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THE recent release of a review into Australia’s live animal exports will help stabilise the sector, says Nationals WA agriculture spokesman Colin de Grussa who with Roe MLA Peter Rundle has visited Canberra to get in the ear of federal regulators.

Recently, Mr Rundle and Mr de Grussa met Federal Agriculture Minister David Littleproud in the nation’s capital to discuss concerns they say were held by WA farmers.

Mr de Grussa said recommendations of the Moss Review, released on October 30, were a stark reminder that the live exports sector needed to act consistently to ensure it had a sustainable future.

“Given that 85 per cent of the live sheep trade is in Western Australia, The Nationals WA are calling for the [Federal Agriculture] Department to expand its presence here in the State,” he said.

The review found the department rarely used its significant powers and failed to address issues with regulations, leading to continued “incidents”.

The review, by former bureaucrat Philip Moss, attributed some issues to the federal government’s deregulation agenda. This included disbanding the department’s animal welfare branch.

In Parliament on November 1, State Agriculture Minister Alannah MacTiernan welcomed the Commonwealth’s decision to accept all report recommendations.

“As I have said to the farming community, a minister who sweeps animal welfare issues under the carpet is no friend of agriculture,” she said.

“The findings vindicate the State Government’s decision in February this year to use Western Australian animal welfare laws to bring rogue live export operators to account, given the inactivity of the federal regulator.”

Mr Moss recommended an independent inspector-general of live exports, and that a welfare branch be reinstated within the federal department.

Image: Ms MacTiernan in Albany recently. Photo: Chris Thomson

ALBANY-based palliative care specialist Kirsten Auret says she will approach the topic of voluntary assisted dying with intellectual and emotional openness following her appointment to the expert panel that will draft legislation to be put to State Parliament.

On Monday, Health Minister Roger Cook said a bill to legalise voluntary assisted dying would be presented to Parliament in 2019 with members of Parliament offered a conscience vote.

Dr Auret has 20 years’ experience in the field, is the deputy director for the Rural Clinical School of Western Australia and an Associate Professor with the University of Western Australia.

“I was quite vocal during the Joint Select Committee hearings earlier this year,” she told The Weekender.

“I spoke at a hearing in Perth about my medical students and assessing competency with medically unwell patients and also spoke at the hearing in Albany.

“I guess that’s why the Minister for Health gave me a call and asked if I would sit on the panel.

“I felt that it was important for the community for the Bill to be tabled, so I joined.”

Dr Auret said a wide range of perspectives would be heard during the panel meetings, with the group consisting of a mixture of health and law professionals.

“There are law, health, palliative, geriatric and intensive care experts that will get some balanced opinions for the wider community,” she said.

“Going into this panel, I need to listen to the views of the community so we can draft good legislation that is in the best interests of everyone.

“It’s an extremely divisive topic. We need to look at previous legislation, for example Victoria’s Bill, and we also need to look at making the legislation fit WA’s culture.

Dr Auret said the panel needed to consider if assisted dying was the best way to relieve suffering for people who wanted to relieve their suffering.

“We need to act with kindness and compassion as doctors, and the Bill needs to honour that,” she said.

Dr Auret said she hoped other recommendations in the My Life, My Choice report concerning palliative care would be addressed in the future.

“There is a concern articulated that the further you get from Albany or from the city, it is more and more difficult to access palliative care,” she said.

“Albany is very, very blessed to have the hospice and the palliative care nurses. The further away you are though is an issue.

“If the legislation goes through, I hope that the other recommendations that were made are also taken up.

“Palliative care is a less controversial good to discuss.”

The first panel meeting is set for early December.

Joining Dr Auret on the panel are Dr Penny Flett, Dr Scott Blackwell, Dr Roger Hunt, Dr Elissa Campbell, Dr Simon Towler, Kate George, Fiona Seaward, Noreen Fynn, Samantha Jenkinson and former Governor of WA Malcolm McCusker as chair.

AGRICULTURE Minister Alannah MacTiernan has vigorously defended her rejection of six recommended appointments to farm funding committees on the grounds that every suggestion from an all-male selection panel was for a man.

In the Legislative Council on October 31, Agricultural Region MLC Rick Mazza noted Ms MacTiernan had vetoed the recommendations after expressions of interest had been called on March 8.

He asked how many men and women had applied for the three committees that oversee State funding for the cattle; sheep and goats; and grains, seed and hay sectors of Western Australia’s farming industry.

Ms MacTiernan said she was getting lots of correspondence on the matter from the Pastoralists and Graziers Association of WA.

On September 11 in the Upper House, she had told Mr Mazza that every recommendation – by an all-male appointments committee – for new members to the three funding bodies had been for a man.

Ms MacTiernan explained that of 21 current committee members, 19 were men.

On October 31, she urged the Legislative Council to consider “that in this day and age” such male dominance was “not feasible”.

“It is simply not acceptable and, quite frankly, I think it is an insult to the women in the agricultural sector in this state to suggest that there are simply not sufficient women of merit in order to get a better ratio than 20 to one,” she argued.

She said a second round of applications had drawn 15 from men, 13 of whom had previously thrown their Akubras into the ring.

Five applications were received from men who in the first round had been recommended for appointment. The sixth man recommended for appointment at the time has now been reappointed to the grains, seeds and hay committee until December 31 to ensure a quorum.

Ms MacTiernan said nine women had now lodged applications, with two deemed unsuitable.

She said she’d received advice on second-round applicants from an appointments committee, and results would be available once approved by Cabinet.

On September 11, she told Mr Mazza the appointments committee had needed modernising because it comprised only men.

“We have restructured and there are now two women on the appointments committee,” she added at the time.

“One is from the Rural [, Regional, Remote] Women’s Network [of Western Australia].

“It is really important that we make sure that we take advantage of the entire gene pool that is available to us when making these appointments.”

PHOTO: Alannah MacTiernan in Albany recently. Photo: Chris Thomson

ALANNAH MACTIERNAN’S involvement with Carnegie before it was selected to erect a $65 million wave energy plant at Albany has again come under Parliamentary scrutiny.

Construction of the plant was to have started last week, but has been indefinitely delayed after Carnegie renegotiated its first funding milestone with the State when changes to federal tax incentives made the project less viable.

High profile CEO Mike Ottaviano resigned on September 28, the day the renegotiation was announced.

In early October, the Government agreed to cough up $2.625 million, half of Carnegie’s first milestone payment.

Payment of the outstanding half is now contingent on Carnegie, by the end of 2018, demonstrating it has capacity to complete the project.

REDMAN AND COLLIER QUESTIONS

Last week, in response to a parliamentary question by Member for Warren-Blackwood Terry Redman, Premier Mark McGowan tabled the agenda of a 19-attendee meeting held in Albany on June 9, 2017.

At the meeting were Regional Development Minister Ms MacTiernan, her media advisor Mark Scott and then policy advisor Julie-Ann Gray, Albany MLA Peter Watson and Great Southern Development Commission CEO Bruce Manning. Also there were Dr Ottaviano, representatives of two other wave energy companies, and a phalanx of other bureaucrats, political advisors and University of Western Australia staff.

Earlier, on May 22 last year, at Ms MacTiernan’s invitation, she and her then advisors Ms Gray, Matt Keogh and Cole Thurley met solely with Dr Ottaviano and two of his Carnegie colleagues.

Ahead of that meeting, Ms Gray reminded Ms MacTiernan of Labor’s election promise to “work with UWA, Carnegie Clean Energy and other stakeholders to develop a Wave Energy Centre of Excellence in Albany”.

Asked last week by Opposition Legislative Council leader Peter Collier why she met Carnegie before the project was awarded to the firm, Ms MacTiernan said the company had worked on a business case under the previous Barnett government.

“It was clearly the most advanced wave energy technology company in WA,” she said in Parliament.

Mr Collier then asked why Ms MacTiernan had worked with “UWA, Carnegie Clean Energy and other stakeholders to develop” the wave centre “prior to undertaking an appropriate tender process”.

‘BEST PRACTICE PROCUREMENT’

Ms MacTiernan said “engaging with relevant industry stakeholders and undertaking market sounding” during the tender development stage was “generally accepted as best practice procurement”.

In October, heated debate over the wave plant dominated the first day of debate after Parliament resumed following the Spring school holidays (‘Govt swamped on Carnegie payment’, 11 October).

In January last year, above a photograph of Mr McGowan and Mr Watson, Labor’s plan for Albany said the party would help establish a wave farm.

“Carnegie Energy is now trialling the world’s first renewable micro grid power station using wave energy as one of its sources,” the plan, signed by Mr McGowan, said.

“If the trial is successful, the micro grid model could be used in Albany, powering thousands of households with renewable energy.”

DIVESTED STAKE

In June last year, Ms MacTiernan told Parliament that “immediately after” her appointment as minister she divested a minority stake she had held in Carnegie’s third-biggest shareholder.

An industry participation plan updated by Carnegie on October 4 as a requirement of the $2.625 million half-milestone payment reveals that 55 on-site jobs were expected at the peak of the project’s construction phase. The Weekender asked Carnegie whether these jobs were all planned for Albany as suggested by ‘on-site’, but did not receive a reply.

The plan estimates the plant’s capital cost to be $65 million, and says Carnegie will work with the Great Southern Development Commission to link up with Albany-based suppliers.

PHOTO: The Director of UWA’s Oceans Institute Erika Techera, Mr Ottaviano, Ms MacTiernan and Mr Watson at Sandpatch last October for the wave farm’s announcement. IMAGE: Chris Thomson

CORRECTION: This article initially reported that “Ms MacTiernan, a political advisor, and two Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development staff met solely with three Carnegie staffers on October 2, four days before the company’s success was announced at a [2017] press conference at Sandpatch, overlooking the site of the proposed plant.” The reported date was incorrect. The meeting occurred on October 2, 2018, not October 2, 2017 as originally reported.