Opinion Articles

The Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries has a budget credibility problem

JACKIE Jarvis was appointed Minister for Agriculture and Food in December 2022. She picked up responsibility for Fisheries in March 2025, giving her three budgets and one election to get her head around the DPIRD budget papers. Now, long-suffering readers – along with the minister’s office and the diversity crew scattered across DPIRD’s multiple Perth HQs – will know exactly where this is going. Once again, I’ve gone back to the State budget to point

Trevor Whittington January 29, 2026

Opinion Articles

“Everything you said I could challenge”

On January 1 in the Farm Weekly, I committed the unpardonable sin of writing an opinion. Yes, I know — shocking behaviour. More specifically, I questioned whether Australia’s apprenticeship system, particularly for ag heavy diesel technicians, is actually delivering what it claims to deliver. Some readers may recall the piece How to Jump-Start the Next Generation of Ag Technicians, if I may say so it’s worth a read or reread. Shortly after publication, I received

Trevor Whittington January 22, 2026

Opinion Articles

When fewer people meet more food

For most of the modern era, the story of food was scarcity. More people meant more demand, higher prices, and ever-expanding markets for farmers. That part of human history has now come to an end. For the first time, global population growth is slowing sharply at the same time as global food production continues to rise. The implications for agriculture — particularly for bulk grain and meat producers like Australia — are profound, under-discussed, and

Trevor Whittington January 15, 2026

Opinion Articles

How to jump-start the next generation of ag technicians

If you want a competent technician who can diagnose a John Deere header that has ground to a stop, fault-find a CAN-bus issue on a Case tractor, or re-loom the electrics on a Claas baler, the Australian training system offers you exactly one answer: a four-year apprenticeship. It does not matter how capable the kid is. It does not matter if they grew up rebuilding engines in the shed. It does not matter if they

Trevor Whittington January 1, 2026

Opinion Articles

The last letter, the last coin, the last dial

If you want to measure the real speed of modern change, don’t look at the size and complexity of new headers or how Al is every student’s best friend. Look instead at the three oldest bits of civic infrastructure we all grew up with: the post office, the banknote and the landline. All three are being shut down in real time. And the countries doing it aren’t fringe outliers – they’re the sensible, efficient northern

Trevor Whittington December 24, 2025

Opinion Articles

Songlines, space stations and the slow decline of science

The Americans had Apollo. The Soviets had Soyuz. The Chinese have Tiangong. And Australia? We now have the world’s first taxpayer-funded attempt to guide space exploration using songlines. It’s as if the nation looked up at the stars, ignored four centuries of physics, and concluded that what satellite design really needs is a smoking ceremony and a cultural consultation workshop. According to the project brief, “learning from songlines, creation stories and deep cultural connections between people

Trevor Whittington December 18, 2025

Opinion Articles

How the Housing Boom Broke the Lucky Country

Like every parent watching their adult kids edge toward the real estate market, I look at the numbers with growing alarm. In 25 years, Perth house prices have jumped from roughly $200,000 to close to $900,000 — a three-to-fivefold increase — while wages have barely doubled from $50,000 to $100,000. That’s not a generational squeeze; it’s a structural impossibility. Unless the next generation marries a doctor, a diesel mechanic, a FIFO worker, wins Lotto, or

Trevor Whittington December 11, 2025

Opinion Articles

The parallels between the Roaring 1920s and the Turbulent 2020s

“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” Mark Twain A century divides the Roaring Twenties from today’s so-called Turbulent Twenties, yet the distance feels strangely compressed. As we limp toward the midpoint of our own decade, the parallels grow sharper and harder to ignore — reminders that our present upheavals are rarely as unique as we like to believe. Historians are rightly suspicious of neat analogies, but here the similarities are too blunt to

Trevor Whittington December 4, 2025

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The parallels between the Roaring 1920s and the Turbulent 2020s

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