Sanderson backs Cook to lead Labor to next election

2 hours ago 2

WA Energy and Decarbonisation Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson has thrown her support behind Roger Cook to lead WA Labor in the 2029 state election.

Speaking at the Labor state conference this morning, the Premier told party faithful of his intent to continue in his current role, despite recent speculation on his political future.

Just last month, Cook dodged a yes or no question on whether he intended to lead his party to the 2029 election at a Chamber of Minerals and Energy WA lunch.

“That’s a question for a range of people...my caucus will make some decisions about these things, as will the people of Western Australia,” he said at the time.

However, Sanderson said the best thing for the government and the best thing for the party is for Cook to lead in the 2029 election

“I’ve said before, and I say it again, the caucus made the right decision when they backed Roger in 2023 and the election result and the community resoundingly endorsed that decision,” she said.

“He has a very strong vision for Western Australia, and he is a united team behind him delivering that vision, and I feel very fortunate to be part of that united team.”

Cook said he didn’t expect his decision to continue as party leader to cause any dissent with the current group of ministers.

“Well, I want my ministers to be ambitious,” he said.

“We have not only a strong cabinet with some very high performing cabinet ministers, but we’ve also got a really deep backbench, some young people who are coming through who will put put my team under pressure in relation to their spots within the Ministry.

“It goes beyond the current election cycle. It’s about changing the whole way our economy works, and it’s about creating the jobs, the health and the housing that we need to continue to take this state forward.”

Cook and Sanderson were facing media to announce the state’s new plan for local green steel to be used on major government projects.

“My government will seek suppliers to provide local green steel for major government projects, including the hospital developments that we announced in recent days,” Cook said.

“Locally made green steel is a key part of my vision to become a renewable energy powerhouse and make more things here.”

Sanderson said the plan to use local green steel came in two parts.

“So there’s the green iron industry, and then there’s the green steel recycling industry,” she said.

“We have enormous amounts of steel infrastructure, oil and gas infrastructure that gets decommissioned, that can be recycled into new steel products that can be used.

“The second part is the green iron sector, which is a precursor to the broader green steel industry. We are the world’s largest exporter of iron in the world, so we obviously produce and provide a huge amount of iron ore to decarbonise the steel supply chain, we need to be providing an opportunity to process that ore onshore, and do that with the abundant renewable energy that we have across Western Australia.”