February 2020

A recent article in the Australian Financial Review titled Cash Trial Shows Drought Was a Fake Farming Crisis by the influential national political commentator Aaron Patrick is yet another example of how a city centric commentator can misunderstand the complexities of Australian agriculture. Patrick’s thesis is that the national drought is a fake crisis and despite the sob stories (his words) the agricultural sector was just fine, proven by the fact that the amount of

This year GRDC will spend around $200m on its various programs supporting the grains industry, with $130m coming from grower levies and $70m from the federal government’s contribution. This funding bucket is topped up by the various state governments including Western Australia which added an additional $20m to partner in a range of programs including $5m/pa supporting the technical service side of grain marketing. While farmers no doubt support the vast majority of the industry

Arron Patrick recent commentary piece in the Australian Financial Review titled ’Cash Trial Shows Drought Was a Fake Farming Crisis’ would have no doubt raised the temperature for many farmers who have missed out on the recent rains. Aaron’s thesis is that the drought is a fake crisis and despite the sob stories most farms were fine proven by the fact that the amount of money stashed in Farm Management Deposits grew rather than shrank

Water has long been a major political battleground in Western Australia going as far back as the debates around the construction of our first dam (Victoria Dam – Lesmurdie) in 1891, followed by the construction of the Goldfields Pipeline 1903, Canning Dam 1933, Ord River Dam 1963 – 71, Kwinana Desalination Plant 2006, and the commencement of Perth groundwater recycling 2017. In each instance, the final decision to invest public resources to overcome water shortages

What is surprising with the huge national outcry over these fires is not the federal governments reaction but the lack of any response by our own state government to the looming political threat fires now pose. The political beating that the Morrison government has suffered should be a wake up call to all governments, the community expects our leaders to do far more to protect lives, property and the environment from the risk of bushfire.

This year, the Western Australian Government collected $405m from landowners via the Emergency Services Levy (ESL) that we all pay with our annual council rates. Despite the total number of paid staff (firefighters and administration combined) being less than 10% of the number of registered bush fire volunteers, more than half of the ESL ($233m) was spent on the professionals in employee benefits. Out of what’s left only $33m will go back to Local Governments