13 January 2025
Labor is blind to the housing needs of the South West: Chapman
Independent federal candidate for Forrest Sue Chapman has expressed her disappointment that the Prime Minister ignored the needs of South West communities during his trip to Western Australia last week.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was in Perth and northern WA late last week on a pre-election campaign tour, when he announced $200 million for housing and infrastructure in regional WA. The funding will support housing developments in Albany, Karratha, and the Wheatbelt.
“I welcome the Government’s regional housing investment in WA and I applaud the local governments who took their fight to Canberra to make it happen. However, the communities of Forrest in the South West have been completely overlooked,” Dr Chapman said.
“The South West is experiencing a complex housing crisis. From Bunbury to Busselton and Margaret River, housing availability and affordability is a growing concern and it’s distressing for many people I’ve listened to over the last year.
“A lack of housing availability is driving up rents and property prices, and preventing businesses from filling job vacancies. It is pushing first home-buyers, low-income earners and retirees out of their communities in search of more affordable homes to buy and rent, while others are forced into homelessness. In a rich country, we can do better than this.
“I’m meeting with mayors and CEOs across the South West and what I’m hearing from them is that a lack of funding for critical enabling infrastructure is holding them back from addressing our housing needs. This federal funding pinpoints this exact problem for other regional communities, but the South West has been snubbed.
No funding was committed in Dr Chapman’s electorate of Forrest despite the City of Bunbury recording the nation’s highest annual growth of net inflows from a capital city to a regional LGA. In the year to September 2024, more people moved from Perth to Bunbury than from any other capital city to a regional centre, anywhere in the country.
According to the Regional Australia Institute’s Regional Movers Index, Bunbury recorded a 59.3 per cent rise in people moving from Perth between June and September 2024, an increase of 300 per cent.
“The South West is a beautiful place to live with a great lifestyle and abundant opportunities, it’s understandable that people want to move here. We need the infrastructure and housing in place to encourage people to come, and to support those who are already here,” Dr Chapman said.
“Solving our increasingly complex housing challenges will require cooperation from all levels of government and local communities. Grassroots efforts to end homelessness across the region have been underway for many years. We need funding and a coordinated effort to tackle this wicked problem together.
“After more than 50 years of Liberal Party representation the people of Forrest tell me they feel unheard and forgotten, and Labor haven’t pre-selected a candidate to run at the Federal election. You can understand why our regional communities feel abandoned by the major parties and cynical about large funding announcements made in the lead up to an election being called.
“We need to lay sustainable foundations to support our rapidly growing population in the South West and we must ensure our regional communities get their fair share of housing funding. That’s what I’m focused on as Forrest’s Community Independent.”
ENDS