Work with us, WA Goldfield mayors beg Anthony Albanese

Mayors faced with rising alcohol-fuelled violence in WA’s Goldfields are demanding governments work with them to reintroduce some income management and boost local services.

Anthony Albanese, second left, visits The Super Pit goldmine at Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, on Monday. Picture: PMO

Mayors faced with rising alcohol-fuelled violence in Western Australia’s Goldfields are demanding commonwealth and state governments work with them to reintroduce some income management and boost local services, as Peter Dutton accused Anthony Albanese of snubbing the towns.

The Opposition Leader claimed Mr Albanese was being a “Prime Minister who’s just for the inner cities” after he visited Kalgoorlie on Monday but did not travel north to Laverton or Leonora, whose local councils are calling for all levels of government to help stop the violence and hold an Alice Springs-style intervention.

Laverton Shire president Patrick Hill said he and Leonora Shire president Peter Craig had a proposal ready to put to Mr Albanese and WA Premier Mark McGowan to turn the area into a “major social reform hub” by providing family services, crisis intervention centres, sport and recreation and school programs.

“The state government gets about $236m of royalties from us (in Laverton). We want a bipartisan approach between the state and commonwealth, as they did in the Northern Territory, to provide services and also let the two shire councils start to manage themselves in relation to the provision of services,” Mr Hill said.

“We’d like to see some income management system put back in place. The biggest problem is ­access to cash. Once they get cash, they’ve just lost it. Coming in from the lands, they bring in massive amounts of cash. They go gambling, the booze and the drugs. The whole lot, unfortunately.

“We’ve had enough of it. We’ve had a gutful of the violence.”

Mr Dutton, who travelled to Laverton on Monday, said much greater support was needed from state and federal governments, insisting he would bring the cashless debit card “back in a heartbeat” if he were in power.

“If I can find the time to go out to some of these Indigenous communities, then the Prime Minister should be able to as well,” he said.

“What we’re seeing with the law and order crisis in Laverton at the moment, the federal government and the state government need to do more to address that situation. Frankly, Mr McGowan should be calling out Mr Albanese in relation to the other issue of the cashless debit card because that is directly responsible for the violence and the crime that we’re seeing in those communities at the moment.”

Mr Albanese said the cashless debit card would not be reintroduced in the Goldfields region as he was forced to defend his quick trip to Kalgoorlie-Boulder, where he met with shire president John Bowler on Monday.

The Prime Minister, who said he “can’t go to every single place in Australia on every day”, also visit­ed the town’s open pit goldmine, attended Kalgoorlie’s School of the Air and pressed the flesh with locals during a street walk.

Federal cabinet will be held in Port Hedland on Tuesday.

“I‘ll continue to be a Prime Minister who gets out and about and doesn’t just sit in Canberra or Sydney. Gets out and about right around this great country – which is why this is my ninth visit (to WA). I’ll be back in March. That will be my 10th visit, well ahead of what the target was, which was to visit WA 10 times each year,” he said.

“I’ve been to Albany, I will be in Port Hedland tomorrow, I’m here in Kalgoorlie-Boulder today. I’ll continue to have a big presence. And that stands in stark contrast to what previous prime ministers have done over the previous decade. And might I say, some who are critical of me as well in terms of the opposition leadership team, I put my record of visiting WA and engaging with WA communities throughout this great state with them any day.”

Mr McGowan repeatedly refused to clarify whether he supported or opposed the federal government’s decision to scrap the cashless debit card, but flagged that he was weighing up the introduction of alcohol restrictions in regional communities grappling with violence and alcohol abuse.

“That’s a federal government matter, they were elected on a commitment and they have carried it out,” he said of the cashless debit card. “I’m going to deal with what the state can do and in the case of Carnarvon, clearly we need to look at what other restrictions will need to be put in place.”