Dairy, roads, phones top SW 2017 election

The Nationals WA, the Liberal Party and the Greens, plus some minor party candidates, are vying for the Warren-Blackwood electorate, which covers the south-west coast from Margaret River to Denmark and the inland rural areas.

Labor is yet to announce a candidate.

Incumbent Terry Redman, from The Nationals WA, is recontesting the seat.

Mr Redman has held the electorate since 2013 and was Stirling MP in 2005-2008 and Blackwood-Stirling MP from 2008 to 2013, before Warren-Blackwood was formed in an electoral redistribution.

The minor parties were quick to announce their list once the campaign began last week, including the Shooters Fishers Farmers WA Party which has Marc Deas as its candidate.

Andrew Huntley is The Greens (WA) candidate for Warren-Blackwood.

With the changes to the electorate boundaries, Warren-Blackwood shifted west, gaining the Plantagenet council and some surrounding areas from Wagin and losing the Donnybrook-Balingup council area to Collie-Preston.

The electorate boundaries also expanded into an area near Margaret River, taking further parts from Vasse.

Farm Weekly spoke to Mr Redman and Liberal Party candidate Ross Woodhouse about the key issues in their campaigns.

ROSS WOODHOUSE

THE Woodhouse family has farmed in the Augusta-Margaret River area for more than 70 years.

Ross Woodhouse has had successful careers as a teacher, school principal and farmer.

His teaching career has taken him around WA and central Australia, including work in indigenous education, and he has mentored and developed young people in agriculture and business.

The dairy farmer’s campaign is being supported by his partner Karen and young daughters Abbey and Ebony.

He was named Australian Farmer of the Year in 2010, and in 1989 received a Nuffield Scholarship for his dairy work.

Mr Woodhouse employs 30 staff and has a cattle herd of up to 7000 head on his Karridale/Scott River dairy farms, producing 20 million litres of milk each year.

He said he understood the daily challenges of running a small business.

Mr Woodhouse takes an environmental approach to farming for holistic and financial reasons.

“If I don’t look after the land, the farming business would be done with,” he said.

He is a contributor to his local Landcare group and uses modern energy saving techniques in his farming practice, striving for efficiency.

Health is a focus and he has served as chairman of the local District Health Advisory Council.

As the electorate covers a large farming population, Mr Woodhouse sees agricultural issues as a priority, including the dairy industry which largely operates within it.

“This is close to my heart as my family has operated dairy farms in the Warren-Blackwood region for more than 70 years, through good times and bad,” he said.

“To guarantee the industry’s future I would work hard to create fresh career pathways for young people to enter the industry, allocate funds to assist the industry to build a processing facility that would provide alternative markets for local producers and work with the milk processors to improve the margins for suppliers between cost of production and end product price.”

Mr Woodhouse told Farm Weekly he would support the Liberal’s commitment to improve country roads, in particular to upgrade the Black Spot program and the creation of more overtaking lanes.

“I will be pushing hard for an increased spend to include secondary and local roads where this is most needed,’’ he said.

Mr Woodhouse said he would “work closely with our electorate’s federal members to push them on the need to improve broadband and mobile phone reception as quickly as possible”.

“Right across the electorate there is an urgent need for a rapid upgrade of all telecommunications.”

TERRY REDMAN

WARREN-Blackwood MP and Regional Development and Lands Minister, The Nationals WA MLA Terry Redman has an agricultural science degree.

Prior to entering politics he was the principal of the WA College of Agriculture in his home town of Denmark, and also helped run his small family business.

Mr Redman was elected to parliament for the Stirling electorate, which included the towns of Mt Barker, Cranbrook and Denmark in 2005.

Since then his electorate has been re-named Warren-Blackwood and expanded west to include Pemberton, Manjimup, Bridgetown, Augusta and Margaret River.

Mr Redman was the Agriculture and Food and Forestry minister after the Liberal-National government was elected in 2008.

He has also held the Corrective Services, Housing, Training and Water portfolios, and was The Nationals WA leader from 2013 to 2016.

As the Regional Development Minister and custodian of the Royalties for Regions program, he has overseen an unprecedented level of investment in the Warren-Blackwood region, including $1.5 million to secure the feature film Breath for the South Coast, $35m for the Augusta Boat Harbour, the new $40m hospital in Manjimup and the $5m Margaret River perimeter road.

After eight years in Cabinet, Mr Redman is widely regarded as one of the government’s most hard-working and highly respected ministers, and he is excited by the prospect of representing the people of Warren-Blackwood for a further four years.

Mr Redman told Farm Weekly that The Nationals WA were committed to agriculture.

“A major challenge for the dairy industry in WA is that farmers are reliant on the relatively small domestic market and are therefore beholden to the large processors,” he said.

“Opening up export markets for dairy products is critical to growing the sector and delivering higher returns to producers.

“One of The Nationals’ key commitments during the 2013 election was the Seizing the Opportunity Agriculture policy, which aimed to capitalise on growing demand in Asia for clean, fresh, healthy food.”

Mr Redman said that policy had become a $400m initiative with a range of projects such as WA Open for Business, the Agricultural Sciences Research and Development Fund, Food Industry Innovation program and the Asian Market Success program, which were all designed to attract investment and unlock export opportunities for WA agriculture, including the dairy sector.

He said $46m from Royalties for Regions was being invested to upgrade the Busselton-Margaret River airport to cater for interstate and international flights.

Mr Redman said this would open the possibility for fresh produce from the South West, including dairy products, to be flown direct to key Asian markets.

Mr Redman said road safety was also a key issue within the electorate and for regional WA.

He supported many initiatives undertaken by the State government to address this issue, including better awareness and education programs, further region-specific and targeted advertising and targeted police safety campaigns.

“These are necessary to ensure road users are aware of the importance of road safety and the issues that regional WA, and Warren-Blackwood in particular, face,” he said.

“The Nationals WA will unveil its regional road safety policy in the lead-up to the election, which centres on safer road use, road infrastructure, speeds and vehicles.”

Mr Redman supports a greater presence of police within the region.

“The police presence on our country roads is variable, with police managing many competing priorities across the electorate,” he said.

Mr Redman wants to ensure regional West Australians are safe and understand that no matter how far they travel, or which roads they take, the police will be there if drivers are doing something wrong.

In December 2016, The Nationals WA outlined support for on-going investment in the Regional WA Attraction and Retention Allowance through the Regional Police Incentives Program which is designed to attract and retain officers in communities where it is hard to fill and retain positions.

As the local member and minister, Mr Redman said he had supported critical projects, including:

p The Denmark East River Development Precinct – a $7.6m Royalties for Regions project to support a new light industrial area in Denmark. This project provides growth opportunities for local businesses within the region.

p The Margaret River perimeter road – more than $58m from the Royalties for Regions-funded Growing Our South initiative has been committed to the project to finish stage 2 of the construction. This will allow heavy vehicles to bypass the Margaret River town centre.

p Agricultural commodities freight routes are a critical part of the agricultural sector and Mr Redman said he recognises that these routes need to be developed and grown to help the sector be more competitive.

As Regional Development Minister, Mr Redman recently announced that $48m would be invested into local government roads to support the agrifood industry.

This is part of the Nationals WA’s $400m Seizing the Opportunity in Agriculture initiative funded by Royalties for Regions.

While reliable mobile phone services are often taken for granted by people in the metropolitan area, Mr Redman said The Nationals WA recognised that better mobile phone coverage was needed to improve community safety, enable people to stay in touch and support the on-going growth and prosperity of regional businesses and communities.

While telecommunications policy was a federal issue, he said a total investment of $105m from Royalties for Regions was delivering 344 new or upgraded mobile phone towers across the State, including 49 in the Warren-Blackwood electorate, including in Kendenup, Peaceful Bay, Beedelup, Jalbarragup, Molloy Island and Conto’s campground.

“This has been achieved through the Royalties for Regions-funded Regional Telecommunications Project and co-funded by the federal government’s Mobile Black Spot Program,” he said.

“The Nationals WA will release our telecommunications strategy in the lead-up to the election, which will build on this strong record of investment.”