Opinion

DPIRD, dated January 22, 2025, announces a $7 million splurge under the banner of “Building Climate Resilience on WA Farms.” Tucked neatly inside this generous handout is an eye-watering $1,071,770 for “future-proofing” Western Australia’s aquaculture industry. Future-proofing? Against what, exactly? Climate change? Cue the laughter.

The so-called “clean green” warriors of today are too busy waving banners against petroleum products to notice – or care – that the natural fibre industry has been driven to the brink. The irony, of course, is as glaring as a newly-shorn sheep.

Kersten Gentle, CEO, FTMA. The debate on the “right” materials to use when building homes in bushfire-prone areas often sparks fierce opinions and misguided claims. While some advocate for alternative materials, timber framing remains a viable, safe, reliable and effective option when designed and built in accordance with modern practices.

Governments exist to serve the public good by ensuring critical services like emergency response are accessible to all. Yet in a scenario both tragic and absurd, celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, Katy Pery and billionaires like Amazons Jeff Bezos hired private firefighters to protect their mansions during recent wildfires.

Fast forward to the 21st century, and while the barrels may be gone, the spirit of pork-barrelling is alive and well. Enter The Nationals WA, whose 2025 election manifesto is beginning to look like a masterclass in misguided political opportunism: starting with the proposal to uproot the DPIRD from Perth and plonk it down in Northam, population 7658.

Towards the end of this 2025 year, all Australians have been guaranteed continued access to using cash by special mandated legislation. This development at Federal level will be one of the most important advances facing each of us personally in the near future as it will hopefully deter those who set out to steal our hard-earned money.

Open letter to the Premier of WA. Dear Premier, I am writing to express a mixture of exasperation and incredulity at the state of Western Australia’s Department of Transport (DoT) vehicle registration and licensing system. It’s a system that forces citizens to reenact scenes from the 1985 film  Brazil ...

Michael Balderstone ... Thirty-three years is a long time saying the same message over and over again. Who would have believed when we started MardiGrass that weed would get legal but through a doctor and coming from Canada? It’s like a bad joke.

Robert Onfray critiques claims that native forest logging in Australia contributes significantly to increased bushfire risk. Some academics championed this idea, purporting to follow the scientific method, but often their work lacks scientific rigour. These claims have misled the public, skewing the debate around forest management, fire prevention, and the ecological role of logging.

On November 11 last year the WA Premier all but confirmed the project will go ahead. The only question is how much the Feds will stump up and how much influence will the unions have on the final design.

Has our State Minister for Agriculture learnt nothing from the live export debate? ... So, what’s next if Jackie Jarvis ends up as WA Minister for Agriculture after the next election - imposing bans on intensive piggeries, dairy calves, long distance transport of livestock, live export of cattle?

The ever-increasing number of stories of the difficulties faced by landowners when dealing with transmission network builder, TransGrid, points to an organisation with no knowledge of, and no interest in learning about, the land, and the peoples living on that land, through which they are building those networks.

WA desperately needs a unified biosecurity authority, one that merges the resources and expertise of DPIRD and DBCA under a single, competent Minister. Such an authority would eliminate bureaucratic overlap, create a cohesive strategy, and launch the kind of public education campaign sorely needed to tackle threats like the shot-hole borer.

Conservation group Denmark Nannas for Native Forests found a bleak aftermath of a 1123ha prescribed burn in November of Sheepwash North in Mt Lindesay National Park. They were shocked to see big areas of tree canopy defoliated and most of the remaining canopy scorched.

In this timely piece, John O'Donnell reviews the state of bushfire preparedness in New South Wales in light of the NSW Rural Fire Service 2023/2024 Annual Report.

My journalistic work in the Territory began early on Christmas Day 1974, looking down from the aircraft of Deputy Prime Minister Jim Cairns onto the Northern Territory capital that had been all but annihilated by Cyclone Tracy.

This piece emerged from an extended dialogue with the WA Minister for Police regarding the new firearms regulations released just before Christmas. I revised my original opinion article to incorporate the Minister’s direct responses, as they address many of the key concerns raised during the reform process.

Roger Underwood. I had an email from a Queensland mate the other day. “I recently took a train trip from Brisbane to Charleville” he told me, “and there were huge piles of concrete sleepers beside the line to the Toowoomba Range and elsewhere.” I knew exactly what he was talking about. In September 2024 I travelled by train from Perth to Adelaide, from Ballarat to Melbourne and from Melbourne to Sydney. Alongside every railway line along this trip were piles of “used” concrete sleepers.

The transcript of proceedings of the Independent Forestry Panel in teleconference with the Independent Koala Expert Panel on 1 November 2024 has been released. The Forestry Panel will oversee the destruction of sustainable forestry in NSW to 'save’ koalas.