Anthony Albanese: Prime Minister announces Port Hedland Cabinet meeting date, snubs call to visit Carnarvon

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will not be making the trip to outback WA during his 24-hour visit of the State, amid calls for him to see first-hand what the crime-ravaged communities are going through. But he has promised to take his entire Cabinet to the State’s North West on February 20 or 21, after a meeting in Port Hedland was postponed last year following the death of The Queen. Mr Albanese jetted into Perth on Wednesday to announce seven new health clinics will open across WA this year to treat people with non-life-threatening injuries without having to wait for hours at hospital emergency departments. However, questions are being asked on why he could make a trip to Alice Springs last week to witness the alcohol-fuelled crime crisis, but could not do the same in Carnarvon, which is also struggling with youth offence issues. Nationals leader David Littleproud this week urged the Prime Minister and Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney to make the trip to the Gascoyne town but Mr Albanese has refused. “I was in Fitzroy Crossing just a few weeks ago. This is my second visit to WA (this year). I will be visiting Port Hedland and taking my entire Cabinet to Port Hedland later this month,” Mr Albanese said on Wednesday. “I visited Albany towards the end of last year. I am a regular visitor to WA. I’ll try to get around to all of this great, big State as I try and get around to all of our very large country — whether it’s our cities or our regions. “The visit to Fitzroy Crossing was very much with the community and we discussed a whole range of issues there — not just the impact of the floods, but we talked about the nature of issues that are there... we talked about employment.” The Prime Minister’s Perth visit comes on the same day a report is expected to be handed down to the NT Government and Commonwealth on a way forward to the ongoing crime crisis in Alice Springs. After spending just four hours on the ground in the Red Centre last week, Mr Albanese announced restrictions on alcohol and almost $50 million of spending on a range of initiatives to reduce unrest. He said he wanted to act on the report as soon as possible while acknowledging there were no “off-the-shelf solutions”. “Last week, there was already some action taken, which, when I spoke to the Chief Minister this morning, she reported that it was already making a difference,” he said. “I want to act as soon as possible. I want not to delay, but I also understand that some of these issues are intergenerational. They are not easy, off-the-shelf solutions. “It is not just about alcohol. It is about employment, about service delivery, about getting staff on the ground. You can’t fund programs, if you don’t have people to do the services, then that can create an issue as well.” So far, Mr Albanese has visited WA twice this year — first when he toured Broome and Fitzroy Crossing in early January following WA’s worst-ever flooding, and Perth on Wednesday. He has committed to returning later this month for a Cabinet meeting in Port Hedland, which was a promise he made to the State immediately after winning the Federal election in May last year. Mr Albanese said he would hold two Cabinet meetings in WA in his first 12 months as Prime Minister to show his recognition of the State that delivered him the keys to The Lodge. “I think it’s important for people to recognise that Western Australia isn’t just Perth and I’ve always done that,” Mr Albanese told The West Australian in his first sit-down interview as Prime Minister. “I want to take the entire Cabinet to one of the regions. It’ll be Port Hedland or Karratha or another of those important regions. I’ve consistently as Labor leader travelled to those regions but over a long period of time as well.” September’s meeting was not the first one to be cancelled in Port Hedland. The first was in May 2021 when Mr Albanese was in Opposition and he wanted to take his shadow ministry to the booming export town in an effort to show that Labor remained the party of blue-collar Australia. But due to State’s COVID-19 restrictions, the meeting did not go ahead. Former Prime Minister Scott Morrison also pledged to hold the first-ever Council of Australian Governments meeting in Port Hedland in July 2020. This also never happened.