Price looks right for Durack

Pilbara business and social services figures hope Durack’s newly elected parliamentary representative promotes the region better and delivers more targeted funding.

By Monday morning that representative looked likely to be Liberal Melissa Price, who was way ahead in voting as she aimed to regain her seat of Durack for the second successive election.

She recorded one of the biggest swings Australia-wide for her party as the country waited for a final result likely to be either a hung parliament or a slender absolute majority to the coalition.

Labor’s Carol Martin recorded a 5.38 per cent swing for the ALP as of Monday morning.

The Liberals and Labor appeared to have picked up votes from the Nationals and Palmer United.

Nationals candidate Lisa Cole was heading backwards with a minus 7.2 per cent swing and Palmer United was at minus 6.65 per cent.

Greens candidate Ian James recorded a positive 3.05 per cent swing.

Karratha and Districts Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive John Lally said he would take stock of the election result once it was finalised, given the major parties might yet be forced to negotiate with independents to secure government.

“But the biggest thing we would like to see coming out of Canberra at the moment is stable, consistent policy,” he said.

Mr Lally said he would also like incumbent Ms Price, if returned to her seat, to do more to promote economic opportunities in the region.

“The biggest problem we have in the Eastern States is perception, the Federal Government has taken its eye off the Pilbara because the mining construction phase has finished,” he said.

“But there are still a lot of opportunities and projects on the boil here and new ways to diversify our economy.”

UWA School of Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences professor of addiction medicine Gary Hulse said high rates of ice and alcohol abuse in the Pilbara highlighted the need for a more co-ordinated funding approach post-election.

He said the key challenge was getting the Federal and State Governments to talk to one another, given each provided almost half of all funding dollars flowing into the Pilbara.

“The way to tackle these issues is not to throw money at new service delivery,” he said.

“We already know which Pilbara services need to be better linked together so the key challenge for a Federal parliamentarian is to get behind these pathways (by corralling) a combination of Federal and State funding into them.”

Professor Hulse said the recent closure of Bunara Maya homeless hostel in South Hedland highlighted past failures by different layers of government to work together.

He said the hostel had been founded by Aboriginal elder Alfred Barker, run by Aboriginal people and accepted by the Aboriginal community.

Yet now it had closed, there was likely to be an alternative solution imposed on the community by distant government planners.

“Suddenly, you will have white bureaucrats coming up with their own ideas for services instead,” he said. Ms Price, meanwhile, said she was not surprised by her election result because she had put in the hard yards.

“We have brought a lot of visitors to the seat and really shone the light on the electorate,” she said. “I have marketed Durack in Canberra and with my colleagues more broadly, and people can see that I have been working hard and that as a Liberal, I can be trusted.”