WAFarmers unveils its State Election wishlist

WAFarmers has revealed its wish list ahead of next year’s State Election, calling for better phone reception in rural areas, road upgrades, and a $20 million feral animal control program. The advocacy group will outline projects it wishes to see supported by WA Labor and the WA Liberals under the $1 billion Royalties for Regions program in a document set to be sent to both major parties in the coming weeks. The projects were organised into nine categories and put to farmers in a ballot-style form during a series of regional roadshows across WA last month. They were then asked to tick the category they considered most important. With WA heading to the polls in March, WAFarmers chief executive Trevor Whittington said the organisation was looking to secure funding for projects it believed were crucial to boosting agriculture and regional communities. “We’ve got 100 or so of those (ballots) we workshopped on our road trip and they will go to our general section meeting in a couple of weeks and from there we’ll finalise it,” Mr Whittington said. The organisation will then draft an article per week to be sent to all political parties emphasising where their priorities lie, including historical, economical and political information backing their stance. He said their “far more comprehensive” approach this year and engagement with locals would give more meaning to the priorities being put to the parties. The document titled “Election route to 2021, $1 billion Royalties for Regions”, suggested the funding be split into eight $100,000 million pools for projects including emergency services and regional infrastructure as well as one $200 million pool for transport. Projects suggested under the funds include 5G for Super Town business districts, 300 new mobile phone towers across the grain belt, upgrading more than 100,000km of roads and a Kalbarri to Esperance emergency service long range helicopter. Of the responses gathered, Mr Whittington said funding for fire and water projects — including standpipe water storage tanks, enlarged town dams and catchments, and a 25 per cent rebate to build on-farm strategic fire water reservoirs — was at the top of many people’s lists. He hoped for “far more creative and lateral thinking” by government that would give regional communities a say in how the money was best used. “So instead of decisions being made in Perth, they’re made by the people,” he said. “Governments spend too much time saying what you can have. Whether its, ‘Pingelly, here’s $10 million for a new rec centre’, maybe they would’ve said $5 million for the rec centre and $5 million for something else. Put $20-30 million into a bucket and say ‘dollar for dollar, you can have whatever you want’.” Mr Whittington hoped to secure funding for broader projects that would benefit a broader scope of communities and farmers, over targeted projects focussed on individual outcomes. “Whether you’re a beekeeper or dairy farmer or ram breeder — there’s something in it for you (the wish list),” he said. “I don’t want to do specific projects, for example $10 million for sheep genetic research. “It’s too narrow. You need more industry buy-in otherwise people say you’ve done nothing.”