The Cook Government will today announce a $26.2 million pre-budget cash splash aimed at boosting the State’s biosecurity systems to protect WA’s agriculture sector from the growing threat of pests and diseases.
Adam Poulsen
Dozens of regional properties at the end of electricity networks are set to receive standalone power systems, after a new funding announcement from the Cook Government.
Dylan Caporn
Federal bureaucrats have poured cold water on farm leaders’ calls to introduce a levy on shipping containers entering Australia, arguing it would amount to ‘a tax on importers’.
Opposition to an offshore windfarm off the Bunbury coast is intensifying with commercial fishers warning of a ‘dramatic impact’ to the industry if the proposal gets the green light.
Dan Jervis-Bardy
Livestock producers say they have serious questions about how the Albanese Government’s proposed biosecurity levy will be collected and administrated, claiming they are ‘still in the dark’.
Incensed farming groups have levelled their harshest criticism yet at Federal Labor’s proposed biosecurity levy as a fiery Senate inquiry began in Canberra this week.
Agriculture Minister Jackie Jarvis announced an $8.6 million drought-assistance package, but farmers are concerned that will only ‘touch the edges’.
Jake Dietsch
Nationals WA Geraldton candidate Kirrilee Warr has unveiled her first State election promise ahead of the 2025 poll — a rescue helicopter for the Mid West.
Anna Cox
Transport Minister Rita Saffioti won’t say whether she will ever seek Federal funding to fix any of WA’s Tier 3 rail lines, four years after raising farmers’ hopes she would chase at least $500 million.
Adam Poulsen & Cally Dupe
Rod Sims is the latest high-profile figure to voice concerns about the Albanese Government’s ‘Made in Australia’ vision.
The grains industry will be hit hardest if the Albanese Government’s controversial biosecurity levy passes the Senate, with growers nationwide set to be slugged $12.25 million a year according to new figures.
WA Agriculture Minister Jackie Jarvis has called on her Federal counterpart Murray Watt to postpone Australia’s annual live export moratorium as the State’s sheep farmers hit a crisis point.
Olivia Ford
Agriculture Minister Murray Watt is confident inquiries into supermarket prices will result in better deals for primary producers.
Andrew Brown
The WA Nationals have announced their first candidates in metropolitan seats, including Bateman and South Perth.
The boss of the nation’s peak resources lobby group has joined the growing opposition against the Future Made in Australia plan, saying the initiative will “lock taxpayers into paying for long-term subsidies”.
Adrian Rauso
WA Agriculture Minister Jackie Jarvis has refuted ‘false’ claims by the WA Nationals that she ‘advised’ drought-stricken farmers to euthanise their livestock, saying her comments were taken out of context.
Farm lobby groups have welcomed the long-awaited release of a report into Australia’s embattled agricultural and veterinary chemicals regulator and vowed to ‘critically assess’ all of its 33 recommendations.
Adam Poulsen & Rebecca Turner
NATURE POSITIVE: The man behind the Albanese Government’s environmental law re-write has quoted Mark Twain by saying reports of the controversial reforms being killed off are ‘greatly exaggerated’.
The Cook Government will establish a 2024 Dry Season Taskforce to help producers facing tough seasonal conditions, but farmers say more needs to be done to directly address how Labor policy has affected them.
Olivia Ford & Matthew Paddick
The Federal Government’s promised re-write of environmental protection laws has been put on the back burner in a win for miners and a blow to green groups
Dan Jervis-Bardy, Josh Zimmerman and Katina Curtis
Nationals MP Martin Aldridge will retire from politics at the next election, drawing a line under a decade-long career in Parliament.
Josh Zimmerman
For most families, politics at the dinner table is a topic to be shied away from, but for Kirrilee Warr it was the catalyst for her career.
WA will spend $4.4 million to deploy a second trade commissioner to southeast Asia – this time based in Singapore – as the State seeks to tap the rapidly emerging growth economies of the ASEAN region.
Leading lobby groups say it’s time for the Federal Government to intervene and investigate barriers for major retailers to enter Australia, and why one German group abandoned its plans after spending $500m.
Adrian Lowe