Dawesville MP Kim Hames reflects on life after politics as retirement calls

The veteran MP is hanging up his boots after 20 years in parliament but on the eve of his retirement, he admitted leaving the job he loves would be bittersweet.

“I’ll be both happy and sad,” he said on the Friday before the election.

“I am excited to be retiring, to have a day where I can do whatever I like, that’s going to be so good and there’s lots of empty days in the diary and plenty of things to do, so I’m really looking forward to that, being able to spend more time doing stuff at the farm, going fishing if the weather is good,” he said.

“But, it’s sad too. You miss the argy-bargy of politics, it’s always stimulating, you never know what’s going to happen, it’s one job where you walk in at the start of the day and anything could happen.

“You could finish the day sacked, you could finish the day with a great success, you could finish the day saving somebody’s life with the decision you could make.”

Dr Hames said he was proudest of the support he received from the electorate since he won the seat in 2005.

“I think probably the support I’ve got and how it’s built over time, ours was the second most marginal seat in the state when I first got it and now we’ve become a seat where I’ve got more support than John Castrilli has had in Bunbury,” said.

“In fact, a lot more than David Templeman.

“That’s the best thing for me, not so much the proudest achievement, but the thing I’m most proud of is the support I’ve got from my electorate during that time, I’ve made lifelong friends and best friends and so I’m retiring down here and hanging out with all the guys that I hang out with now.”

Although Dr Hames said the list of achievements in the Dawesville electorate was impressive, many of the projects that had been delivered on his watch had been collaborations with community groups. He pointed to a pamphlet distributed in the seat as part of the Liberal campaign.

“It’s not just been like I’ve gone and got all those things, they’ve all been done in partnership and to varying degrees I’ve had input,” he said.

“Some things I’ve had a lot more to do with like the Rushton Park development – I was a key component of that –  the swimming pool, not that you’d hear council ever say so, but I was the one who actually organised all the money.

“It’s still a pretty impressive list of things that have come about while we’ve been in government, but I wouldn’t mind making it clear that this is something that is delivered in conjunction with branch presidents and branch members of local groups and local government, as well as federal government.”

Of his achievements during his time as a cabinet minister, Dr Hames points to his time as the longest serving health minister in Western Australian history.

“We did the Closing the Gap program and I know people who were heavily involved in that, one Aboriginal guy in particular who runs an Aboriginal health service, a long-term Labor supporter, who says that our Aboriginal health program is the best of any state in Australia and the best there has ever been and I think his endorsement is worth its weight in gold for me personally,” he said.

”One of my worries is that another government comes along and sometimes programs like that are easy to cut when you want to save money, but they are enormously valuable for Aboriginal people in the bush.

“We totally redeveloped the health system, we spent $8 billion on infrastructure, so there’s hardly a hospital in WA that isn’t new or had major refurbishments, we changed to the four-hour rule within hospitals, which has been an enormous improvement in the flow of patients going through, we supported the silver chain program Hospital in the Home that allows care for up to 600 people at any one time in their homes.”

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