Trevor Whittington, CEO WAFarmers

Does RSPCA approved extend to King Charles? Last week the RSPCA spent some of its donor’s money plus a share of the funds given to them by the taxpayers of WA to continue their long running anti-farming campaign by publishing a letter to the community in the West Australian. The paid advertisement reads like it was written by radical university animal activists, rather than what was once a highly respected animal welfare organisation.

WAFarmers sets out 13 killer arguments to keep the live sheep trade.

Every country town has at least one building that lies abandoned or underutilised which could be turned into a house or unit that could attract another worker or family to the community. We have old train stations and roads boards buildings, there are abandoned shops in the main street, empty pubs, unused halls, even farmhouses close to town left to deteriorate.

Don’t have a plumber, electrician, aircon mechanic, car mechanic, tyre shop, independent ag mechanic, hydraulic shop etc in your town? Then do something about it. The council or a group of farmers should get together to buy an industrial lot, build a lock up shed, offer it out for $1 a year then stand back and watch the rush.

Argentina has long interested me. Just how a country blessed with their natural assets and European colonial history has managed to turn itself from being one of the 10 wealthiest countries in the world prior to the first world war to 65th in the world is a case study of the failings of popularist socialist government policies ... Imagine paying out $50 per tonne tax for the privilege of growing a tonne of wheat and then having to pay tax on any profits you manage to make.   It may sound mad but it's not that far from Albanese's new biosecurity tax on farm gate production.

Yesterday in Canberra, the WAFarmers and the National Farmers' Federation (NFF) joined a walk out of the federal Agriculture Minister Murray Watt during the budget breakfast, with industry leaders wearing a ‘Keep the Sheep’ tee shirt. The Minister was not impressed ... The farmers might be irrelevant to the ALP, but the voting public are suspicious of governments that are seen to sell out the farmers that grow the grain used to breed the geese that feed the workers that mine the gold that the government uses to buy votes.

What activists want Watt delivers. Watt farmers fear. What's next on Watt's hit list. What to do with Watt. All questions Western Australian farmers are now asking after last week's decision to move ahead with the live export ban. On the hookup when the Minister announced his plan, Murray Watt is quick to call me out when I questioned his motives claiming I was being personal.

I was working for the WA Minister for Agriculture Ken Baston back in 2010, during the last big drought and, like Jackie Jarvis with the current dry, he had to deal with calls from industry for the Government to do something. At the time, as Chief of Staff, I asked the Department what the State's legislated responsibilities were when it came to dry seasons and the advice that came back was pretty simple - ‘soils and animal welfare', that’s it. Farmers were on their own when it came to subsidies for fodder or transport.

Traditionally when the Australian Labor Party gets serious about winning elections, it looks to the grownups in the right wing of the party to provide the leadership that will appeal to the centre of Australian politics. Unfortunately, it seems this time around, things are different, as Australia now has its first Prime Minister who hails not just from the left, but the hard left of the ALP.

Geoff Pearson. Two weeks ago 300 farmers from across the South West convened an urgent drought meeting to address what is one of the driest seasons experienced in living memory across what is traditionally the wettest part of Western Australia. It’s at times like these that the State and Federal governments need to step up and support farmers to rectify where they have made things worse through past policy mistakes.