WA ‘carries nation’ as Mark McGowan pumps iron for election

West Australian Premier Mark McGowan is campaigning on what he calls a lack of understanding that ‘WA carries the nation’.

WA Premier Mark McGowan at Tom Price. Picture: Colin Murty

West Australian Premier Mark McGowan is campaigning on what he calls a lack of understanding that “WA carries the nation”.

The Newcastle-born Labor premier visited the heart of WA’s resurgent iron ore region on Friday, 15 days before the state election, and said: “It’s actually massive how much we do for the rest of the country and I urge them to appreciate it.”

Mr McGowan was in Tom Price, the inland town built in 1966 by Rio Tinto’s Hamersley Iron, where he announced a new hospital jointly funded by the state government and Rio Tinto. The company is spending $1bn on a mine expansion at Tom Price as record iron ore prices and export volumes edge the Pilbara towards another boom. About 3000 people — mostly mine workers — live in the town 1400km northeast of Perth at the state’s first iron ore hub. The housing occupancy rate there has reached 95 per cent.

Mr McGowan said WA “supported by the entire nation” in difficult circumstances during the pandemic but this was not well understood.

“They need to understand that Western Australians support them, people who work here (in the Pilbara) support them.” he said.

Mr McGowan is the most popular premier in the history of Newspoll because of his early coronavirus response. He shut the state’s borders and allowed resource companies to continue to bring in highly skilled workers. WA has since generated a surplus and made up almost all jobs lost when coronavirus reached Australia.

“We contribute more to the nation per capita than any other state in Australia, so we do a lot for the nation and they should be a little more appreciative,” he said.