Perth Voice Interactive

FREMANTLE’S community-backed independent candidate, Kate Hulett, has launched a suite of climate policies, citing overwhelming support for climate action as the community’s top concern. 

The announcement, made ahead of the March 8 WA state election, sets the tone for what Hulett describes as a “grassroots response to government inaction” and followed several months of interviews, surveys and holding stalls at markets to collate which issues were troubling the electorate.

“So all of the information that’s gathered is put into a program which divvies it all up into the right areas, and then it extracts the key issues that have come up,” Ms Hulett said.

“Of course, a community of 22,000 people, there’s all sorts of different concerns and issues and dreams and hopes, but the number one issue was climate change, environment and biodiversity, by an absolute country mile.

Ms Hulett’s platform includes a statewide ban on fracking, a halt to new and expanded fossil fuel projects—including the gradual winding down of operations on Murujuga—the permanent protection of Scott Reef, and reforms to prescribed burning practices in the South West. She also wants the Environmental Protection Authority “genuinely independent and well-funded.”

There’s a distinct similarity between her policies and many of the Greens , which has been a talking point around town all week, particularly after many of the party faithful attended last week’s campaign launch, but she doesn’t see it as a big problem.

“There’s a few things to say with that question. One is that we shouldn’t choose our political parties like our football teams. We should choose them on the policies that they release. So it’s fine to move around.

“Second part is that a good idea is a good idea, and I fully agree with many of the Greens policies,” she said.

“What this community, independent campaign movement offers is that it’s very specifically representing that community and not a party.

Party room

“So there may be people who have always voted greens, that may vote for me because they think ‘I want my voice and my neighbour’s voices and my street’s voices to be heard as a priority over what a party room might decide’.

“It’s not about blocking ideas or being opposite or fighting, it’s about working for the best outcomes for the community, while party politics is working for the outcomes of perhaps the national kind of party.

“And of course, all of our communities are very different. What we want in Fremantle differs enormously what people in Joondalup might care about,” she told the Herald.

The inclusion of Scott Reef—a biodiversity hotspot—in Hulett’s platform reflects both local awareness of broader environmental priorities. “We live by the ocean, and Fremantle has an affinity with the sea,” she said. “Why would we ever undertake industrial projects that threaten our incredible, pristine coastline?”

Hulett also highlighted the decline in Fremantle’s tree canopy as a pressing local issue. “We have such a low canopy cover in Fremantle,” she said, praising council efforts to plant more trees but calling for state-level action.

 “We need canopy targets for the state, and we don’t have them, and then they need to be more ambitious.

She says WA’s planning laws, which have been overhauled heavily during Labor’s last term, don’t have a point at which trees are prioritised.

“Living heritage is treated opposite from our built heritage, which isn’t right.

“In the Esplanade Park, there’s those clusters of pine trees that 112 years ago or something, a councillor planted for masts. 

“I think, ‘what an incredible legacy a copse of stuff trees is to give’.

Imagine if our leaders were thinking about positive legacies that they can give to generations which they’ll never meet; that is the sort of leadership we want

Hulett also criticised the role of big money in WA’s politics, particularly donations from fossil fuel companies. 

“They’re not donating money because they’re philanthropic or because they’re supportive through the good of their own hearts, they’re donating money because they want something.”

by STEVE GRANT