Blame Canberra for WA hospital woes, says Premier Roger Cook

The Productivity Commission’s findings on the WA health system came as the Liberal opposition unveiled a $20,000 cash bonus for nursing students.

Anthony Albanese and West Australian Premier Roger Cook both feature in the WA Liberal Party’s attack ads ahead of the March state election. Picture: Kelsey Reid / NewsWire

West Australian Premier Roger Cook has blamed the federal government for the latest grim diagnosis of the state’s health system.

Fresh off a Newspoll showing that half of West Australians did not believe Anthony Albanese deserved to be re-elected, Mr Cook on Friday said the issues identified in WA’s hospital emergency departments by the Productivity Commission were the product of a shortage of GPs – a federal, rather than state, responsibility.

The PC report found only 32 per cent of WA emergency department patients deemed as needing to be seen within half an hour were seen on time, compared to 69 per cent of patients in ­nation-leading NSW.

The state of the WA health system has long been a headache for the state government, with am­bulance ramping levels having soared since Labor came to power in 2017.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Mr Cook said the key finding of the report was that WA was suffering from a lack of GPs, which in turn put more pressure on the state’s hospitals. “Yes, we don’t have enough GPs. I don’t control the GPs. That is the responsibility of the federal government,” the Labor Premier said.

“We do want more GPs in WA because they’re the key to keeping people well or assisting them with their disease or injuries that are of lower order before they get to the hospital.”

Mr Cook – who was WA’s health minister for almost the entirety of Mark McGowan’s premiership – said his government had added more hospital beds per capita than any other state over the past five years.

The WA Liberals have long identified health as a key area of focus ahead of next month’s state election, and leader Libby Mettam said Mr Cook’s decision to blame Canberra for the issues in WA’s health system did not stack up.

“For Roger Cook just to wipe his hands of this, to say it’s a federal issue, it represents a failure to recognise the importance of driving home more efficiency in our hospital system,” she said. “These systems do not operate in silos.”

The Liberals on Friday unveiled a policy to offer a $20,000 bonus to nursing students who studied and worked at least two years in WA.

Ms Mettam said WA had the highest rate of health bureaucrats and the lowest rate of nurses of any state in the country.

“This points to a Cook Labor government with their priorities all wrong,” she said. “Roger Cook has either been the minister for health or the Premier over the last eight years. He owns this health crisis … It should not feel like our health system is on life support.”

Neither leader was willing to be drawn on the latest Newspoll – first published in The Australian – showing that the Liberals were set to claw back many of the seats they lost in the historic 2021 election rout.

The polling showed that while Mr Cook was on track for a comfortable election win, some 50 per cent of West Australians stated they wanted someone other than Mr Albanese as prime minister.

Mr Cook has repeatedly fought the Albanese government’s proposed Nature Positive environment laws and has declared his government to be “proudly independent” of Canberra.

Asked about the Newspoll findings, Mr Cook said he didn’t pay attention to the figures.

“What I do do is work with the Prime Minister to continue to create great jobs in WA, make sure that our role as the engine room of the nation’s economy continues,” he said. “And we’ll do that working together with the Albanese Labor government.”

The WA Liberals have included Mr Albanese’s image alongside that of Mr Cook in its ­attack advertising, although the party’s diminished position in WA means it does not have the financial capacity or resources to match Labor on the campaign trail.

A still from a Liberal Party attack ad targeting both the WA Premier and the Prime Minister.

Ms Mettam on Friday acknowledged the Liberal Party had its work cut out: “We have an uphill battle, we know that. But we are working very hard, we’re out every day. We have outstanding candidates on the ground and we will continue to talk about a better future for Western Australia.

“We will continue to talk about the fact that Roger Cook has blown the biggest boom our state has ever seen and has failed Western Australians comprehensively on those issues that matter.”

It is understood that the polling figures were broadly in line with Labor’s own internal polling in the west. Many in the Liberal Party have been buoyed by the poll’s findings about Mr Albanese’s diminished standing in the west.

The poll’s suggestion that the Liberals and Nationals could regain 12 seats across the state was better than many Liberal insiders had been expecting, with some having feared the party would only make single-digit gains.

The modelled Newspoll result would still represent the second-biggest Liberal defeat in history, and would mark three consecutive heavy defeats for the party in the west.