Battle for 'bigger WA'

Julia Gillard has declared a re-elected Labor Government will work towards a bigger WA, saying she wants to end the State's skilled worker shortage by attracting bigger, permanent populations to the booming Pilbara and Kimberley.

In an exclusive interview with The West Australian, the Prime Minister said she wanted to reduce the socially corrosive fly in, fly out phenomenon and end the reliance on section 457 visa workers by making places such as Karratha and Kununurra more attractive to other Australians.

But Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has cast doubt on Ms Gillard's plan, saying it was "almost impossible" to get land released in these areas for development.

Ms Gillard said that when she talked about having a sustainable Australia - rather than a Big Australia - it was about getting people to go where the jobs were.

"There are some places that do want to see growth and need to see growth - Karratha, Kununurra, places that have got jobs prospects, economic potential, they're looking for skilled workers, they want their community to develop," she said.

She said parts of WA had got stuck in a "perverse cycle" where people wanted to go and live where there were good jobs but were stopped by prohibitively expensive housing.

"One of the reasons we announced the Better Regional Cities program was to help with that, to harness that sense in those communities that they did want to see more growth, have more people live there, make their lives, their kids in schools, all the rest of it," Ms Gillard said.

She admitted the $200 million program, which aims to build 15,000 new homes and community infrastructure in regions over the next three years, was modest but said it was "my way of signalling this is a direction where we want to see growth in those regional centres that want it and need it".

"We know that there are skilled jobs there. Rather than them being migrants on 457 visas, I'd like them to be Australians who are there making that part of the world their home."

Mr Abbott told _The West Australian _ he had no intention of restricting section 457 visas.

"If companies have got jobs immediately available for people, there's no reason why they can't continue to come," he said. "That's the beauty of those employer-sponsored visa categories - those entrants make a contribution from day one.

"I'm all in favour of the development of more settled communities in remote areas but part of the problem is that it's almost impossible to get land in these areas." The latest Nielsen poll, released yesterday, shows Labor has bounced back strongly.