Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister Patrick Gorman says South West ‘incredibly important’ to Commonwealth

Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister Patrick Gorman has said the South West is “incredibly important” to the Federal Government while visiting Bunbury this week. The Federal Member for Perth was in the city on Monday visiting a number of locations, meeting with public servants and the representatives of organisations driving industry. He started off the day at Bunbury Port discussing its role in the potential development of the offshore wind farm sector in the region. Mr Gorman said the South West had “exciting opportunities” with the technology and the role the region could play in the renewable energy transition. “We’ve been out talking to the port about what that looks like in terms of making sure we can get the facilities in and the infrastructure in, but also recognising that you want to do that where it doesn’t take away from all of those existing industries,” he said. The assistant minister also stopped by the Services Australia offices on Prinsep Street to talk to staff and discuss their work. Mr Gorman said more than 60 per cent of public servants worked outside of Canberra. “We can’t thank our public servants enough so that is one of the things I always seek to do,” he said. Mr Gorman said it was important for the public to understand workers at Service Australia’s Bunbury office were not just serving people in the region. “They’re also servicing that national community, including those people who might call up at the end of the day,” he said. “Some of the last calls on the pension line for Centrelink are answered by people here in Bunbury.” Later in the day Mr Gorman visited Albemarle to learn how raw materials from the South West are transformed into batteries for electric vehicles. “It’s an amazing contribution that our resources industry is making to the transformation to a net zero economy and I want to see that up close,” he said. Mr Gorman’s Bunbury visit follows a stop in Harvey on Sunday, where he helped open the town’s new Federal Government-funded skatepark.