Holt makes way for Grylls

After 20 months as Minister for Housing, Racing and Gaming, South West MLC Colin Holt has stepped down to make way for newly appointed WA Nationals leader Brendon Grylls.

Mr Holt said he was still the Leader of the Nationals in the Upper House and there were new opportunities within the party to be looked at.

“There might be a parliamentary secretary role come out of it or assistant minister to Brendon, we will see what happens,” he said.

“As the newest minister I realised if we wanted to get Brendon (Grylls) into Cabinet we would probably need to give up a role.”

One of Mr Grylls’ new policy plans includes privatising Western Power and recycling the assets to build infrastructure projects throughout regional WA.

Mr Holt said the privatisation Western Power was worth consideration because it was about “seeing what the opportunity could present”.

He said he supported the sale if it provided the opportunity for new infrastructure.

“If it means we can get creative value out of it and build new things out of it, then absolutely we should look at it,” he said.

“You have got to look at Western Power and the change in electricity market in the last 20 years and you’ve got to think, does it provide an opportunity for Western Australians?

“We won’t do anything to jeopardise power supply to West Australians. We want to enhance it and bring in new opportunities.”

Nationals Party WA President James Hayward said $1.5 billion out of the $10 billion gained from selling half of Western Power could be used to build a fast train from Perth to Bunbury.

Mr Holt said “if we are fair dinkum about developing our regions” then transport infrastructure was needed for support.

“Something like the fast train is one of those things we should look at. I think people would be seeing it as a destination to live and work and if you only have to do work in Perth one or two days a week then it’s a great option,” he said.

“We want to get more businesses to develop here rather than Perth and we need transport links and a fast train to develop it.

“Tourism industry is one of the main things we need to look at and its a big state to get around, we don’t have flights coming into Bunbury and maybe a fast train would fill that gap.”