Transcript - Radio Transcript - 6PR Breakfast - Thursday, 27 January 2022

GARETH PARKER, HOST: I'm interested in your view on this because the poor old Bell Tower has copped it again. The Bell Tower, which was commissioned in the days of the Richard Court government, well, and I'm quoting here, I'm quoting, so please forgive the language, I'm quoting, has been described as 'a little bit piss weak' by my next guest on 6PR Breakfast. He's the Federal Member for Perth, Patrick Gorman. Patrick, don't be mean to the Bell Tower. Good morning.

PATRICK GORMAN, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR WESTERN AUSTRALIA: Good morning, Gareth. Good morning to your listeners, and I do need to say that I was defending the Bell Tower, some people want to tear it down and start again. I was saying that it should stay, in my view, as a reminder that sometimes we don't do things with the ambition we should in the West, but I don't think it should be torn down. I think we should acknowledge that maybe it wasn't able to fulfill its complete potential.

PARKER: Well, hang on, who wants to tear it down?

GORMAN: It was put to me by the journalist that there's this idea that it might need to be rebuilt. And I note that the Lord Mayor and I are on sort of a unity ticket as saying, wouldn't it be nice if it was just a little bit bigger when it was done? For me, I don't want to get rid of it, but I do accept that it's a reminder that sometimes when we do things, we should do them once and do them well, so we're not spending the next 20 years debating over whether it was big enough, strong enough, tall enough. When I look at an example of where we've done it very well, I look at the WA Museum where we actually fulfilled something that is now one of the biggest museums in Australia. An amazing piece of architecture, a great tourism effort, done once, done well.

PARKER: Righto, so look, I mean, the Bell tower is what it is, and my memory of it, it is a long time ago now, is that it was supposed to be bigger. But there was enormous criticism, particularly from the media and probably from The West at the time, and that might have been one of the reasons that its ambitions were perhaps shrunken down just a little.

GORMAN: That sounds about right in terms of the history of that project, but it's obviously, it's good to have a few pieces of architecture that kind of engage people and they can continue to have opinions on.

PARKER: So look, the context of this discussion that you made these remarks, it was sort of about what? Like casting around for our identity when it comes to tourism? Is that sort of the discussion that you're having?

GORMAN: What I was saying was that one of the things that Anthony Albanese and Labor have committed to if we are elected at the federal election, that's due probably in May of this year, is that we will transform the City Deals, which have sort of been these little one-off projects, sort of cut the deal and run arrangements, into long term partnerships, trying to bring in sort of more long term partnership between the federal government and local governments. It's something that myself, Anthony, the whole team are very passionate about. As some of your listeners may know, we've said that if we're elected, we'll put local government into the National Cabinet, to make sure that they’re the voice of local communities, at that sort of granular planning level, in some of the big challenges we have ahead of us. And so that was the broader context. I have a passion for tourism. And I know that our tourism operators have done it really hard the last few years, so I do want to be in that conversation talking with them about what they think we need for the next generation of visitors so that when they do come back to Perth they see something that encourages them to tell their friends that they should come here too.

PARKER: So just on that, I mean, with so much of the rest of the world kind of moving past the crisis phase of COVID and reopening their borders, we are obviously not at that point yet, and there's been a lot of discussion about that, do you think that if we're serious about reviving tourism, how difficult is it going to be to overcome the perception that we're closed for business?

GORMAN: Well, Western Australia will be open soon. While I understand the disappointment of many when it came to that shift in the February 5 date, the reality is that the longer term message is that Western Australia will, in the very near future, open up to the rest of the country and eventually the rest of the world. And that's a good thing. And we need to make sure that we are ready and that we give those new visitors fabulous experiences. Getting tourists to one of the more isolated capitals in the world has always been tough. But if I look at some of the encouraging signs of what we saw from Qantas a few weeks ago, that potential for direct flights from Johannesburg, if we look at where there's been success into direct flights from China in early 2020, we know that with carefully planned government action, you can do things that really boost tourism and open us up to new markets.

PARKER: All right. Thanks, Patrick. Appreciate your time.

GORMAN: Thanks Gareth.

ENDS