Joining us live on the line right now is Joe Hersey, the current Member for Catherine, the COLP member for Catherine.
Good morning to you, Joe.
Good morning, Katie, and good morning to the listeners. All right, Johns and Catherine this morning?
Yeah?
Is that?
Yeah? Nice weather by the look of it.
Lovely.
Now we've got seven minutes. Joe, are you ready?
I'm ready.
Let's do it.
Joe, why did you decide to put your hand up to run again?
So, Katie, the last four years I have been the candidate. I have been the Member for Catherine and in opposition, and my role has been basically like the conjurit between the constituents and the government. There have been a lot of concerns that we have, you know that I've listened to in the community. I'm a very strong voice. I'm a very fierce advocate for the community, and I want to see this community be better. I want to see this community be part of a better territory. And I think as a very strong candidate and a good listener, with my thirty five years of hairdressing behind me before I came into this role four years ago, i think I'm the best person for the job. And I'm certainly not backward in coming forward, and no one's going to die wondering what I think of And I think people find that a little bit refreshing and they want someone who's going to be a fierce strong advocate for them to be able to get the issues. And you know, as you said, we do have some issues here in Catherine at the moment, but underneath that we have an amazing community and I think we just have to remember that at the end of the day as well. We do have some social issues, but underneath that our community is amazing and when the chips are down, we all pull together and that's very important for a community.
Joe, what do you see as being the biggest issues in the electrodes?
The biggest issues that I hear on the doors and when I'm out in the street is crime and anti social behavior. And I can tell you, Katie, the last couple of weeks have been extremely tough for the community. We have had people getting assaulted in their houses. There is not one business in the main street that has not been broken into. It is heartbreaking when I go and talk to the likes of Miranda Outstation Interiors, who's just had a one year anniversary of being in a business and then goes in and has graffiti on her walls. Break in. This is just a daily occurrence. People are set up with it and they have had an absolute gutfull and you know, moving forward, should we get the you know, the privilege of taking on government, you know, we will make sure that police have stronger powers. We will make sure that people are held accountable. And I think that's one thing that I hear in the community that no one is accountable and there are no consequences, and that is something that you know under a CELP government will change. Jo.
We have had a message come through from Beckett Willow Blue. She's really asking of the other candidate, you know what their plans are, but have you been down to meet with all of those different businesses along the main street.
Is that something that you do regularly?
That is something I do extremely regularly, probably once a month. But given that we're a very small community, I do call into or I'll see them out and about in the community. And I've spoken to beck at Willow Blue many times. You know, we now have businesses at the moment, Katie that they're just so they are struggling so much that they're not fixing their broken windows, and it's kind of I understand why they're not, but then it brings the look of the community down. We've Nicki at the coffee club got broken into just a couple of days ago, so she's sort of boarded up. Beck's boarded up, Fees boarded up, Miranda's got broken windows. Right next to me in my office here there's a window boarded up. You know, this is not a good look for our community. And these people need to be held to account when when people break in, you know, everyone's got CCTV, but no one seems to be held to account for these and that's something under a CLP government that you know, we will be holding these people to account. So okay to go out.
And so we're at about three minutes thirty five.
I want to ask you, taking those issues into account, why do you feel that you're the best place to try and combat them.
Because under a CLP government, we will make sure that parents are responsible for their children, work with them in a school environent to make sure their kids are going to get back into the school, bring back truancy officers, make as I said, give police more powers, make sure that those people that are doing the wrong thing are going to be held to account. Give the police the power to be able to go and you know, make it stronger for the police to be able to pull these people into line and hold them to account. And I think as part of a very strong CLP team, you know, we are grassroots where business people we know how to run. You know, our businesses that we've come from before. We talk to people out there on the on the ground every single day, listen to them and you know, take their concerns to the government that we have so far, but moving in moving forward with a CLP government, you know, it's about making the hard decisions. And you know, for thirty four years that I've lived here in Catherine, Katie, I've never seen our community so broken as it is at the moment.
Jo I want to ask you about the Pool. I know you and I have spoken about this before. It's something that people have raised with me in terms of that Catherine Pool, is the COLP going to look towards further investment.
I think that's something Katie that needs to be discussed in the future. I know that three years ago there was a ten million dollar announcement for the pool from both sides. That money has come true. Three hundred thousand got given from the government, and I know that potentially that is not going to be enough to do the plans that they have for the pool read development, and I think moving forward, that's something I've actually got a meeting with counsel tomorrow and that's something that needs to be discussed moving forward. And you know, we know that we're eleven billion dollars in debt, but you know, could some of that money be reprioritized to put towards the pool. That's something that as a team, we'll have to talk about. But I'm a fierce advocate for that pool facility. We're right on the Stuart Highway and it could be an amazing facility. And I've said that from the get go of that project.
JO a very quick one. Binjari Aboriginal Community Corporation. They joined us on.
The show a little earlier.
They said they're at risk of falling over due to unpaid invoices and continual delays courts by Dipple, bureaucracy and inefficiencies. What could you do as a local member to try and support that community?
I every three months, Katie, I'm out at Binjari. We do community barbecues. I'm very well aware of the situation that's going on out there at the moment. I think it's about having those conversations with people sitting down around the table working out how this can be worked through for Binjari to have those invoices paid. As deb had said previously, there was an arrangement in play for them to pay that contractor off. And obviously something's fallen down in their conversations, and I think that's something that, you know, maybe everyone needs to go and have a very a good sit down talk about it, discuss what the concerns are and work through them. And I think you can only do that by having a good conversation.
Jo, We've run out of time in terms of the seven minutes, but I will give you an extra thirty seconds and I'll do the same for our next candidate as well.
Nick. Why should people vote for you?
Why should people vote for me? Katie? I am a very strong advocate for Catherine, And just coming up, if I can just talk about this weekend with the show weekend I would like to see and our community would love to see the fact that resources are going to come in here to Catherine, we don't want to be down like in Alice Springs, where you know, there was a curfew after the fact of the show. We've got our show coming up this weekend. It's about talking to the police, making sure government understand that our community really needs resources in here so that everyone feels safe in the community over this weekend and continuing those good conversations and making sure that you know people in the community are safe.
Joe, it is always good to talk to you. We have run out of time. Thank you very much for joining us this morning on our Meet.
The Candidate series. Thanks Katie, thank you