WEST Australians who believe Elizabeth Quay and Perth’s new stadium should pay the price for education cuts need to “get a life”, Premier Colin Barnett says.

In PerthNow’s first Coffee with Colin in Cottesloe this morning, the Premier said “it’s about time Perth grew up and became a more vibrant city” that embraced the State Government’s big-ticket projects.

“What I’d say to you and people listening, (is) get a life,” Mr Barnett said.

“It’s about time that Perth grew up and became a more vibrant city, an attractive city for younger people, for families, even for older people.

“And Elizabeth Quay or the waterfront development has been talked about for 40 years. It will be the most attractive, vibrant part of Perth. The projects are well over halfway and next year it will be open. Already some land is being sold and it will get underway. It’s fantastic and you can walk and chew gum at the same time, and this is about Perth being a better, more attractive place for people to come and stay, have great careers, raise a family, enjoy our beautiful weather and lifestyle.”

More than 1500 PerthNow readers hand-picked the questions they most wanted answered by Mr Barnett, across areas including sharks, education cuts, traffic congestion, Serco and his biggest regret since last year’s re-election.

Over a flat white in Napoleon Street today, the Premier said it was a “little early” to say whether the State Government’s controversial shark catch-and-kill policy was a success or a failure.

But he said there were “seasonal factors” as to why a great white shark had not been caught yet — despite being responsible for all but one of the fatal attacks that have occurred in WA waters in recent years.

“I think what’s becoming evident is that the great whites are prevalent along our coastline at the time of the whale migration, so September, October, November,” he said.

“We didn’t have the drum lines in place then. I understand they’re likely to return to the coast in the coming weeks in following the salmon run. So there are seasonal factors here — but don’t underestimate tiger sharks. I’m not demonising them but they have been involved in fatal shark attacks both in WA and around the world in significant numbers — they are an aggressive animal.”

Mr Barnett could not rule out further cuts to health and education if the Commonwealth “continues to redistribute WA money to the other states”.

“Not avoiding the question, but the biggest problem WA faces is the continuing loss of our legitimate share of GST revenues,” he said.

“And we lost money this year, for the coming financial year, we’re likely to see a further cut of something like $780 million. That is grossly unfair and if the Commonwealth continues to redistribute WA money to the other states to that extent, we will have to have cuts in our areas of expenditure — and the two biggest areas are health and education.

“We are doing the best — we’re keeping our budget in surplus, but it’s becoming more and more difficult and essentially it’s, if you like, a fiscal trap. This state is doing well in mining, almost all that money is being taken off us by the Grants Commission and given to other states, and yet this is the strongest economy — we’re getting people in their tens of thousands coming to WA, looking for work, for a better life, a good lifestyle and that’s the trap. Our population, our needs are going up, and yet Canberra is cutting our funds.”

While saying he was “not dodging responsibility”, Mr Barnett blamed government bureaucracies for some of the mistakes that have been made in the past year.

“I think we had a difficult period following the election — people were tired, they had been campaigning for probably nine months, no summer holidays, no breaks, and I think some mistakes were made,” he said.

“And it was a time if there was going to be something that went wrong, it did go wrong. And I’m not dodging responsibility, I accept that, but some of the mistakes were actually made within government bureaucracies — not at a political level, but nevertheless we bear the responsibility — there were some muck-ups on EPA approvals, there were some delays on Fiona Stanley Hospital, not so much delays but people setting targets and talking about it as to when it would open when in fact those targets were never realistic, and I think there were a couple of announcements in our budget which when we looked at it carefully found that the background work hadn’t been done — so I pulled those.

“That caused a bit of angst, but the mistakes had been made. I think that was an unsteady period post-election, the Government is right on track — we’ve got a good start to this year, we’re getting on with our agenda, we’re delivering what we promised and this is going to be a good year — these next couple of years are going to be good years for Western Australia.”

READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPT

PERTHNOW: Premier Colin Barnett, welcome to our first Coffee with Colin for PerthNow.

PREMIER: Yeah it’s been sometime in the planning, but here we are.

PERTHNOW: That’s right. We’re here on Napoleon Street in Cottesloe. What is it that you like about this part of town?

PREMIER: Well this is the heart of my Cottesloe electorate. We live close by so it’s where I come, I catch up with friends, Lyn and I on the weekend will walk down here and have a coffee so it’s just a beautiful place. A lovely little spot.

PERTHNOW: As you know, we’ve had 1500 PerthNow readers pick the questions that they wanted to ask you today. Overwhelmingly the drum line policy was number one – 500 people wanted that question asked and basically they wanted to know whether you think the policy is a success or a failure given that it hasn’t caught a great white yet?

PREMIER: I think it’s a little early to judge that. The policy really needs to apply over a full summer — this has only been going for about five weeks. But it has caught a significant number of very large sharks — only this week a 4.2 metre tiger shark was caught off one of the northern beaches. These are dangerous. I don’t get any satisfaction or joy out of seeing sharks killed at all, but faced with the reality of seven fatal attacks in the last three years, someone had to make a decision and take responsibility, that falls to me and I decided, somewhat reluctantly, that the protection of human life comes first. So we are, in a very targeted way, just concentrating on three species of sharks known for attacks on humans and very much limiting it to large sharks over three metres, in contrast to New South Wales and Queensland, which have been using drum line and shark nets since the 1940s and 50s.

PERTHNOW: But we know that the majority of sharks that have been caught are tiger sharks and a tiger shark has only been responsible for one attack in the last 30 years. Would you regard the policy a success or a failure based on that statistic?

PREMIER: I think what’s becoming evident is that the great whites are prevalent along our coastline at the time of the whale migration, so September, October, November. We didn’t have the drum lines in place then, I understand they’re likely to return to the coast in the coming weeks in following the salmon run. So there are seasonal factors here — but don’t underestimate tiger sharks. I’m not demonising them but they have been involved in fatal shark attacks both in WA and around the world in significant numbers — they are an aggressive animal.

PERTHNOW: How long do you see the policy running its course?

PREMIER: There will be a review of the policy at the end of this summer, but bear in mind, it’s only run for the second half of summer. I certainly see it continuing through next summer. I think then we will have a better feel — I am hopeful that, and it may take two or three years, but I am hopeful that we can get the situation where it may not need to continue permanently on the metropolitan beaches, that the numbers of very large sharks will be reduced and it will be safer. There’s also more aerial patrols and beach patrols on Perth beaches. However, I suspect it may need to be maintained for a longer period on the South-West beaches, where clearly there has been the majority of the shark attacks and continuing frequent sightings of very large sharks in that area.

PERTHNOW: Do you think that the drum lines have made people feel safer?

PREMIER: I think, over time, yes it will. Bear in mind, this is a reluctant policy but we have been strongly supported by the Surf Life Saving Association. People who take responsibility and protect people on our beaches, they, like me, have reluctantly come out (and) strongly supported it as a necessary measure to protect people who love to go to the beach, who love to swim, to surf, to dive. And we’ve had 20 shark fatalities on over 100 years, we’ve had seven of those in the past three years — I had no option but to act in the interests of public safety.

PERTHNOW: One of the most divisive issues that has come up within public education in recent years has been the announced cuts and savings. Are you regretting that decision given the outpouring of negative responses from parents and educators?

PREMIER: I think most parents would be very happy with the quality of education in WA and the quality of facilities. WA schools are the best funded of any schools in any other state in Australia. WA school teachers are the highest paid of any group of teachers in the country — and this year, we’ve actually increased funding across the system by $300 million. Now, a lot of that is used up by the very rapid increase in the number of students attending our schools so we’ve had to put some tightening of the belt measures if you like — and that has had some impact on some schools, I recognise that. But we had no option. Even with that tightening, we still have by far the best funded schools and the best paid teachers.

PERTHNOW: Can you rule out further cuts to public education?

PREMIER: Not avoiding the question, but the biggest problem WA faces is the continuing loss of our legitimate share of GST revenues. And we lost money this year, for the coming financial year, we’re likely to see a further cut of something like $780 million. That is grossly unfair and if the Commonwealth continues to redistribute WA money to the other states to that extent, we will have to have cuts in our areas of expenditure — and the two biggest areas are health and education. We are doing the best — we’re keeping our budget in surplus, but it’s becoming more and more difficult and essentially it’s, if you like, a fiscal trap. This state is doing well in mining, almost all that money is being taken off us by the Grants Commission and given to other states, and yet this is the strongest economy — we’re getting people in their tens of thousands coming to WA, looking for work, for a better life, a good lifestyle and that’s the trap. Our population, our needs are going up, and yet Canberra is cutting our funds.

PERTHNOW: But some parents would argue why are we spending money on Elizabeth Quay and a new stadium when we’re cutting public education? What do you have to say about that?

PREMIER: What I’d say to you and people listening, (is) get a life. It’s about time that Perth grew up and became a more vibrant city, an attractive city for younger people, for families, even for older people. And Elizabeth Quay or the waterfront development has been talked about for 40 years. It will be the most attractive, vibrant part of Perth. The projects are well over halfway and next year it will be open. Already some land is being sold and it will get underway. It’s fantastic and you can walk and chew gum at the same time, and this is about Perth being a better, more attractive place for people to come and stay, have great careers, raise a family, enjoy our beautiful weather and lifestyle.

PERTHNOW: One of the most talked about issues for our PerthNow readers is public transport and traffic congestion within the city. What are some of the ways you’d look at tackling congestion in Perth in the future?

PREMIER: The Liberal-National Government is in its second term and my second term as Premier. During our first term of government, the concentration of spending and effort was in our public health system, so the Fiona Stanley Hospital nearly opening, the children’s hospital, two-thirds built, the Midland Health Campus, probably two-thirds built, Busselton, Hospital and so on and so on. Well before the election, I said during this term of Government, if we are re-elected our focus will be on transport — on road improvements, extending the freeway, widening the freeway, fixing up dangerous intersections with flyovers, and two big projects in public transport — the railway through the eastern suburbs servicing Belmont, the airport, and through to Forrestfield in that growth area, and the second one will be the light rail project, which has been deferred a little while but the light rail project which will go directly north of Perth out to Mirrabooka, service those inner city suburbs and then extend to the university and the new health centres.

PERTHNOW: That leads us into our Wildcard question from PerthNow reader Lorraine Collier. She wants to know when are you going to give WA light rail as you promised?

PREMIER: Look the project has been pushed back, but on the current timetable, we expect that to be operating in 2022, which sounds a little way away but it will take three to four years to build it. It’s very complicated going through a built-up residential area so squeezing the tracks down through a residential area, there will probably have to be some land acquisitions, rezoning, planning and that work is going on, and the first report on the project will come to the Government in the next few months. When we announced that, no work had been done. To do light rail, all the planning, the engineering, the design, the procurement, and construction, all is in front of us. But that project, yes, delayed a little while, will still go ahead, and with a bit of luck, maybe some parts of it will start early.

PERTHNOW: We’re heading into 12 months into your second term, what do you think would be your greatest failure since the March re-election?

PREMIER: We don’t have failures, sometimes projects are more difficult. Our greatest success was an extraordinary election result a year ago, where in 2008, the Liberal party won 10 seats off Labor, we won a further five a year ago, so that was the highlight for me as a politician during the year. I think we had a difficult period following the election — people were tired, they had been campaigning for probably nine months, no summer holidays, no breaks, and I think some mistakes were made. And it was a time if there was going to be something that went wrong, it did go wrong. And I’m not dodging responsibility, I accept that, but some of the mistakes were actually made within government bureaucracies — not at a political level, but nevertheless we bear the responsibility — there were some muck-ups on EPA approvals, there were some delays on Fiona Stanley Hospital, not so much delays but people setting targets and talking about it as to when it would open when in fact those targets were never realistic, and I think there were a couple of announcements in our budget which when we looked at it carefully found that the background work hadn’t been done — so I pulled those. That caused a bit of angst, but the mistakes had been made. I think that was an unsteady period post-election, the Government is right on track — we’ve got a good start to this year, we’re getting on with our agenda, we’re delivering what we promised and this is going to be a good year — these next couple of years are going to be good years for Western Australia.

PERTHNOW: We’ve seen recent incidents involving Serco and the use of their services. Do you think they can be trusted to run public services?

PREMIER: They do so under contract — they don’t set policy, they don’t make the big decisions. They just run administration so they’ve got a role and they’ve had a role in the prison system through successive governments, I might say. They run our prison system more efficiently, they tend to get better results in terms of programs for prisoners, certainly cost the taxpayer less and they’re going to run some back-of-house services in Fiona Stanley Hospital. You cannot just simply say that every area — whether it be health, education or prisons — has to be all 100 per cent government. You can have a mix of both government employment and management, and private sector. So look we’ve had a spate of escapes from prisons over summer and that’s not acceptable. Joe Francis, the Minister, is dealing with that, and the new Commissioner for Corrective Services, an ex-SAS commander, a pretty tough guy, he’s only been in the job a couple of months, I think he will make a major difference and we will find that some of the cultural problems and old habits in the prison system will disappear very quickly and we’ll get the sort of professional management, whether its government staff or Serco staff or someone else in our prisons.

PERTHNOW: Do you see that continuing as a long-term relationship though — Serco working with the government on public services?

PREMIER: In managing some facilities which we think they can manage at a lower cost and more efficiently, then government employs — but they will never control those services. They are simply employed to do a job, to provide security, to manage the food, to provide the programs for rehabilitation and the like, so they are just contractors, they are not decision-makers.