WA Liberal leader Libby Mettam has laid out her party's path back to government four months out from the state election. Improving the health system is top of her agenda, announcing a new policy to slash the elective surgery waitlist.
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00:00In a rally cry to party faithful, Libby Metham insists the unthinkable is within reach.
00:08I believe we can and will win government.
00:13With a well-worn strategy to get there.
00:15We stand for a better health system. We stand for stronger law and order.
00:20We stand for restoring our regions, more homes and importantly cost of living pressures for households.
00:28She promised a Liberal-led government would pay for elective surgeries to be performed in private hospitals
00:33if patients can't be seen within medically recommended times in the public system.
00:38A similar idea was trialled more than a decade ago, hampered by a stretched private health system.
00:44We've only done 16 in total and I have to say that the proposal we put forward hasn't worked.
00:50It's been revisited since with public hospitals now having struck deals with private operators
00:55for certain patients based on clinical need.
00:58The potential for an expansion welcomed by the sector,
01:01especially as private hospitals claim their funding isn't keeping pace with rising costs.
01:06If this is a way that the state government can provide meaningful support to the private hospitals
01:11so that they can keep doing what they do, then that is certainly something we would welcome.
01:16The Liberals' priorities, including in health, are all about going back to basics to get more MPs back in there.
01:22To go one step further though and win back government would require picking up dozens of seats,
01:27many more than is thought to be possible.
01:29A prediction not weighing the party down.
01:32The Liberal Party's story is far from over.
01:36Our best chapters are still yet to be written.
01:41There's little time to waste with the start of the next chapter just four months away.