Housing main concern for Greens candidate

The Greens have announced Julie Matheson as the candidate for the Pilbara seat in the upcoming State election.

Mrs Matheson, who has a long association with Port Hedland and the Pilbara, said her top priority would be housing in the North West.

“When the Pilbara embraced mining, housing was part of every agreement, every contract that was dealt with in the Pilbara,” she said.

“After a mining bust in the ’80s and the introduction of the fringe benefits tax, big business has been able to continue to operate in the Pilbara with no housing requirements put on them.”

Mrs Matheson said she would work with local governments to make changes to their planning schemes to ensure housing was part of the incentive for big business in the Pilbara.

She said the items on her agenda were “housing first, housing second and housing third”. Born in Port Hedland, Mrs Matheson said there were about 1500 people in the town when she was growing up.

After moving to Sydney and then to Perth, Mrs Matheson’s ties to the Pilbara remained strong.

Her father, Colin, was a prominent figure in Port Hedland, spending more than 15 years on the town’s council.

“I have fond memories of living and growing up in Port Hedland,” she said.

Mrs Matheson said if the housing crisis in the Pilbara could be solved, the towns would be places where people could be born, go to school, work and retire.

“If I was working as a miner in Port Hedland or Karratha or Newman and I was earning a lot of money I would want to spend my money on services so the place could be a liveable town,” she said.

“At the moment service providers have got nowhere to live.”