Peter Hudson

[00:00:00] Speaker A: All right, there we had. And somebody said that was a little bit my show. Nothing ever happens. It was a very harsh call. I thought by the. I might call it the executive producer Magic. Sound as if we got a big team here, but. Hi, you're with Nick from Nick's Nuggets. And pre the last Rockingham state election we had Peter Hudson, not the footballer. Peter Hudson, who is representing the Liberal Party, came in and he made himself really available at any time, which was really, really good. And I appreciated it. And I've been lucky enough now to be able to score another interview with Peter Hudson. Good morning, Peter. [00:00:45] Speaker B: Good morning, Nick. It's great to be back here with you. And could I say from the outset, if I was half as good at football as I am at politics, and I guarantee you I would be in a much, much better industry, I'd be out there with the haw. Had a good win over Fremantle, unfortunately. [00:01:00] Speaker A: So you're a Hawthorn man? [00:01:01] Speaker B: No, no, I'm a die on the wall Freo supporter. [00:01:03] Speaker A: Oh, okay. [00:01:03] Speaker B: But my godfather is a die on the wall Hawks guy and he laments the fact that. That my namesake is after a footballer for a team that I will never support. And I. Yeah, you'll never catch me. I'll always be wearing the. The purple and white scarf when it comes to any time during the AFL season. [00:01:20] Speaker A: So do you get too many games, Peter? [00:01:22] Speaker B: Oh, very rarely. Look, I do enjoy. I went over to the MCG a couple of weeks ago. I was over in Melbourne for. As you do you. You find your way to the MCG on game day. That was the Eagles and the Demons last weekend or the weekend before. I managed to get over there. [00:01:37] Speaker A: That was the first weekend before. [00:01:38] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So I managed to get over there. That was my first time at the MCG actually, for a football game. [00:01:44] Speaker A: What do you think of it? [00:01:45] Speaker B: It's a large state. Look, this might be a hot take here. I understand that the MCG has a lot of history and even when you walk in you can feel the atmosphere between. Between those walls. But I actually think that Optus Stadium is a much better stadium. We've got a great deal here in Perth. It's a brand new stadium. Sure, it's a bit smaller in capacity, but. And it's got less prestige to it. But gee, I tell you what, I think Optus Stadium is one of the best pieces of infrastructure in the entire country. I think in my view it probably matches the mcg. In my. [00:02:14] Speaker A: In my opinion, I think too, like you say, there might Be a bit of bang in the background at the moment as we're doing a few Renaults at the station. But yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? And we talked off air about this, Peter, that there's. There's culture and there's. There's moving ahead, which sort of saw. Nice little segue this, isn't it? Because you are now a counselor with. On the Rockingham City Council, correct? [00:02:41] Speaker B: That's right, yeah. Yes. I think last time I spoke to you we were still in the running for the Rockingham by election. So that was at the retirement of Then Premier Mark McGowan. [00:02:49] Speaker A: That's right. [00:02:49] Speaker B: For the Liberal Party, for the Rockingham by election. And we had a fantastic result out of that election. Didn't go our way as we would have hoped, but a great result nonetheless and it springboarded me very neatly into the Rockingham City Council. So I lodged my nomination to run for local governments. I've now run for federal, state and now a local government where I was elected in October of last year. So for people listening in the future, this is about nine months of the date of recording now that I've been on Rockingham City Council and gee, that's been a journey as well. You get all of the machinations of state and federal politics, but at the local level. So as a seriously lover like me, being able to. To continue engaging with politics and with. With business and with governance in a local city role, it's been an absolutely fantastic and an exciting role so far. [00:03:37] Speaker A: So you due to liaise with both federal and local. [00:03:43] Speaker B: Look, I tend to not personally much and I should probably say at this point in time that I speak for myself as a councillor. I don't speak on behalf of the city. That's the role of the understandable. But the. The city certainly does have a great relationship with the state and federal department agencies, local members. Of course I. I don't have too much to do personally in, in reaching out to those departments and agencies, but I keep my foot in the door when it comes to those areas because I've. I've run in those spaces where before. I've got a very good understanding of stakeholder engagement between levels of government. In my view, this is one of the largest issues facing WA and Rockingham at a bit of a crossroads at this point in time. So something that I take very seriously is, is not just. I'm not just about rights, roads and rubbish. I'm very much about what is. What's the next step for city of Rockingham. Whether that's dealing with the state government or federal government, sometimes we have to wrangle them. And I'm certainly not afraid to go out and do that. [00:04:38] Speaker A: It's Rockingham again and I was speaking off air, but, you know, it's really hard as a member of the community. And I know they say, well, you can go to council meetings. And you said the other. But let's be honest, I don't think a lot of us do. Even though we're interested in what happens in Rocking, I don't think we really take to the next level. So maybe we get a little bit information through the. The local paper, but I'll be on. I think it's sort of scant some of the stuff we get. So I believe we've got many thousands of people in the foreseeable future moving to Rockingham for the. Is it the submarine? [00:05:19] Speaker B: Yeah, for submarine rotational force west or that's a quite long name for what most people will know as Orcus. And I think, and this is something that I'm continually chasing up at the council level, pushing this towards the state and the federal government is how the city of Rockingham unlocks the opportunities that come with Aukus. I'll say from the outset, there are a range of challenges that we need to face, and it's not all sunshine and roses. We need to really get into gear, force action from the state and the federal government to prepare the city for Aukus. When we're talking about the council level and the city level and what we're talking about for our residents, that comes more into. Around the infrastructure. Infrastructure leading up to HMAS Stirling. So there's obviously $8 billion which is going to be invested on the Navy base over the next 10 years, which is a. It's an astronomical number. But half of that or not. Not quite half, but definitely some of that funding needs to be for the community infrastructure in the lead up to the Navy base. So these are things like the local road network, which is already under pressure. We look at park and Street Safety Bay Road leading up to the Navy base at peak hour. That's. That's already crazy. The thing that people raise, I suppose the most with me is, is local housing. And we're already in a housing crisis, as you would know. I'm sure you've heard it from your guests on the show, that we're in a homelessness crisis as well in the city of Rockingham. That literally hundreds of people are sleeping rough in Rockingham in these cold winters. It's unbelievable. And now we're faced with the proposition that 20, 27, absolute minimum, we're going to have 700 people moving into our community, 700 sailors and, and their families in the US and the UK. They're moving into Rockingham and they need, they need to go on the same roads, they need to use the same schools, the same hospital, they need to use the same amenities, the same pubs. And we need to be ready for this. The rubber is about to hit the road. We've only got a couple of years in terms of development lead time. And so we need to get educational facilities, our road infrastructure, all of these things that come with basically importing an extra thousand or more people into a community. We need to be prepared for this and levelling up Rockingham because it's not just about housing the Americans and off they go to work on the Navy base. We need to get some really great benefits for the people of Rockingham as well. We're the ones that are the key stakeholders here. It's the city, it's the people that live in it and we want the absolute best for our city. So that's where that, a lot of wrangling. The state and federal government, they need to take the lead on this. But local government, we're certainly doing our best to hold them into account and we're fighting for the best for the people in our city. [00:07:46] Speaker A: You see, you know, somebody like myself, and I consider myself a layman in this regard, you think X amount of thousand, how you know, them and their family say, you're saying thousands probably. And naturally you think first thing that comes to your head is where they're going to get their homes. And that's, I won't say the only thing, to me that's okay, where they're going to put them all. But again, as a layman, I forget schools, roads, hospitals, police infrastructure, infrastructure, homes in it, I don't know. But you forget that, you know, you just, you guys just, just find them houses, that'll be fine. [00:08:26] Speaker B: Yeah, and you're exactly right. And I think that's the, the one area where the government may be somewhat turning a blind eye to this and say, oh, the city would sort it out or the market will just sort it out. In my view, we need to take some very proactive leadership. It's a, what we, and we, we spoke about this when I was running for Parliament in, in the last cycle is it's all about statesmanship. It's about, and to break that down for your listeners, it's about doing what's right for the community, not necessarily what's popular. It's not what's going to win you vote in the next election. It's about what's doing right for the community with a long term vision. We're talking about Aukus when these are, when they, these folks come here from the US and the uk. We're talking about a generational defining program. This is the Next, at least 30 to 40 years of development in our community. That's not taking away from the actual nuclear submarine capability, which is at least the next 80 years of defence capability. And of course HMAS Stirling is the largest naval base in the southern hemisphere. We can't just turn a blind eye to this because our city is literally on the doorstep. We're about five minutes from the navy base right now. So it's something that, which really represents a macro strategy and a massive investment opportunity for Rockingham. We just need to stick the landing. And that's, that's where a lot of my work on council and my continuing work in politics and business has been, is focusing on. The wheels are spinning. We just need to get into gear. So that's, that's my view. [00:09:46] Speaker A: It's an interesting. And we spoke about this too like just because Rockingham has got the naval base and we're moving ahead, surely this is. When I say, surely as a, in my mind we should have a lot more like we spoke about mantra, the going, heading gangbusters, you know, like breweries and not having the carnival and getting rid of the carnival down there. And look, I'm not saying I agree with it, but I understand you, you can't, you can't really have a carnival for a few hundred or few thousand people. Like, you know, you need to open it up. Where do people want to go? Whether you like or not, they want to go to these breweries. And that's, that's just progress. Be it right or wrong, that's just progress. I want to go. We're gonna have all these people in Rockingham and apart from the new development with that new hotel we were rocking about, do we have any plans in Rockingham that you know of? [00:10:52] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Look there, there are a few irons in the fire and I'd be very happy to go into one of those. We'll pick up on the Rockingham Hotel which you just mentioned. So the city obviously has given approval for the demolishment of that building. This is going to be very closely followed by an application to, to rebuild a brand new bar and a short Stay accomplished. Accommodation at that site on the foreshore there. Anyone who's come along the, the Rockingham foreshore in the last. Well, since I've been a kid, basically has seen that the, the old Rockingham hotel is a pretty dilapidated building. There's obviously that massive car park which is there and it's been locked off. And that's nothing to do with the city. It's privately owned. [00:11:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:30] Speaker B: So we haven't been able to access that area for our residents. But now we're very exciting. We've been able to approve the demolishment of this building. The developer is committed to building a brand new hotel and pub on that location. We've seen the concept art and it looks fantastic. The only thing is a matter of time. We just need people to get on with the project. And of course we're facing the usual issues with the construction post Covid is supply chain, it's personnel, skilled labor. This continues to be an issue for developers but the beauty is we've got that commitment there. It will happen. My very, very optimistic hope is that it will be done in time for the Americans coming in to Australia, really hopefully. It shouldn't. It shouldn't be taking more than three years for them to put together this hotel. So yeah, we should have the brand new Rockingham hotel ready as almost like the jewel in the crown of the Rockingham Foreshore. Right. When American and UK guests arrive on the submarine. So that's very exciting. But there is always a lot of emphasis on the Rockingham foreshore. I'm actually in Waikiki Safety bay so I always love to bring it back to my local area. [00:12:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:12:39] Speaker B: And that is the exciting development around there which council has been working on is the Waikiki Hotel. [00:12:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I saw that in the corner. [00:12:45] Speaker B: So you'll remember that back to when I was very young. That used to be the. The local haunt for everyone around my side of town. [00:12:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:12:52] Speaker B: And that obviously was knocked down quite a while ago. It's been sectioned off for years and years and years. Years like this has been a recurring issue coming through council for many years. But we have now gotten to the stage where we are getting close to being able to approve or for the state government planning agency to be able to approve the new Waikiki Hotel. And that'll include a range of shops including GP cafe, restaurant, childcare center I believe is in there as well. And. And the hotel itself which faces out onto off the YBK foreshore. So that's a. That's another beauty that's going on there. So there are a range of, range of things. There's a couple in Port Kennedy, Secret Harbor, Golden Bay, as they continue to develop. But not, not just the, you know, you're going out and having a drink at the pub sort of thing. There's a lot of commercial like commercial things going on around East Rockingham as well. So there is a lot of development and obviously defense industry is taking a major look into Rockingham and Quinana, which falls just outside our jurisdiction. Jurisdiction. But having the Henderson Marine complex on our back door, that's another, another huge opportunity for Rockingham. So I would say even though, you know, the local paper may not pick up on everything that's going on in Rockingham, when I talk to businesses and when I talk to government agencies where they are working like anything to get this stuff moving and on the ground it's just a matter of, I think a bit of leadership from the, from the top down and unlocking those opportunities. Opportunities. Address those challenges and then we have a really great next level up for Rockingham ready in the wings. [00:14:19] Speaker A: It's funny, isn't it? I was speaking to a fellow Rockinghami. What do you call rocket rocker Rockingham? I don't know. [00:14:29] Speaker B: I suppose, you know, free Mantleite. That's up the road, Fremantle Light. That would be my, that's, that's what I have historically anyway. [00:14:41] Speaker A: Yeah. And I sort of like we're chatting about old and new and you know, you, you've got to move whether we like it or not because progress, that is progress, do you think? And I spoke to a few people right here and I said, yeah, well we're like a little, nobody knows about us. Like, you know, you talked about Waikiki and Safety Bay and I quite often drive along that road and you know, it's, it's sort of happy, sad Peter because when I first moved to Perth I used to drive down the west coast highway and Sorrento and you had all these old holiday houses there and that was Sorrento and now they're all two story, three story, absolute million, two whatever dollar homes do you. And I, I think just by progression that that will happen around the Safety Bay and it's still a few in Rockingham area, the old houses. So people saying, oh, I'll miss that. Do you have thoughts on that? [00:15:52] Speaker B: Yeah, look, I think as you say, there is a bit of the march of time and, and progress that does come with this. But there are a lot of locals who enjoy that Rockingham is a bit It's a bit like a hidden paradise. [00:16:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I know that's. [00:16:03] Speaker B: I certainly feel that as well. I've got sentiment for that. [00:16:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:16:07] Speaker B: But look, I do see Rockingham. It's going to come down to. As time marches on, as, as publicity continues to, you know, wrangle itself around Rockingham and what that means for our community. I do see us going a bit more like Scarborough or a city beach or indeed a Mandurah. And look, I look at those places now and I think, well, that's, that would be fantastic for Rock Rockingham. [00:16:27] Speaker A: Yes. [00:16:27] Speaker B: We will lose some of our old school identity or you know, the old Rockingham suburb. [00:16:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:16:33] Speaker B: Where you know, my grandparents grew up. But that is progress, isn't it? Because that is exactly what happened to Sorrento and City Beach. [00:16:40] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:16:40] Speaker B: I don't think anyone in Sorrento City beach would like to trade in their 2 million dollar home for a shack on the beach. That's just an intimation. I'm sorry to those people if they have some strong feelings otherwise. [00:16:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:16:51] Speaker B: But no, I do see us going that way. It is a matter of time. Time. But to me it's about how we do that sustainably and we talk about sustainability. You've got the economic, social and environmental aspects of sustainability. Everyone seems to go for environmental these days. But more importantly, or as importantly, it's a tricorn of environmental, social and economic. Social. We need to bring the people along with us. We know that we're moving into the next phase of Rockingham. What that means for us. Economic. We need to have businesses and commercial enterprises which are viable. We can't have people living in this town or, you know, a navy base operating without the business and economic backing behind that. And then obviously environmental is yes, we're going to develop and yes, we're not going to look the same in 40 years time. But there is a way that we can preserve a lot of our natural environment and actually enhance that. There's a lot of capacity for us to bring both up, whether it be built environment and natural environment. Bring those things together and level them both up at the same time. [00:17:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:17:46] Speaker B: So there are, there's some great, great, great development opportunities here. A lot of that's going to require investment. And that's, that's another key issue of, of where we are in Rockingham. [00:17:54] Speaker A: Do you think, Peter, again, I'm just, you know that with investment, I'm just asking a question here, like, and it may sound crass, but people won't invest if they can't make money. And I would assume if you look at Rockingham people go I will invest because I can make money. So what I'm trying to say is I, I think it's a. I wouldn't have a clue. I think it's a given that people will invest. [00:18:22] Speaker B: Yeah, I think so. And look, the city's actually launched a investment in Rockingham for businesses program that it's running now. It's kicked off recently. That'll be a program of, of advertising investment advertising that'll run for around six months I believe. So that the city is proactively seeking out these businesses. [00:18:39] Speaker A: Businesses. [00:18:39] Speaker B: But I think that there is generally a lot of interest from all sorts of different industries in Rockingham. You've got defence industry is obviously a given but I think another one that's going to pop up big time especially in the Kwinana industrial area and the Rockingham east industrial zone is the critical minerals industry which is just taking off, going gangbusters in terms of commodity prices. So we'll see all of these critical minerals processing and, and explorers from the mining sector. So we've already got the Tianki Lithium Company is in corporation rather is in Kwinana. The Chinese premier when he came to Australia the other week he came to Kwinana and visited that, that site. Funnily enough that was a Chinese owned site but never mind, that's better than nothing. So there are a whole, whole range of different areas where companies are in investing in Rockingham. There is interest in Rockingham. The one thing that, and I work in defense industry and the mining industry. For full disclosure, the one thing that these industries really want is that government leadership. They need to see that leadership from the top down. Because in Australia we face a very hefty regulatory environment. We often say oh why don't we build more in Australia? Why don't we hire more Australian people? It's because we actually live in a very, very tough red tape environment for Australia. It's things like and I'm certainly for the minimum wage but there are a whole range of measures that sit around business which actually make it quite expensive to do business in this country. And that, that is actually a role of the government. The government legislates this red tape and that actually stifles local business. So when I hear from you know, small business right up to the, the big mining companies, the, the number one, one thing that they need to see from government is that leadership in rolling back red tape. How can we make business more efficient? How can we get the best for the local community. [00:20:31] Speaker A: It's a difficult thing, isn't it? Because in my lifetime, the bureaucracy. And I might be wrong, I'm just saying my observation is that bureaucracy has grown and it makes it hard to get things done because there's more people who put their. I want to in. When I was in sales used to be called clipping the ticket that people had to make money all the way along. Like. Yeah, you do, you do, you do. And I sort of think wonder question, is bureaucracy a little bit like that? Oh well, actually, yeah. Well, if we get involved in this, we've got to say these people got to do this, so they have to do that and then they're almost do that, well, we better do this and you get all this flow on effect. Is that reasonable? [00:21:17] Speaker B: Yeah, look, I think that is reasonable and I think you see that at every level of government. Perhaps it's. It would be most accentuated at the Commonwealth level of government because they're often intermingling between departments which then have to talk to the state government, which then have to talk to a local government. My experience with the, with the Rockingham City Council is they're actually quite proficient at stakeholder management, so that they're, for example, if we want to kick off a project, we want to build a new skateboard out in Port Kennedy somewhere. I'm not saying we're going to do that, but, you know, if that were the case and what we were looking to do then, then the city would initiate that process and they would, right from the get go, go into consultation, be it with the community, local businesses around the developers and tenderers of the actual project itself. So I think as a city we do quite a good job of maintaining relationships between, between different areas. But I think certainly there are examples within broader government in which, you know, the bureaucracy has become insane and just, you know, out of this world. I look back to when we were discussing this issue last year was the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage act and that was a state government. [00:22:22] Speaker A: Oh, that's right, yeah, I remember that. [00:22:23] Speaker B: And you remember that was an absolute disaster of a piece of business. [00:22:26] Speaker A: I do remember that. [00:22:27] Speaker B: And fancy why that that ended up being such a bad bill on paper is because it was. Was surrounded by bureaucrats who had no real life experience on, in terms of what they were legislating on and the practical impact. So what the, the bill itself maybe was fine in intent, but it was the practicality of the bill which everyone was upset about. And that's, that's where that bureaucracy kicks in and that's a, an egregious example of where, you know, Good point. Has, you know, over bureaucratized, you know, government bureaucratized. [00:22:55] Speaker A: Bureaucratized. [00:22:56] Speaker B: We may have just created a new word. I'm going to call it Griffiths. Oxford Dictionary, 7th edition. Here we go. [00:23:02] Speaker A: It's. It's. Look, I mean I know you've, you're, you know, you're not press for Tom, but I know you have a lot of things. But I, there's so many things I want to ask about and one of them would be. I think there's two things that maybe come to my mind is that if somebody says, oh you, you got to go to Perth. And I go, yep. And they say the beach is magnificent. And you go, what beach you going to go? I want to go to a city beach. Well, I want to go to Indiana Tea House at Cottagelow. And you go, well, what about Rockingham Beach? And yet we're one of the best beaches, stretches beaches in wa. And yet nobody, I dare say if you look on one of those travel things, they always say I've got to go to, you know, even Hillary's. But nobody says, oh, you've got to go to Rockingham. [00:23:53] Speaker B: Yeah, you're right. Now I think that's a. Again, it's another hidden, hidden jewel in us that is the Rockingham foreshore. I'm not sure if you caught. A few months ago, ABC Radio Perth ran a poll. [00:24:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:05] Speaker B: And it was a democratic poll of which is the best foreshore in Perth. And they had all of those that you mentioned, city beach, cot beach and. And the Rockingham foreshore came out a mile in front in Perth. We actually, the city was presented with a placard. [00:24:19] Speaker A: Oh, really? For. [00:24:20] Speaker B: For being voted by the people as the best, best place in Rockingham. And you talk about the businesses that feed off of that as well, that whole foreshore strip or even around the Safety Bay foreshore strip as well. There's so much potential in that space and it. We have the, I think the greatest beach in Perth. It's fantastic. You can go around the north side to avoid the wind west side. If you're a kite surfer, stand up, paddle. There are so much opportunity and I'm a big fisho as well so, you know, I'm very much across the beaches and, and ocean around this, this area. [00:24:51] Speaker A: So. [00:24:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:52] Speaker A: Can I ask where you fish or is that a secret? [00:24:54] Speaker B: Oh, these estate secrets I could tell [00:24:56] Speaker A: you but I won't ask where you. But what do you fish for? [00:25:00] Speaker B: That's all sorts of things. It's just like everyone else in Rockingham. November, December, it's all crayfish. So we go out there back at Garden island is. It's a great way to keep up with what's going on on the. On the navy bases. When you go out to crayfishing. [00:25:13] Speaker A: It's a business trip. Exactly. [00:25:15] Speaker B: We'll write it off on tax. I wish the fuel gets. [00:25:19] Speaker A: But no. [00:25:19] Speaker B: Otherwise it's just squidding crabs. We used to get in Cockburn Sound. Obviously most people go down to Mandurah for that now but even just your King George wadding off the off Port Sound is a fantastic day out on the water. Even if you don't catch much. It's great. Yeah. We've got such beautiful coastline. It'd be a shame not to use it. [00:25:37] Speaker A: I think so. And that's where we chatted before about preservation as regards. And also. But being able to develop now again I'm asking because I haven't lived in Rockingham all that long but up around where is it? I'm just trying to think it might be safety bay something. Point is there Point Parent. That's right. Point Baron. That's what I want. I've been there a few times. It's beautiful. But there's gonna get into trouble here. Unless you knew it was egg. Would you go there? Does that make sense, Peter? [00:26:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Absolutely. No, look at Point Parent is it could be one of the. The jewels in the crown of Rockingham. In fact this might be a hot take but it could be the King's park of the South. That's my. My honest view. It's got such potential there. It has no such history. If you go through a walk through Point Parent it's the. The southern tip of the Fremantle fortress and that's 1940s when Western Australia was under threat by Japanese subs. They built gun emplacements from Point Perrin all the way up to Exmouth. Perrin is the most southern tip where they were. Where they were, you know, watching out. So there are gun emplacements there, old radio towers, comms towers. This is all Australian history. And I've actually been involved in. In restoration of the bunkers and things like that before. And it's so, so interesting. So it's something that place that I really recommend people get out to. But you're right, we don't. We don't do a great job of advertising it and we don't. The facilities that are out there are none. You've got a smallish car park and I'm a diver. And as we go out there on a Saturday morning, go diving, that's all the car parking done. There's a little coffee cart. [00:27:20] Speaker A: That's right, yeah, yeah. [00:27:22] Speaker B: There's not even a toilet block or any. There's not even a cycle path or a footpath out there. So if you've got tourists coming from overseas, they can get a bus down to where Memorial Drive meets Point Perron Drive. That's as far as you can. But then you've got to walk 2km down to the actual point, is that right? There's no safety or anything. You've got to walk on the road. [00:27:40] Speaker A: That's right. [00:27:41] Speaker B: Not to mention there are 8/10 of homeless families living along the Point Perrin Drive now on the, on the stretch out to Point Perrin, because that's the only place they can go. So that, you know, there's a whole range of issues there and the. At the end, we just need a significant amount of money and political will injected into that area. We could make this into an eco tourist national park if we wanted. It could be a fantastic facility where, you know, we could take the dog out on a Sunday afternoon for a walk or, you know, get the kids out on a Saturday morning, ride your bike and go for a walk through the Fremantle Fort, learn about the history of this country. You know, we really, really should be a bit more proactive on developing point people parent in a sustainable way. It's important. But yeah. [00:28:25] Speaker A: Excuse me. I think over time, especially in this day and age, you're finding a lot of governments, whatever you want to call it, councils, whatever, they're learning to keep the history and like you say, the bunkers and all of these sort of things, they're learning to keep that and at the same time modernize it so that you might have a cafe, you might have, you know, tours or this, that the other. They're managing to do it, so it's not a case I'll forget it. Or just knock it all down and just put up fancy hotels. No, they're not. They're actually managing to, like you say, cross it. And there's so much potential there, you know, I do, I do say. How many people would know a point Perrin Apartness. [00:29:14] Speaker B: Oh, I think if you live in Rockingham, you at least. [00:29:16] Speaker A: Sorry. [00:29:17] Speaker B: But yeah, I mean, whether you visit there ever is another question. So I think it's mainly used by your divers. There's a couple of boot camp people that run up the big stairs and then other than that, there's. There's the young people that go there later, late at night and get up to nefarious activities. That's, that's my understanding of the area anyway. But people outside of Rockingham, unless you go, if, I mean if you go on TripAdvisor and say things to do in Rockingham Point parent will come up. The fact is it's just not accessible. It's. It's out of the way and there's no way there and there's nothing really [00:29:47] Speaker A: there when I know what you mean. [00:29:48] Speaker B: There's the, there's the museum aspect of the open air museum aspect of it. But in terms of what else is there? It's a, you know, you're probably not going to spend half a day as a tourist going out to Point Parin just to, you know, walk around and see nothing and then come back into. [00:30:01] Speaker A: That's my point and I'm not being rude in this day and age. That's what I think. That's what a lot of people want. They don't want, you know, if you've got some other places along, you know, talking with the top of my head here, if you look at other places, say like even to a degree, Tasmania and New Zealand, they tend to build for tourists and they haven't wrecked it. Like you got New Zealand. A lot of places are just what they were. But they've put, I'm not saying you have to have a cafe but they put something there. Oh, you know, you can go there and like you say you just don't want a coffee van. You might say oh gee I want to, wouldn't mind something else and go, well it's coffee or that. [00:30:41] Speaker B: I think the, the very, very minimum should be. We, we could at least have a toilet block out there. Like come on. Yeah, we've done this at every other facility in the, anywhere almost the entire city. And I understand their environmental concerns but come on, like if the political will and the, the money is there, why can't we get it done As a common sense question that, you know, everyone in Rockingham would be like, well it just makes sense, like why wouldn't you do it? So that's certainly something that I'm advocating for and I'll be pushing hard at the next election. As you know, it's an election season coming up in the next six to eight months and well, you know, there are some serious questions to be answered about what have local members and the local and the governments actually committed and done for the local area and what will they commit? What will they commit to what can they promise for the next four years, years and the next, you know, vision for the city. [00:31:28] Speaker A: Question. I have a lot of questions, don't I, Peter? So let's just say we'll use Point Parent because we've been chatting about it. So who do the people in Rockingham, if they're interested in like we're, you know, making it a toilet block, whatever we say. Is that a state thing that you go to Magenta with or is that a. I know they're both labor or is that something you're going to Madeleine Fields with? [00:31:55] Speaker B: Well, if we're speaking specifically about development at Point Parent, it won't be in the, the remit of the federal government. [00:32:01] Speaker A: Right. [00:32:01] Speaker B: The, the funding would certainly have to come from the state government. So that would be the, the member for Rockingham. The actual delivery of the project, I suspect, would be undertaken by the local government. So. [00:32:12] Speaker A: Right. [00:32:13] Speaker B: In effect, that money would have to be committed by the state government, handed over to, to the local government for delivery and completion. This is a very normal way that we do things. Almost all projects that the state government commits to are actually delivered by local government, funnily enough. But the money and the commitment is the bigger issue. I'm sure the city would love to get in there and get it done, but it is. Point Parent is actually state government owned land. So it needs to be. And it's covered under environmental approval, so it needs to be passed off by the state government before the local member could ever even dream of committing money to the, to a project like that. So there's a whole lot of layers. We go back to bureaucracy. Yeah, there's a whole load of layers that need to be addressed. And yeah, we haven't even spoken about the federal level of it, which, you know, isn't in the remit of this particular project. And there's this much bureaucracy and just a state to local project. It's a, it's a huge amount to navigate and it's not easy. And to an extent I feel that is why a lot of areas in Rockingham and a lot of infrastructure has just fallen by the wayside because it's not easy. Delivering these things is tough and it takes a lot of good people. It takes time and it takes money. And when you don't have one of those three things, then it's very easy for these things to, to fall over. And you know, people like you and I are left wondering for the rest of our lives, where was the development happening in Rockingham? Why didn't they try harder. [00:33:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:33:30] Speaker B: Where's the best for our community now? [00:33:32] Speaker A: Yep. And like you say, it's a lot, a lot of his political. If you know a particular government wants to spend money to further and that's just politics. I understand that. So I know you've, you're running short of time, Mr. Hudson's respect. So you enjoy your time at camp. I've got one more question. Enjoying your time on a council? [00:33:56] Speaker B: Absolutely. Look, it's, it's an exciting journey so far is what I tell people. I'm. And you would have picked this up in our chats last year but I'm very much a big picture thinker, a macro strategy thinker. You know, I take broad strokes and I whittle them down into workable campaigns and things like that. But the one thing that I've found very surprising from council is just how much I've enjoyed getting into the nitty gritty local planning area within local government. Because you think, oh, you know, as I said before, I'm not a rotates rates rubbish guy, I'm a big picture thinker. But actually getting into the, the guts of what we deal with in local government and you know, okay, so we take the Rockingham Hotel for example, looking at. Okay, these are the concept drawings, these are the dimensions it's going to take. These are the 200 odd conditions that the developer has to, has to deal with to build. Actually getting into the nitty gritty of all that. Understanding it from the inside out. Yeah, it's been really, really interesting too. So that's something I didn't think I would wrapped in but you know, it's, it's been an exciting learning experience. I suppose she's. [00:34:54] Speaker A: And I don't know, this is not, I'm not trying to say this, this is just a general question and I don't know the answer and, but I know every council and it's just life that we had got our. I think I got my right yesterday. Do you know and I don't know what percentage. Do you know what percentage we went by or not? [00:35:17] Speaker B: Yeah. So we ended up settling on 4.2% rate increase last year. Yeah, that, that actually when you put it in perspective of all of the numbers, it sits about middle of the pack for the rest of Western Australia. So some of them went below cpi. Take the city of South Perth for example. However, they, they are certainly eating into their monetary reserves. That presents a, you know, a sustainability issue for you know, you can't just continue, you know, eating into your Reserves because you'll have no money left. There are other jurisdictions, I remember last year, like Fremantle, they had to put their rights up 9%. 9, 9 whopping percent. Because that was because they did some extra measures during COVID and you know, that's, that's their decision. But yeah, to compensate for that, they had to put up a 9% increase. So, so the city has a, has a, a business plan of 10 years where the rates are somewhat mapped out in terms of. It's obviously subject to economic conditions. But the beauty of the rates that we've set, even though, yes, I understand we're in a cost of living crisis, but the beauty of the rates that we've done this year and the year past is that it allows us to set up a lower rate space threshold for the years to come. So in the long run, we're actually going to try to save residents as much money as we possibly can. And in my view, cost of living crisis, we need to be doing everything we can to help our residents. [00:36:40] Speaker A: Compared with things like meat, fruit and veg, groceries, whatever. 4%. I mean, if my grocery bill went up 4%, I'll be jumping off the roof in happiness. So honestly, 4%, I wasn't questioning because I understand it. I mean, of course it's got to go up. Insurance has probably gone up 30% and rates have gone up 4%. And I don't have, me personally, I don't have a job. Be like my last question, because my last question. What's your take on the American election? What's your take on it? [00:37:19] Speaker B: Yeah, look, it'll come as no surprise. I'm no fan of, of Joe Biden. I certainly think he's, to put it bluntly, his past is used by date. However, I, I do think it is probably too late for them to install a new candidate. [00:37:32] Speaker A: That's the interesting thing about it because [00:37:33] Speaker B: we, the, the election is in November. We're recording this on the 16th of July. This is, you know, a very, very close to hitting the road here. So I think it's too late for them to introduce a new candidate. So I think it is going to be a matchup of, of Donald Trump and Joe Biden. It was just in the news this morning. Donald Trump has been selected as the Republican nominee, which he's locked in. And yeah, look, it looks like we're set for, for Donald Trump to become president again. You obviously taken the. This week is the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. What a shocking example of democracy gone wrong. That is. It's, you Know, to the point where people are trying to assassinate what is in effect the leader of the opposition. You imagine if someone did that to Peter Dutton, he's the leader of the opposition in Australia. And imagine if at a rally there was an assassination attempt. What state of the world is America living in? [00:38:21] Speaker A: Well, it's funny, just before you go, I read something this morning and whoever it is, I'm not, you know, America is the greatest country in the world is what they said. And I read up alcohol, alcohol and drug related deaths have doubled in 30 years. Large a 6 largest, largest incarceration rate in the world behind El Salvador. You know, they're above them. But the one that struck me is basically, and I'm generalizing every other country in the world, their average age of dying has moved up, you know, say like from 65 to 70. In America, it's actually gone down. It's just about the only country. And you think, you know, I'm just a nuts and bolts man. How is that the greatest country in the world? [00:39:12] Speaker B: Yeah, you're right. And actually digging deeper into those statistics, you'll find a of lot, a lot of those numbers are actually coming out. The lion's share proportion of those numbers are coming out of Democrat run states. So which is the party of Joe Biden. So it's a. And, and you contrast them with a lot of the states in the south which are, you know, controlled by the Republicans. [00:39:30] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:39:31] Speaker B: You almost see a polar opposite effect in terms of, in terms of. And of course America's got plenty of problems on either side of the aisle. But it's very interesting that this progressive experiment of, you know, we're going to lean into the left and, and all these, these culture wars, it's actually resulted in very negative outcomes for the people in the local community. So I'll end on that, that I'm very pleased. Australia is in a very different place. Fortunately. We have our disagreements and we can have our disagreements of course, but we don't face the same issues as the United States. I'm very thankful for that. [00:40:02] Speaker A: Me too. [00:40:02] Speaker B: But I wish the best of luck to, to both candidates in, in the presidential race. [00:40:06] Speaker A: Well, it's been a pleasure, Peter. And maybe in a couple weeks of months or three months if you be kind enough, if you can. I know what you're on the spot to come in again. I think it's good for people of Rockingham to, to understand what's going on with the infrastructure and things like that because we generally, as I say, I get much news would that be okay in two or three months? Absolutely. [00:40:27] Speaker B: Yeah. We'll definitely line it up. Absolutely. Maybe we can do a full election analysis of the the US when it comes time. [00:40:32] Speaker A: Whoa. Won't that be good? Well, thanks again. It's always a pleasure. It's great having you in here. A very interesting and alert young man could be with me and not so much alert and old. Thanks very much. Plenty to see you again.