Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Western AustraliaJuly to December 2021

2022; Wiley; Volume: 68; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/ajph.12858

1467-8497

Martin Drum,

COVID-19 epidemiological studies

The second half of 2021 saw the consolidation of the McGowan Labor Government in its second term. Western Australia's physical isolation, not only from international connections but also interstate ones, continued through the vast majority of this period. In the midst of this, the WA economy continued to thrive. Much of the political discussion was dominated by pandemic management and the state of the public health system. There was also considerable interest in ongoing court battles between the WA Government and mining billionaire Clive Palmer. Western Australia's COVID-19 response was once again characterised by the implementation of a hard border with other Australian states and territories for most of the second half of 2021. WA itself began the period in partial lockdown, with the easing of most restrictions from midnight on 2 July. WA's border control regime during this period fell broadly into four phases. The first phase in early July was a slight easing of controls with some of the less populous states who had recorded little to no infections at that stage. The second phase was the implementation of ever-tightening restrictions after the spread of the Delta strain, particularly from August onwards. Travel from NSW was especially difficult during this phase, with that jurisdiction listed as “extreme risk” on 20 August. The third phase was a slight easing of travel conditions as the Delta outbreak receded during October and November. The fourth and final phase was a hardening of border controls from late November and into December as other states eased their own restrictions and opened up their borders to inbound international travel. While travelling to Western Australia was difficult for most of this period, by the end of December very few people were being admitted to the state. At the same time, the State Government indicated that a high take-up of vaccine doses would be its essential tool in combatting the virus when it opened to other Australian (and then international) jurisdictions. The government developed a two-pronged strategy of strongly encouraging key cohorts to get vaccinated, while mandating the vaccine for a broad array of workers across many fields of employment. The state's first COVID-19 vaccination “blitz” began in August, focused around a “Roll-up for WA” message. School-based vaccines and the third booster shot were both rolled out from October. There was a “Super Vax Weekend” in November, during which first dosage of the vaccine reached over 80 per cent of the population for the first time. With the advent of second dosage reaching 70 per cent on 20 November, the WA cap on international arrivals was doubled, although 14-day quarantine remained. During this period, WA announced the broadest array of workplace mandates in the country; around three quarters of the workforce was covered. At this time, WA and the Federal Government also announced that a purpose-built quarantine facility for COVID-19 cases would be constructed in WA. In October, the state's parliament legislated to extend the WA Emergency Response powers by another six months. As the year drew to a close, a clearer picture of living with the virus in 2022 emerged. In November, a Safe Transition Plan was announced, framed by the Government as a “soft” landing out of the pandemic. In December, a timeframe for this was announced, with the opening of WA's border to the rest of Australia scheduled for 5 February 2022. Also in December, a $185 million Reconnect WA package was announced to safely re-engage with the world once Western Australia transitioned away from its border controls. The court battle between WA Premier Mark McGowan and Queensland mining billionaire Clive Palmer continued during this period. In October, the High Court delivered another victory for the WA Government by rejecting Palmer's legal challenge to WA legislation which shielded the state from a compensation bill, which could have amounted to as much as $28 billion. This dispute dated back to 2012, when the then Barnett Government refused to formally assess Palmer's company Mineralogy's development proposal at Balmoral South, 80 kilometres south-west of Karratha. Palmer had then sought claims through arbitration. In response, the WA parliament had passed the Iron Ore Processing (Mineralogy Pty. Ltd.) Agreement Amendment Act 2020, which prevented Palmer from claiming these damages. Palmer's legal team had argued that the legislation was unconstitutional but this argument was not supported by the court. It was yet another bitter blow for the mining magnate, who had previously lost a High Court challenge to WA's hard border in 2020. A third legal stoush, a defamation claim and counter-claim between Palmer and McGowan, remained unresolved, with court proceedings due to commence in early 2022. In December, Premier Mark McGowan announced a significant reshuffle of his cabinet. The principal change was the departure of Deputy Premier Roger Cook from the Health portfolio, which was handed to Amber-Jade Sanderson. Mr Cook added Tourism and Commerce to his State Development responsibilities, the move pitched as him taking on a broad “jobs and industries” responsibility within the state. The National-Liberal opposition alliance framed it as acknowledgement of the failures in the Health portfolio. John Carey added Lands and Homelessness to his Housing and Local Government portfolio, giving him a range of different responsibilities. Reece Whitby took on the Environment portfolio, while Tony Buti became the new Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. Stephen Dawson became the new Emergency Services minister, David Templeman the Minister for Sport and Recreation, Don Punch the Minister for Small Business, and Bill Johnston the Minister for Industrial Relations. Western Australia continued its experiment of having the Nationals leader Mia Davies as Opposition Leader, and the Nationals and Liberal Opposition alliance continued. The principal focus of the Opposition was on controversies within the WA health system, but they also campaigned on a diverse range of issues, including vaccination accessibility in regional areas, worker shortages in agricultural areas, education facilities, homelessness and housing affordability, and the slow progress of recovery in the aftermath of Severe Tropical Cyclone Seroja. While there were no departing members of parliament during this period, the WA Nationals suffered a blow in December when James Hayward, one of their three Upper House members, was forced to resign from the party when he was committed to stand trial on child sex charges. Mr Hayward announced that he intended to plead not guilty and stayed on as an independent member of parliament. As Mr Hayward had been the Shadow Minister for Local Government, Water and Regional Cities, these portfolios were redistributed to Shane Love, David Honey and Mia Davies accordingly. An ongoing stoush between the Attorney General and the Legislative Council was finally resolved in July, with WA's Supreme Court ruling on whether material held by the Western Australian parliament should be released to enable the Crime and Corruption Commission to further its investigation into issues of misconduct and misuse of public-funded electoral allowances by MPs. In 2019, Upper House MP Phil Edman resigned after revelations that $78,000 of his tax-payer electoral allowance had been spent on speeding fines, visits to a strip club, and interstate trips to visit women for sex. Further investigations into three other Upper House MPs were stalled after the CCC was unable to access their electronic communications. After the CCC had ordered emails, data and documents to be handed over, the Legislative Council passed a motion to prevent this from occurring on the grounds that they were protected by parliamentary privilege. In response, the Attorney General had sued the President and Clerk of the Legislative Council. The Court ruling provided some comfort for both parties. The Government was buoyed by the finding that most of the material sought by the CCC could not be considered protected by parliamentary privilege. At the same time, the Court ruled that it was up to parliament to decide what should be handed over. The principal finding, which led to progress on the issue, was that a memorandum of understanding be drawn up to overcome the dispute and provide a framework for the future. The eventual signing of two MOUs between the parliament and WA Police and the CCC in December enabled the release of several thousand pieces of evidence relating to the case. During the second half of 2021, a number of parliamentary reports were tabled. The Joint Standing Committee on the Commissioner for Children and Young People recommended that a Commissioner for Aboriginal Children and Young People be established, to focus more specifically on the needs of those groups. The Joint Standing Committee on the Corruption and Crime Commission made a number of recommendations relating to the use of excessive force by WA police and how these cases had been handled by the Crime and Corruption Commission. After a string of high-profile reports of sexual harassment in the mining sector, an inquiry into sexual harassment against women in the FIFO mining industry was commenced by the Community Development and Justice Standing Committee. The Committee heard of many allegations of appalling incidents and practices amidst the state's FIFO workplace culture. The Education and Health Standing Committee commenced an inquiry into the response of Western Australian schools to climate change. A Select Committee into Cannabis and Hemp was established, an initiative driven by the Legalise Cannabis Western Australian Party. Party leader Brian Walker chaired the new committee, which promptly announced an inquiry into the legal and regulatory framework for cannabis. Other committee inquiries included an inquiry into the financial administration of homelessness services in Western Australia (Estimates and Financial Operations Committee), an inquiry into the Legal Profession Uniform Law Application Bill 2021 and Legal Profession Uniform Law Application (Levy) Bill 2021, and an inquiry into the Mutual Recognition (Western Australia) Amendment Bill 2021. In addition to these Bills, two additional pieces of legislation entered and passed both houses of parliament during this period. Both elicited considerable parliamentary discussion and debate in the latter half of 2021. In September, a new development in WA electoral reform occurred when Attorney General John Quigley tabled the final report of the Ministerial Expert Committee on Electoral Reform, which had been tasked with reviewing and reporting on the electoral system for the election of the WA Legislative Council. 1 1 Author's note: the author was one of the four members of this Ministerial Expert Committee. The final report contained five recommendations, including that one electorate comprising the whole state be instituted, similar to that which existed in NSW and SA, and that Group Voting Tickets be abolished in favour of Optional Preferential Voting, in a comparable manner to Senate reforms in 2016. That same day, the Government introduced the Constitutional and Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Equality) Bill 2021, which largely adopted these recommendations, and increased the Legislative Council to 37 members, up one from 36. The Bill was fiercely contested in the parliament with most of the attention focusing on the abolition of the six upper house regions and the introduction of the one state-wide electorate. The Government argued that this was necessary to abolish severe malapportionment in the Upper House, with WA the last state jurisdiction in Australia to do so. The National-Liberal opposition claimed that it would reduce regional representation and amount to a reduction of political voices and voting power outside the Perth metropolitan area. In November, the Bill passed its final hurdle in the Upper House, with the 2025 state election to be fought under the new voting framework. A final major piece of legislation which elicited considerable controversy was the passing of the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act in December. This Act was designed to recast the issue of preservation of Aboriginal cultural sites and materials in the face of ongoing development. Whilst the preservation of Indigenous heritage has always been a sensitive issue, the tragedy of the destruction of Juukan Gorge by Rio Tinto in May 2020 made it especially volatile. Rio Tinto had blown up ancient rock shelters which had seen human occupancy dating back 46,000 years in order to access higher-grade iron ore. For its part the Government argued that the new Act provided a framework for the protection, conservation and preservation of Aboriginal cultural heritage, and signified the embracing of the cultural authority of relevant traditional owners. It claimed that the Act was the culmination of extensive and ongoing consultation with Indigenous communities. Critics of the Act argued that it ensured that mining companies and other development proponents could still damage or destroy Aboriginal sacred sites. They pointed out that while Indigenous groups could have input into the process, the final decision on proposals rested with the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. Furthermore, there was no right of appeal for Indigenous groups if the Minister ruled against them. The passage of the Act did not settle the issue, but merely presaged a new period of activism on this issue that extended well into 2022. The absence of lockdowns saw Western Australia's economy continue to flourish during this period. While the country's two most populous states were in lockdown, Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) figures released in September showed that WA's economy was outperforming the national average, with the highest rate of growth the state had seen in eight years: 4.3 per cent in 2020-21. This was reinforced in jobs data released in November which showed that WA's unemployment rate was the lowest in the nation at 3.9 per cent. In September, the State Government delivered its annual budget (delayed on account of the pandemic) with a projected operating surplus of $2.8 billion. This was built off an increase in state revenue to $38.3 billion, driven largely by increases in royalty income along with stamp duty, vehicle sales and payroll tax. The State Government announced a range of measures designed to support development in Western Australia, including the streamlining of project approval processes and planning reforms. Several high profile infrastructure projects in WA continued, including the Metronet scheme, with further roadworks around the domestic and international airports completed, and the first trains scheduled to run on the Forrestfield-Airport Link in 2022. In the Perth CBD, there was a joint State and Federal Government announcement of a new campus for Edith Cowan University, which sought to integrate with business, cultural and transport linkages. The WA state budget contained a range of new social policy spending measures designed to address specific challenges in the broader community, several of which had been exacerbated by COVID-19. There was an additional $1.9 billion for health and mental health services, and $875 million for building social housing, including a social housing investment fund. With costs of living on the rise, $397 million was spent on relief for households dealing with rising electricity and water charges. The state government attracted criticism from a number of environmental groups, on the grounds that it had taken insufficient action to combat climate change. The Government's budget did include several environmental measures, with the most notable being the release of its Forest Management Plan 2024-2033 which amounted to an end to logging of native regrowth in the southwest. This decision was welcomed by environmental campaigners but angered several logging communities in the southwest which relied on the logging of forest regrowth for local jobs. The National-Liberal Opposition Alliance argued that because old growth logging was already banned, this decision was effectively banning sustainable logging of regrowth areas. More broadly, the Opposition Alliance argued that the budget surplus represented a missed opportunity to diversify the state's economy and amounted to crisis management. 1 July saw the effective introduction of Voluntary Assisted Dying in Western Australia, with the state parliament having legislated to put it into effect in the latter half of 2020. According to the WA Department of Health, at least 171 people accessed the scheme in its first year of operation. August saw the launch of the first spacecraft to be designed and built in WA and launched from Cape Canaveral in the US. The new satellite named Binar-1 CubeSat was designed by Curtin University and supported by the State Government, and was sent into orbit from the International Space Station. In August, the AFL announced that Western Australia would host the 2021 AFL Grand Final for the first time. Given the popularity of the sport in Western Australia, this was an enormous boon for the state. More than 60,000 fans crammed into Perth's Optus Stadium on 25 September for the spectacle which was broadcast nationally and internationally. Open access publishing facilitated by The University of Notre Dame Australia, as part of the Wiley - The University of Notre Dame Australia agreement via the Council of Australian University Librarians. Open access publishing facilitated by The University of Notre Dame Australia, as part of the Wiley - The University of Notre Dame Australia agreement via the Council of Australian University Librarians.