Follow our live coverage here.
Follow our live coverage here.
Back to politics, and Premier Roger Cook has dug in on Labor’s plan to build a new women’s and babies’ hospital next to Fiona Stanley Hospital, despite concerns about the travel time for critically ill newborns to get to Perth Children’s Hospital.
It was an issue already on the agenda today, when, during a speech to a business breakfast, Liberal leader Libby Mettam reiterated her plan to move the hospital to Nedlands, and read an email from a great-grandmother of a newborn who needed an emergency transfer from King Edward Memorial Hospital to PCH.
At a press conference earlier today announcing an election commitment for small business grants, Cook said Labor’s decision was based on advice from Infrastructure WA, which claimed developing the hospital at the QEII health complex represented “a significant risk both in terms of cost, logistics and timing”.
He wasn’t impressed by the idea that the Liberals would go back to building the hospital at QEII.
“ We know under the Liberals’ plan – they haven’t said how they’re going to implement their plan, by the way – but under their ideas, they’re going to tear up the contract, basically trash any preliminary work that’s already been undertaken … and take Western Australians through a long process of developing it at QEII,” he said.
“So you’re not going to see that hospital developed inside a decade.”
An update now on the story we brought you earlier this morning about the police search for a 69-year-old man from Carlisle who was last seen in the city yesterday morning.
And some good news too: police tracked down Marie Favory a short while ago in Highgate.
He will be taken to hospital for an assessment.
In police news, a chase through Perth’s south-eastern suburbs last week has resulted in a motorcyclist being charged after he allegedly rode at “excessive speeds” and through red lights in a bid to evade officers.
The black Yamaha was allegedly spotted travelling recklessly on Kenwick Road about 12.45am on Thursday, February 20, but when police activated their lights to pull the rider over, he allegedly obscured the number plate by bending it and sped off.
Police Air Wing was called in to track the rider as he allegedly sped and ran red lights through Wattle Grove, Lesmurdie, Carmel, and Pickering Brook, where the rider was eventually tracked down to at a property on Carinyah Road.
The 27-year-old Pickering Brook man has been charged with reckless driving to escape pursuit by police; driver of a vehicle failed to comply with a direction to stop; and used or operated an obscuring device to prevent a whole or part of a plate character being read.
His motorbike was impounded.
The man is set to appear in Armadale Magistrates Court today.
Back to that business breakfast at Crown, and Libby Mettam has shown a rare glimpse at her lighter side on stage, joking at questions around her Churchlands candidate Basil Zempilas’ leadership ambitions.
Mettam said the only people obsessed with Zempilas were Roger Cook, Rita Saffioti and John Carey.
When asked by moderator Jess Page if she could name three things she liked about Cook, Mettam said he was a decent man.
She laboured for a minute or two on points two and three before firing of a quick-witted response that drew plenty of laughs from the crowd.
“I’m sure he’s a wonderful family man, and he’d be fantastic in opposition.”
To breaking news now, and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau has just released its preliminary report into the Rottnest Island seaplane crash in January, revealing how survivors of the tragedy moved into an air pocket of the submerged cabin.
Two managed to escape through a door, and two were rescued by onlookers who smashed a window and pulled them out.
The Swan River Seaplane-run Cessna 208 plunged into the sea on January 7 at around 4pm after wobbling during take-off and nosediving into the water 600 metres offshore.
The plane had seven people onboard. The pilot, James Wong, 34, and two international tourists, aged in their 60s, died. Their bodies were retrieved from the wreckage by police divers.
In a preliminary report released this morning, details were revealed about how Wong was initially worried about flying in the strong winds, with his boss telling him not to feel any pressure to take-off, and that customers could always catch a ferry back to the mainland.
Sticking with the Libby Mettam breakfast at Crown, and the Liberal leader has addressed her party’s refusal to release its election commitment costings until the last week.
Nearly 122,000 people have already cast their vote at early polling booths. Asked whether those people were meant to trust the Liberals’ costings, Mettam said: “Well, it was their decision to vote”.
Mettam again defended their decision to not send their commitments to the WA Treasury for costing.
“All of the election commitments we have made so far have been costed, and we will provide our costings in the normal manner, in fact, in a similar manner that Mark McGowan did in opposition in just before 2017,” she said.
“We have provided our costings in terms of every election commitment that we have made, and we will be providing our costings. Next week, as has Labor in the past, when in opposition.”
In politics news, we’re at Crown Perth at a business breakfast, where Liberal leader Libby Mettam is making one of her last public pitches to the state ahead of the March 8 state election, and health has featured prominently.
Mettam reiterated her plan to move the Women’s and Babies Hospital to Nedlands from Labor’s preferred site in Murdoch.
She made that case by reading out an email she received from a great-grandmother of a recent newborn who required emergency transfer from King Edward Memorial Hospital to Perth Children’s Hospital.
Here’s the email in full as read out by Mettam:
My great-grandson was born at King Edward Memorial Hospital. It was well known before birth that he had TGA – transposition of the great arteries.
After birth, the procedure to insert the catheter and balloon into his heart could not be achieved at King Edward, despite the best efforts of those on duty at the time to save his life, urgent transfer to PCH was required.
It was done rapidly by ambulance under lights and sirens with two specialists on board.
Apparently he nearly died and would have done so if the journey had been any longer.
PCH completed the catheter procedure, and subsequently my great-grandson had an arterial switch operation to correct the heart plumbing problem.
According to the cardiologists on board the ambulance during the transfer from King Edward to PCH, a 19 to 20-kilometre journey, instead of less than 3 kilometres, would have had fatal consequences, and my great-grandson would now be in the mortuary instead of receiving or recovering from his operation.
Mettam then shared a photo of the little boy.
She also confirmed her government would not pursue the Burswood racetrack promised by Labor and would not pursue the NRL WA team as flagged by Premier Roger Cook.
“I hate to disappoint the rev-heads in the room, but we will not be building a car racing circuit through [Burswood] and we won’t be paying hundreds of millions of taxpayers dollars for a rugby team,” she said.
To breaking news this morning and a police car has flipped onto its side in Perth’s south after being involved in a road crash.
The incident occurred on Stock Road in Coolbellup around 6am.
9 News Perth reporter Andrew Du said a 4WD collided with the police car.
“The police car was driving straight, another car was trying to turn into an inside street but failed to give way to the police officer’s car … which flipped the police car,” he said.
WA Police have spent the night searching Carlisle in Perth’s east for a missing 69-year-old man who hasn’t been seen since yesterday morning.
Marie Favory was last spotted leaving an aged care facility in the area at 8am on Wednesday.
He has dementia and there are concerns he may have become confused.
He is described as being approximately 150 centimetres tall, of slim build, with balding grey hair, a grey beard and brown eyes.
He was last seen wearing dark-coloured pants and a red t-shirt.
Anyone who has any information relating to his whereabouts is asked to call police immediately on 131 444.
Here’s what’s making news this morning.
