Inside, Marles launched an emphatic defence of AUKUS.
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“In time, 4000 people will be directly employed at the Henderson defence precinct – union jobs – in any context, one of the biggest industrial facilities in our country and across the defence sector, there will be 10,000 jobs in Western Australia,” he said.
“This represents the biggest diversification of the Western Australian economy that we have seen in decades.“
Outside the conference, Marles offered a tribute to former Labor senator Graham “Richo” Richardson, who died aged 76 on Saturday morning.
“Graham’s passing is a really sad day for the Australian Labor Movement by any measure. He was a giant and a hero of the Labor movement, having devoted his entire life to the movement, and he will be deeply missed,” he said.
The Labor conference is where lay party members confirm the policy platform for the year ahead and various party factions attempt to steer the direction of elected MPs.
The morning session went off without much controversy but while discussing the party’s health platform United Workers Union delegate and paramedic Tom Sullivan had choice words about the state’s ambulance ramping crisis, which hit record levels in September.
“It’s really easy to dismiss ambulance ramping statistics as just numbers on a chart, but you have to consider that every hour of ambulance ramping is actually a human being,” he told the conference.
“They’re left on a stretcher somewhere, perhaps in pain, wondering if maybe they’ve actually just been forgotten about.
“At the end of the day, ramping actually is not inevitable, and it’s a policy choice. So, we’re here to make sure that those choices put patients and workers first.“
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