00:00As the three leaders faced an ABC election forum, it was Liberal leader Libby Metham
00:07under the most pressure, first from a high school student.
00:11Hi, I'm a Kakadu-Kungari girl who grew up on Noongar land.
00:15So you support Peter Dunne's position of not standing in front of the Aboriginal flag,
00:21claiming Australia is a united country, yet systemically the life expectancy for Indigenous
00:26people is nine years less than other Australians.
00:29That is no disrespect to the Aboriginal flag, but we are all Western Australians and Australians,
00:36and it is simply about not being divided by race.
00:40The policies of the WA Liberal team will all be pointing to lifting people up.
00:47Then came this awkward exchange.
00:49Until this morning I thought that Ms Metham was the leader of the opposition.
00:53No she's not, she didn't have enough members in parliament.
00:56Brushed aside later in the day in Kalamunda.
01:00It's certainly a challenge in terms of the resources that we have, but I won't be distracted
01:05by the job title.
01:07She was joined by the candidate for the seat, the chief pharmacist of WA's country health
01:11service Adam Hort, to promise upgrades to the local hospital.
01:15The pair also pledging a Liberal government would allow pharmacists to prescribe more
01:19medication.
01:20We see in many jurisdictions around the world better access to healthcare at home, better
01:24access to things like this.
01:27Labor also focused on health, promising a $100 million low interest loan scheme to help
01:33private providers build an extra 500 concessional beds.
01:37We want the Commonwealth to fund more aged care beds, but they need the beds to fund.
01:42Those beds would sit alongside a trial of older adult care hubs in three suburbs.
01:47Many of the staff are already working in this area, it's about locating them together to
01:51provide a single place for older adults to go.
01:55The party's also traded barbs over public transport after the ABC revealed the timeline
02:00to upgrade the Smart Rider system to accept phones and credit cards has blown out by more
02:05than a year.
02:06The delays blamed on technical issues.
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