How is it that there is enough money to run a $1.2 billion dollar surplus, give every household a $600 credit on their power bills, employ 800 more cops (when crime has been tracking down for years!), increase state debt by another $4 billion to a record $40 billion and roll out a $27 billion dollar infrastructure program and yet allocate almost nothing towards major new projects to support either what’s left of the old

The deafening silence coming from the four upper house National MPs during the heated debate on the Industrial Manslaughter Bill last week should have sent signals to the Liberals, One Nation and Shooters, Fishers and Farmers MPs that something was not quite right. For months industry peak bodies including WAFarmers, PGA, Master Builders, Electrical Contractor  and Transport operators had been working with some of the State’s best lawyers in an attempt to amend the State

One has to be suspicious of a government that deviously packages up two completely different parliamentary Bills into one, in an attempt to wedge their way through parliament and into the law of the land. We have a glaring example of this currently in full swing with the Animal Welfare and Trespass Bill which according to the Attorney General John Quigley has been drafted in response to calls by farmers for tougher penalties against animal

In 2009 the WA Government built the state of the art Chem Centre at Curtin University, in 2016 GRDC funded a new $46m crop research facility at the Curtin campus, in 2018 the State Government funded a new $11m grains research centre in Northam and in 2020 a $8m Ag Machinery Training Centre at Muresk. By now it should be obvious to all that the focus of the majority of ag research and development in

Over the past three weeks WAFarmers have been on our annual road trip travelling between Albany, Merredin, Katanning, Dalwallinu, Kulin, Pingelly, Ravensthorpe and Esperance. As we rolled through the kilometres, we take the time to discuss the condition of the roads, the patchy mobile reception, the lack of water in the dams and the state of the crops. In the towns we rate the coffee in the cafes and the speed of decline of the

Alannah Joan Geraldine Cecilia MacTiernan  born 1953 qualified lawyer, professional politician, has just won her 9th preselection contest to guarantee she will serve 4 more years in state politics. Not many politicians get even close to the sort of career in politics she has had, let alone at all three levels in government. In a ruthless factional deal MacTiernan has seen her party dump another woman (Adele Farina) to allow her to swap from her

Recently WAFarmers was invited to attend a summit on farm safety where both the responsible Minister for Commerce Bill Johnson and the Minister for Agriculture Alannah MacTiernan gave the industry a simple message.  We are coming after you. Either address the high level of deaths and injuries or the government was going to go after farmers by using all its powers, including the dramatically increased new penalties and the industrial Manslaughter laws it is seeking

What the state and federal government is attempting to do by controlling the biosecurity risk around Covid-19, farmers do every day of the week, they manage pest and diseases by actively deciding between eradication, control and management.  The only difference is farmers operate to a plan, knowing when to go hard with a complete eradication program or accept the reality that the pest or disease is here to stay and it’s time to move to

WA Agriculture Minister Alannah MacTiernan has confirmed the State’s farming workforce will be exempt from the new border measures enforced yesterday to combat coronavirus. Conceding there was “a long way to go in this crisis”, Ms MacTiernan said agricultural workers would not be impeded by the strict border measures implemented yesterday. “People who are required to travel to WA to work in agriculture or primary industries are exempt from the self-isolation requirement, as they perform

“You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!” So goes the historic quote when referring to MPs who have overstayed their usefulness, most famously directed at the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, on May 7, 1940 following his disastrous leadership during the first year of the Second World War. Maybe it’s time for some