now. A lot of staff had to be trained on using the computer systems of the hospital. And all of that took time to settle down, the best part of a year. At the same time they’re doing their job of treating critically ill people. Fiona Stanley is the first tertiary hospital to be built in this state in 50 years. It’s the big one, it’s the one that deals with the sickest people, the most complex surgical procedures. It’s not a hospital designed for people to be in there for long periods of time. They’re in there, they get their care and then they go to a secondary level hospital for recuperation. It’s incredibly busy. The number of people in the emergency department, over 100,000 people in the first year. No one anticipated that. Why do people go there? Because it’s good, they vote with their feet.

Reporter: A lot of the facilities aren’t up to capacity though and the reason for that is because of staff shortages.

Premier: There are some staff shortages in some areas, particularly in getting specialist nurses. Royal Perth was continuing fullbore along with Fiona Stanley, so there was a lot of shifting of staff, a lot of training of staff but it is getting there. I think I and others were expecting a little too much from that hospital from day one. It’s taking a year but I think Fiona Stanley is performing well.

Reporter: Do you think the staff freeze has caused more problems than it’s worth?

Premier: It does cause some problems, we recognise that, that’s why it’s only a freeze for six months, a short term measure, which finishes in July. It has caused some dislocation. But as a government, we really had no choice, given the downturn in commodity prices, iron ore in particular, but particularly the GST situation, we had to simply do that to continue funding our hospitals and our schools and our police and our other services. What’s forgotten is that most of the services that affect people are funded and managed by State Governments.

Reporter: When we’re talking about the new health minister, people would say you’re lacking in choices for the new minister. What’s your take on that?

Premier: There were two or three people who came into consideration. I’m not going to tell you who it’s going to be. We’ll announce that around Easter time. It’s a big job. I think health by itself is probably the most difficult and demanding portfolio.

Reporter: Will you be looking at bringing back mental health under health?

Premier: No, definitely not. That was a very clear decision of this Government to have a separate mental health minister, a first for Western Australia, and to set up a separate Mental Health Commission, the first in Australia, so that mental health was treated in its own right. For too long, mental health was somewhat lost in the wider medical system. I know there can sometimes be problems with co-ordination because a person with mental health issues may have other physical health conditions as well. But we’re absolutely convinced and confident that it was the right thing to do so we’re going to maintain that.

Reporter: On the issue of mental health, a 10-year-old girl committed suicide and that makes it 19 youth suicides in WA in three months. Is there anything the Government doing to look into this?

Premier: There are youth suicide prevention programs and the like. It is tragic to think a 10-year-old would kill themselves, it’s hard to comprehend. I don’t know the particular circumstances yet about that child. But youth suicide is a real problem in our community, it’s more significant than the road toll in numbers, particularly among Aboriginal communities. We’ve got real issues about getting care and protection to children, particularly in remote Aboriginal communities, that’s an absolute dilemma and controversial issue. But Police and Child Protection struggle to service to protect children when we’ve got 270 remote communities in the north of the State. This case was in a larger community, but none the less there are problems for children at risk, in desperate circumstances. It’s not confined to children in Aboriginal communities, but it’s more prevalent among these (communities).

Reporter: What do you envisage being the main issues for the 2017 election which is only a year away?

Premier: Obviously the Labor Party is going to try to make a lot about financial issues. I expect them to do that. We will as a Government stand by our record. I would claim that we have been a reforming and high achieving government in every single portfolio. And I defy anyone to name a portfolio where we haven’t achieved extraordinary things. I don’t think we get wide recognition for our work in disabilities, mental health, child protection. More expenditure, more programs have been achieved in those areas than in any other government. And in environment, huge achievements, health, education, so on, heritage, every area.

Reporter: So do you think the election issues will focus on the usual three — health, education and law and order?

Premier: They always loom very highly, and I’m always happy to go out and stand up for our record on education and health. For law and order, there’s been a spike in crime, so that will be an issue. That spike in crime, I and most people believe it’s heavily related to drug use, particularly ice use in our community.

I go into local police stations and talk to local police officers and they tell me that’s what they’re spending all they’re time on. And it shows itself in crime rates and domestic violence, in aggressive behaviour towards strangers, all those things.

Reporter: Does that come back to the “three duds” of your Government?

Premier: Not in terms of lack of effort. But we’re certainly concerned by the high crime rate, and the spike in crime. I think it’s due to the increase in drug usage, particularly ice, which is higher in this state than elsewhere. Maybe that’s because there’s more money around in Western Australia, and the nature of our industry means that people tend to do that.

The recent spike in the road toll, that’s a huge problem. That’s a great concern.

We are and can spend more money on passing lanes, on rumble strips on the side of the road, on education programs and the like but we have got a real cultural problem, particularly in the rural (area), and particular in the wheatbelt area where people are speeding, drinking, having drugs and driving recklessly.

When you look at the broad statistics for this year, three quarters of people live in the Perth metropolitan area and three quarters of the road deaths are in country WA, that’s way out of wack.

And I’ve got to say even over this weekend when tragically we’ve had the loss of 11 lives which is an awful statistic, the excuses start to come: We need to be spending more money on road safety, the roads need to be better, it’s city drivers who aren’t used to country roads.

I’m getting a bit tired of those excuses. It’s not (that). It’s bad behaviour, it’s irresponsible driving, it’s dangerous driving, drunk driving and communities in country areas I think are going to have to take some responsibility themselves.

This culture where you can go to the pub, you can get full of grog, and you can go out in your car, speed and kill yourself and your friends. That’s just not acceptable anymore.

We will spend more, we will do more of that. But too often that’s an excuse and I think we have to face the poor attitude, there’s an attitude among many young people, but not all young people, and not only young people and there seems to be a culture of accepting that people will drink and drive and speed. And that culture has to change.

And even in advertising if I can say so, you see these ads on television of young men at a party and they’re having a couple of drinks, a couple of cans of beer and then two’s enough. Well, two’s not right. If you’re going to drive, your own personal rule should just be zero tolerance. Don’t drink at all. Have one friend drive and not drink at all or find another way home. And I just think people need to adopt that standard themselves — if you’re going to be driving, you don’t have a single drink.

I do it (zero tolerance), I didn’t always do it through my life but I do it now.

That’s the rule we have to adopt. No “two’s enough, maybe I’ll sneak a third in”, you can’t, you just do not drink.

Some of my children and their friends have quite a responsible attitude, if they go out to a pub or club, one of them doesn’t drink at all. We all need to do that.

It’s no good going to the pub and having two or three or more. Just stop drinking. Drinking is the biggest problem.

Reporter: Do you concede whether the Government has any duds at all?

Premier: I’m trying to think of duds, but I concede that the IT system has been the most frustrating problem. What else? Things do go wrong in Government, there’s no doubt about that.

Spike in the road toll, I wouldn’t call that a dud, but it’s something we’re incredibly disappointed about and the increase in drugs, particularly ice. I don’t think we are to blame for those but they’re the three issues that have gone wrong.

Reporter: Each of those have caused issues for the Government.

Premier: Sure. We have a responsibility to act collectively for the community but I don’t believe the community directly blames the Government but they look to the Government to solve it. That’s what we’re there for.

Reporter: How would you describe the State’s economic prospects at the moment?

Premier: Western Australia has an unusual economy. We are very specialised. Mining, petroleum, farming are our big export industries. So we’re highly specialised. We are highly export orientated, more so than any other part of the Australian economy. Therefore we feel any ripple in the world economy. We don’t have a big domestic market to cushion ourselves. But having said that, we are fundamentally the strongest economy in Australia, without doubt. We’ve had high growth in the past 10 years, we’ve been through a super cycle of very high prices with the things we produce, they’ve collapsed. Fortunately iron ore seems to have bounced back and I think we’ve come through the bottom. And I think we’ll see a gradual recovery through this year. But WA and West Australians are used to these cycles. Even at the start of the term of this Government, when we came in there was a global financial crisis, we got through that. Now we’ve had this commodity price fall, we’re getting through that.

We’re a very resilient local economy but we are internationally focused and I don’t think that’s understood across Australia. I think our fundamental structure of big efficient industries, export orientated is good. Even though this decade has had its ups and downs. It’s mostly been very good, and our iron ore production will have doubled. We now produce 37 per cent of the world’s total iron ore. That’s a huge world dominance. Liquefied Natural Gas production will have trebled. So our two biggest export industries have already had enormous growth.

We’re now seeing for the first time in 50 years a lot of new investment into agriculture, the Ord River Scheme, and I think we’re about to see an enormous growth in tourism. Projects like Elizabeth Quay which the Labor Party opposed, projects like the new stadium they opposed, the new Crown development, which they opposed, they are all building up tourism infrastructure. And as one of the leaders of the tourism industry said to me a week ago, for the first time because of what you’ve done, we’ve now got something to sell in Perth. Perth now has something to sell in tourism. We’ve getting new hotels, we’re getting investment in the private sector coming through. So I think we’re going to see a lot of growth in that sector which provides a lot of full time, casual, part time jobs, and for many people their first job. So I think that sector is very good. So I’m very confident about our economy.

Reporter: So you think we’ve seen the bottom of it?

Premier: I think you’re going to see a gradual improvement and I think 2016 will be consolidation and gradual improvement and the year is going that way.

Reporter: Chevron celebrated first gas this week and first shipment of LNG is expected next week, what does this mean for WA?

Premier: We don’t get any royalties from the gas because it’s in Commonwealth waters, but we derive huge economic benefits from the (Gorgon) project which has something like 7000 workers still on the island and most of them will be there for another year. We pick up payroll tax and all sorts of other incomes. Royalties where it’s WA owned is a large part of our income. Unfortunately under the GST arrangement, a lot of it gets redistributed to other states which is grossly unfair, but we’re still the most prosperous economy in Australia. Just on Chevron, it’s a huge achievement. Gorgon is the biggest project Chevron has ever undertaken inside or outside of America. It’s a real world leading project, particularly in regards to environmental management.

Reporter: Would you hope it would give a bit of a positive feel in the resources sector which has been hit hard of late?

Premier: There’s been something like 20,000 jobs taken out of mining. I think that’s stabilised now. You’ve got Gorgon going into production. The Wheatstone project will follow, Roy Hill going through commissioning, there’s been some new gold mines open, so it’s a mixed environment but I think we’ve come through the bottom. WA has something like 700 mining projects so there’s always going to be some opening and some closing. We certainly had a rough period through 2015 and I think we’re through that.

Reporter: On the issue of GST, you went into the last election saying you’d fix WA’s GST share issue. Despite influential Liberals like Julie Bishop, Christian Porter, Mathias Cormann and Michael Keenan in Canberra, some would say “you’re a million miles from a fix”. Do you feel let down by your WA federal pollies?

Premier: I think in more recent times they have been making the case for Western Australia. Last year, while it didn’t solve the problem, Tony Abbott as Prime Minister did provide at least $0.5 billion to WA which cushioned the blow. I’m confident Malcolm Turnbull will do something similar. But I’ve always acknowledged that WA is the most prosperous state. I’ve always acknowledged that we’re willing to help support the weaker states like Tasmania or South Australia but I do not accept that we should be providing funding to Queensland and states like that. The four big states largely agree that it should be allocated on a population basis. I’ve got no doubt that battle will eventually be won because economic logic is on our side. But there has been a lack of leadership by the Commonwealth on resolving it. They tend to patch it up, and there will probably be another patch up this year. What is needed is true leadership because the distribution of the money is made by the Commonwealth Treasurer. It’s not up to the states. We’ve had a debate about tax reform that went nowhere. One of the reasons that went nowhere is because no one sorted out the GST issue. I don’t think it’s hard to sort out. I’ve always said what we’re looking for is sharing it on a population basis, holding some back for the weaker states, I accept that, and then putting in the new changes over time, over a number of years. I’m aghast as an economist as to why the Federal Government hasn’t done that. I think it’s a lack of commitment to good policy. Most of other states privately agree. So I’ll keep going, I’ll never give up.

Reporter: Can you understand why the public is irritated by Transport Minister Dean Nalder’s thought bubbles over unaffordable policies?

Premier: Dean has had a couple of, can I say, mishaps where he has come out with ideas that probably haven’t had enough work done on them.

Can I comment on one. We did at the last election commit to light rail through the northern suburbs. We haven’t stepped away from that but certainly couldn’t deliver on that during the last term of Government.

But since we made that commitment, a couple of things have changed. The technology and the cost of tunnelling have come down dramatically. That’s a worldwide phenomenon.

Dean’s comment that maybe we can sort of tunnel through the northern suburbs has got real merit and it would move more people far quicker than light rail.

So we will compare the two. We haven’t backed away from it (rail project for the northern suburbs).

We intend to build … the next major rail project after the Forrestfield-Airport project, will be a rail project going out to the northern suburbs.

That’s the big gap in the system and it will either be light rail or a tunnel.

Now Dean probably blurted that out a little bit and people may have misunderstood but I actually think that he’s on the right track, pun not intended.

Reporter: So back to the drawing board to reassess it?

Premier: We’ll compare it. My gut feeling is that a tunnel, a rail tunnel will probably service those suburbs better than light rail.

It will certainly move more people and move them more quickly and help develop sub regional nodes around railway stations. But we won’t be in a position to build that project until we’ve completed or nearly completed the project out through to Forrestfield which is a huge rail project involving a tunnel. That will go into construction this year.

Reporter: So the other project that you’re going to go back to drawing board for, when do you expect you’ll make a decision about that?

Premier: I don’t want to put a time on it but we’re probably a couple of years away. We’re going to do the work but if we’re re-elected we will be building a project out to the northern suburbs.

Reporter: So in the lead up to the election will we be any the wiser as to the details?

Premier: We’ll outline our priority of projects. But given the GST issue, we can only undertake one major rail project at a time and the one we’re undertaking now is the airport one.

Road projects are important. Most people travel by road and our buses use the road system and here we are in the eastern suburbs where the Gateway project has made an enormous difference in reducing congestion in the eastern suburbs. The north-link project extending out for heavy projects is important, similarly the freeways, extending and widening freeways, and extra lane in the Northbridge tunnel.

You have to do both, you cannot say you’ll just do public transport and ignore roads and I think our record is pretty good.

The Labor Party, they talk about Metronet. It’s a slogan, what else is it, there’s no substance behind it.

I’m willing for a contest about transport, absolutely, I’m looking forward to in the election campaign.