Premier Carmen Lawrence said the State Government made no excuses for promoting specific industries to undertake downstream processing projects.
Dr Lawrence said the Government firmly believed it was proper and essential to provide financial incentives to individual companies to add value to the State's natural resources.
"There are fundamental differences between the Government and the Opposition on the appropriate role of the State in developing our regional economy," the Premier said.
"Market forces have failed to develop a secondary processing economy in Western Australia and Government must now provide the stimulus.
"The Government - and no other institution - has the capacity to secure the necessary level of change.
"On the other hand, the Liberal Party under the influence of the increasingly 'dry' Chamber of Commerce and Industry opposes incentives to industry.
"They believe such incentives are unnecessary and distort the investment market."
However, Dr Lawrence said as Premier she could not afford to follow the `textbook' mentality of the Liberal Party and the CCI.
"We simply must have these projects and we must be prepared to take a lead in attracting them to Western Australia," she said.
"The future, if we do not change, will move us closer to a beggerdom day-by-day as we exhaust our natural resources.
"A retreat into the outmoded and traditional solutions of the Opposition will not allow us to achieve the potential our State's promises."
