Foreword
Western Australians are facing difficult and turbulent times.
Our community has weathered significant challenges over the last few years.As a state, we came through the COVID-19 health crisis and economic slowdown surprisingly well, with cautious leadership and a strong sense of community commitment helped by our geographic isolation and natural resources.
The challenges we now face are different, and we will need new strategies and measures to adapt and thrive. We are confronted by the prospect of a global recession causing escalating inflation and living costs, despite living in a period of record low unemployment and high workforce participation. Rising interest rates threaten a new group of households who have recently bought into new mortgage belt suburbs and may soon owe more than their homes are worth and their incomes can cover. Those already doing it tough risk falling further behind, with rents skyrocketing and rental vacancies hard to find.
Western Australia’s success in recent years has highlighted the qualities and advantages we can build on with an eye to the future. For many of us, this is the best place in the world to be living, and we would not want to be anywhere else. Our rapid expansion in recent years has led to some serious growing pains and there is a struggle to ensure our public infrastructure, both physical and social, keeps up with changing demand. Our resource-based economy has enabled the state to prosper, but it is also inherently unequal, creating obstacles to ensuring that those on low and fixed incomes are not left behind.
The 2023-24 WA State Budget provides the opportunity to make the public investment necessary to assist those struggling to get by and to ensure we can collectively make it through the coming storms. We came together to face the pandemic, we now need to find a way forward that builds on our strengths and creates a sense of common purpose.
Western Australians are facing challenging times. The important thing is how we face them together.
Mark Glasson Louise Giolitto
President Chief Executive Officer
To read the State Budget Submission, click here.
