By Tate Papworth
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten will make the west a personal priority should he become Australia’s next prime minister.
Touring the St Albans Leisure Centre last week, Mr Shorten said he’s vested in seeing the west get its fair share.
“If we form a federal government I’ll be your prime minister. I do know this area and I’m very committed to seeing the western suburbs in Melbourne get their fair share,” he said.
“I’ll have an algebraic formula that’s Australia plus the west. It just means that whenever we do anything national, I’ll always be interested to see what we’re doing for here.”
Mr Shorten said his party has already developed policies for immediate impact.
“We are going to have universal pre-school for three and four-year-olds. That will see resources here,” he said.
“You’re a growing community with a lot of young families, we are going to properly fund schools.
“For places like the St Albans North Primary School, that will literally mean for the next three years alone, hundreds of thousands of dollars more, more teachers, more electives.”
“We’re going to challenge the vested interests in this country and govern Australia for the interests of the people who don’t always have their voices heard.”
Mr Shorten toured the leisure centre just one week after the state government rejected the Brimbank council’s application for a $3 million Better Pools grant.
“If we win the election … we’ll be in a position to look pretty seriously at the propositions you’ve set,” he said.
“But we won’t leave this particular proposal [leisure centre re-development] to the election. In other words, we’ll give you a clear answer on what we can afford well in advance.
“We won’t leave you guessing for long. I like the proposal. If this is what the community is telling me is a very important ask, then we will treat it with the importance you do.
“It’s affordable, but not only that, it’s necessary.
“I hope you take that as very favourable consideration. We’ll crunch the numbers, but I’m confident we can come to a happy landing.”
