Hundreds of DPIRD staff to leave aged South Perth premises and move into CBD by mid year

WA’s key agriculture and fisheries agency has secured new city-based premises to replace ageing asbestos buildings in South Perth and will shift hundreds of public servants by the middle of the year. Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development confirmed it had taken out a 10-year lease covering four floors at 1 Nash Street on the eastern fringe of the CBD. About 500 metropolitan office-based staff will be housed at the new premises and will move across in stages. A further 200 scientific and specialised technical officers will remain at South Perth in refurbished existing facilities and some new temporary labs. The department, which also has offices in William Street, is preparing a business case with DevelopmentWA to develop permanent laboratory and research facilities. The move ends efforts by at least eight ministers over 30 years to find more suitable premises for the department as the 60-year-old facilities face ongoing safety and maintenance issues. Agriculture Minister Alannah MacTiernan announced in September the State Government would invest more than $20 million over 12 months ensuring functional laboratories and offices were in place while planning was under way to replace the facilities. There were initial plans to subdivide and sell some of the 20ha South Perth site and use funds to build a $300m purpose-built facilities on the same location. However, the business case fell apart two years ago after land values declined. The department said it was yet to be determined if some of the land would be sold, with that decision resting with the State Government. WAFarmers chief executive Trevor Whittington said certainly no other Minister has managed to get any funding from government to get the department out of the old building. He said for Ms MacTiernan’s extracting $20m out of Treasury was “probably one of her biggest achievements.” “The only problem now is that by taking a city lease for the office staff the department is split up all over Perth and the opportunity of bringing the mega department of fisheries, regional development and agriculture together to drive efficiencies is now lost,” Mr Whittington said. “Spending $20m on the upgrade of old labs that sit in the middle of one of Perth’s most valuable inner city development sites defies common sense. “This government has had four years to do a deal with Curtin or Murdoch University and do the logical thing and build world science labs, so on balance it’s a small step forward but a welcome one.” Deputy leader Nationals WA deputy leader Shane Love said it was ironic the Labor Government has chosen to spend $20 million moving DPIRD offices as close to the Perth CBD as physically possible. “Very little activity in DPIRD’s remit falls within Perth so it beggars belief that its new headquarters with 500 staff will be smack bang in the middle of the city,” he said. “It’s a significant missed opportunity for Labor when they could have used this opportunity to invest in regional WA, decentralise the department and allow more of its valuable staff to relocate to the regions where the majority of their work is undertaken.” Mr Love said DPIRD currently employs more than 1700 staff, of which just 600 are located in regional WA, despite the key focus of the department being agriculture, food, forestry, fisheries and regional development. “We call on the Labor Government to rethink this bizarre policy which would keep key decision makers as removed as possible from the State’s $10 billion agricultural sector and the regional areas they aim to represent,” he said.