ST. RONAN’S WELLNESS

Date March 9, 2016

Hon Terry Redman MLA
Minister for Regional Development, Lands
Minister Assisting the Minister for State Development
Leader of the National Party (WA)
9^th Floor Dumas House
2 Havelock Street
WEST PERTH, 6005

Dear Sir,


Your Ref: -           Article titled ‘St. Ronan’s Wellness’.

You should have recently received a copy of the above emailed to your electorate office.

I assume you are aware of its content regarding the, Hon. Mia. Davies, commitment as Minister for Water, and to her electorate of Central Wheatbelt.

Since it was first broadcast, this article has been accessed 1520 times by those who are, now, also aware of its content.

It would be hardly surprising if those who have read the article do not have a somewhat jaundiced view of the ministerial abilities and the constituent support endeavours of your Ms. Davies.

Statistically, the content of the article should now be known to at least double that number of 1520, based solely the Australian Bureau of Statistics average of 2.5 persons per Australian Household and theoretical newspaper judgements on their overall circulation and attendant readership.

Should you take into account ‘Dunbar’s Number’, which would be limited only to the cognitive, neocortex size of your National Party supporter base, you could be surprised to find that up to 150 others may eventually be made aware of Ms. Davies lack of capabilities. That is per person, not 150 in total.

I assume you understand that this would be enough voter rejection for Ms. Davies to be dumped from her seat of Central Wheatbelt and cast out into the wasteland of failed National Party politicians.

The State Administrative Tribunal (SAT) has just made the incredibly moronic decision to allow SITA to deposit Perth’s physical hubris in pristine farmland at St. Ronan’s, York. A decision- which has come direct from the ‘Dark Ages’.

SAT, that consists mainly of a gaggle of unenlightened Neo-Neanderthal, city-centric lawyers without one ounce of rural community awareness, sympathy and accountability should now be renamed SHAT, the State Hubris Administrative Tribunal.

Only an imbecile would consider this a wise decision and its ramifications will have a serious impact on Wheatbelt politics and its future political aspirants, for the 12 months leading up to the 2017, WA State Election.

Consider that it may well become the rural equivalent of the Roe8 controversy and that the National Party (WA) can no longer lay claim to represent the best interests of Rural Regional and Remote WA.

Also, only an imbecile would deny the idiom that ‘politics is all about perception’ with often very little truth required to complicate issues.

Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin are currently treading through this minefield. Troy Buswell and Adele Carles eventually blew themselves up in it.

Around the time of the last election, some waspish innuendo emanated, allegedly from the WA Premiers Office, regarding the relationship between Mia Davies and Brendon Grills.
Part of the allegation was that they were living together in Northam.

Claims were made that Mr.Grylls had a house there and it was not understood why a Member of Parliament, and a Minister, whose Electoral Office was in Merredin, 165 kilometres away, and was contesting the seat of Pilbara, 1,550 kilometres away, should maintain a relatively expensive property many kilometres from where he should be. A property supposedly shared by Ms. Davies.

Few care about politicians’ possible relationship imbroglios and nor should they. That is until it impacts on a senior politician’s actions taken to be in the best interest of those electors who franchised him or her to act on their behalf.

From June 2009, Ms Davies appears to have had an extremely close collaborative relationship with Mr. Grylls, firstly as Party Secretary to the Parliamentary National Party, and then as Parliamentary Secretary to Mr. Grylls when he was the Minister for Regional Development and Lands.

This is not quite true, prior to this date Ms. Davies was a close confident of Mr. Grylls, working out of his offices in Parliament House when he was a member of the Opposition.

Since then she has been promoted by, and succeeded, Brendon Grylls as the elected member for Central Wheatbelt and has managed to obtain Cabinet Portfolios with little parliamentary experience, while sitting on only one Parliamentary Committee in the past 7 years.

There is still confusion and rumour-mongering why Mr. Grylls effectively walked away from positions of extreme political power and importance in Western Australian politics claiming exhaustion and family commitments.

The electorate of Pilbara should not have been that impressed by their newly elected member claiming exhaustion and family issues (unless there was an unknown illness involved.)

Basically, from now-on, Ms. Davies performance as both a Minister and an elected representative will be extremely closely monitored and reported on when necessary up until the next election.

It is highly likely that she will be found wanting on all fronts.

I neither expect nor require a response from you or your office.

Therefore please save yourself the trouble of providing a gladbag of glib government gibberish that Parliamentary and electorate staffers have developed into an art form.

Yours sincerely

David Taylor.

*******************

(An ancient clear-water spring and York’s 185 year history should give Local Member, Mia Davies, two more reasons to be circumspect about her future. If St Ronan’s landfill goes ahead, Davies should go! )

Soon Premier Colin Barnett will be making career choices for his failed Minister for Local Government, Tony Simpson, his failed Minister for Mental Health, Helen Morton and allow his
Health Minister, Kim Hames, the ‘Doctor Death’ of the WA Hospital Healthcare System, to slip away quietly without any attempt at resuscitation.

Former tree (not brain) surgeon, the Minister for the Environment, Albert Jacob, who has cost the WA economy millions of dollars because he has never properly read The Environmental Protection Act 1986, its Associated Regulations and Offset Guidelines, may also be on the faeces-list.

However, he has strong ‘new-religion’ support and may pray (in tongues) in his Global Heart Church that the recent Roe 8 fiasco will ‘supernaturally heal itself’ and he will not be a biblical ‘branch-stacker’ lopped-off the ministerial tree.

He will also be hoping that the Criminal Code Amendment (Prevention of Lawful Activity) Bill is passed through both Houses of Parliament allowing future Roe 8 protestors to be fined up to $24,000 and spend up to two years in jail.

Dean Nalder is one whose policy on trains, planes, and automobiles has everyone guessing which carpark and freeway will be crammed over its limit? He will survive because he is in-line to be trained to become the next Premier in 2017. That is if he keeps his nose clean and his private business (including a recent denial of any possible transport company share-mongering) out of his public life.

Rest easy, none of these political machinations will directly affect the Wheatbelt, and York, in a clearly discernible way, in any specific period in time, because York is not in a Liberal Party electorate. (And because the failing Minister for Water is from the National Party,)

The elected representative to State Parliament for the Central Wheatbelt and Deputy Leader of the Nationals, former marketing and media officer, UK underground railway worker, beer puller, cocktail shaker and housekeeper-cum-maid, the Hon. Mia Davies, is York’s representative.

In affect she appears not to be representing many of her constituents in any meaningful manner or handling any of her portfolios with any dexterity, and may be coming a bit of a future millstone for her Central Wheatbelt constituency. (Her father, the Hon. Dexter Davies, only lasted in Parliament from August 11, 1998, until February 10, 2001.)

Many like the former Editor of The West Australian, a colleague, sort of shock jock and columnist, Paul Murray, appear not to be particularly enamoured with Ms.Davies and are far from certain of what this Ministers’ credentials really are. Nor does the Leader of the Opposition, Mark McGowan, who is questioning what devious and dysfunctional political activities she is up to in her forestry role.

In powerful political circles she is considered to be a puerile political lightweight, a token National’s Minister to keep the Nationals happy as a Coalition partner. (If she was either Liberal or Labor, she would be more than likely sitting on the back bench.)

Yet, Ms. Davies has the serious portfolios of Forestry (a rapidly dwindling resource), Water (even more so) and the gladrags opportunity portfolio of Sport and Recreation.

As Minister for Forestry, Ms. Davies, and her office staff, has seen-off the most senior officer of the extremely important Forest Products Commission who seemed to have had little confidence in her and her staff’s ability.

When confronted, in writing, by its Board, regarding the resignation of its General Manager, with the quote that it “was not in anyone’s best interest” Ms. Davies and her underlings reacted by redacting this statement from the original letter so they would not be questioned about it and become the proverbial ‘rabbits in the public spotlight’.

The Forest Products Commissioner and a senior board member then resigned in disgust, realizing they were dealing with a Minister who put political expediency and self-interest first and foremost and her lack of knowledge of renewable forest resource management-dead last. 

This acrimonious issue is now slowly filtering out into the public domain and so is the dissatisfaction with her performance in some agencies of her other portfolios, Water and Sport & Recreation.

As the Minister for Water for the past three years, Ms. Davies is mandated to protect our most precious resource, water, and the surrounding environment that assists in its capture and storage.

Obviously, Premier Colin Barnett feels that the Water Portfolio is of such little importance in can be handled by any Tom, Dick or Mia.

This contradicts his previous attitude on the frightening scarcity of water in the Metropolitan Area’s future. Since becoming Premier in 2008 and as late as April, 2011, Mr. Barnett has espoused the idea that eventually Kimberley water will have to be piped to Perth. He was so adamant about the need for this to happen that his original ‘Colin’s Crazy Canal’ idea cost him an election in 2005.

To put matters in perspective, Mia Davies most memorable effort, so far, is being the Minister responsible for the ‘Water Wise’ advertisement for reducing the amount of time the public spends in the shower.

It is an absolute classic, where a cartoon character of a man enters the shower with his pants on.

Good luck if he can wash himself properly in under- four minutes- if he leaves them on. (A bit of gratuitous cartoon butt-crack may well be only offensive to Ms. Davies, or those who are offended by everything and everyone.)

‘Pants-on’ certainly promotes one hell of a weird message to those normal men, women and children, who take their clothes off to have a shower.

Or maybe it has a deeper, altruistic meaning that people should wash and wear their clothes while engaged in their ablutions?

Unfortunately, this childish advertising campaign has not soaked in, with currently available figures showing WA households using in the vicinity of 132 KL of precious water, per person, per annum, compared to the national average of just 75 KL.

WA’s uncontrolled population expansion over the past three decades, with an almost equal and opposite percentage reduction in annual rainfall, still has a water supply that loses 10 billion litres, because of infrastructure failures, above the prescribed international benchmark, per annum.

In the terms of supplying water to a burgeoning population, it makes this 10billion figure unacceptable.

Especially when you consider the extra 14 billion litres recently lost through heat evaporation, which was more than the entire, annual, catchment area run-off of 11.4 billion litres. Also that the historic average dam water catchment input is 100 billion litres- which means that WA has just used at least 2.6 billion litres of water more than was collected.

As of today, tomorrow, the next day and for years to come, WA is facing the biggest water crisis in the state’s history with its dams virtually empty. Recently a Water Corporation spokesman said it would take rainfall of biblical flood proportions to get even close to refilling these dams.

Ms Davies’ Water Corporation solution is to pump 10 billion litres from the Gnangara Aquifer this year. This will come from upper ground water levels that will have the potential to decimate lakes and wetlands and its flora and fauna. (This could still leave a shortfall of 90 billion litres below the historic annual rainfall created, surface water input of 100 billion litres.)

Removing large volumes of water from aquifers is a short term fix to create a long term disaster. It is the Minister for Water’s overall responsibility and a problem that she has little idea how to deal with.

Another solution she is allowing is the public sell-off of her Water Corporations’ Construction and Engineering Unit that deals with its rapidly aging infrastructure. In future there will be more and more equipment blowing up and rusty water-pipes bursting because the past maintenance program has been ‘if it aint broke, don’t fix it.’

This infrastructure has a replacement value of $11 billion dollars. (Around four new hospitals, 2.5 sport stadiums and a currently ugly and empty Swan River frontage water development.)

Whether parts of the Water Corporation are publically or privately owned still means the taxpayer
will foot the bill for any and all of the Minister for Water’s mistakes.

The frequent closure of the new, expensive Elizabeth Quay Water Park because of bacterial contamination and the increasing number of burst water mains in the Perth CBD are, ultimately,
Mia Davies problem. As Minister she bears the responsibility for the quantity of water available, the amount of water used, its quality and the quality of its delivery in this state.

Now it is time to get serious about the Minister for Water, including the local impact of her water policy and her relationship with York that could destroy a part of its rich history and its tourism industry.

In 2013, SITA, (The Leader in Resource Discovery) (and waste dumping) formally stated its intention to establish a new landfill site at St. Ronan’s near York. (Allawuna is just the name of a farm, not the area.)

St. Ronan’s has a natural spring of (once) crystal clear water, first discovered by European settlers in the 1830’s that became a precious resting place for the early pioneers of York and the Avon Arc. It is listed as being under the control of the Department of Planning from early settlement to 2009 and, obviously, by the Balladong people for around 40,000 years before that.

It should be both an Indigenous and European peoples’ ‘Sacred Site’, a type of ‘holy place’ that you could count on one finger in the State of Western Australia.

 Anywhere else in the known world it would be enshrined in local history and be a well preserved shrine for the memory of our earliest pioneering past.

It is claimed that the stone well itself was completed in 1844 and was given the name St. Ronan’s Well (and blessed) by Bishop Rosenda Salvado who was looking for a suitable place to build a church. Unfortunately for York, he chose New Norcia instead. (No-one would dare put a rubbish dump close to an iconic monastery.)

Bishop Salvado is Western Australia’s most celebrated evangelical pioneer. He was a friend of the inimitable Daisy Bates (an early supporter of Indigenous People and wife of the infamous ‘Breaker’ Morant) and was deeply respected by England’s Florence Nightingale, the famous “Lady with the Lamp’.

Born in Spain in 1814, near the end of the Napoleonic Wars, Bishop Salvado has a magnificent statue erected in his memory (and honour) in his hometown of Tui, and another at New Norcia where his remains are buried.

St. Ronan was a 6^th Century Irish saint and pilgrim who never returned to his homeland, like many of the early settlers of York. (Arguably the only other place named after St. Ronan is St. Ronan’s School, in Kent (UK). Established in 1883, which post-dates St. Ronan’s Well by close to half a century.)

St. Ronan’s Well Reserve, (Place Number 04429) is listed since 2002 with the Heritage Council, and should appear on the Permanent Register of The National Estate, and on a Department of Water map as being part of a precious water-catchment area feeding the Mundaring Weir.

St. Ronan’s Well, its water source and its history, currently, appear to mean nothing to the Minister for Water and the Local Member, Mia Davies.

What Ms. Davies has been doing recently is voting for the Roe 8 protest law that means if the St. Ronan’s landfill goes ahead, you will be arrested if you decide to stand in front of a rubbish truck entering the Allawuna Farm gate. (The local Member will not be supporting your case or organizing to help pay your fine, she is just helping to put you in this perilous, invidious position, over an unquestionably important issue in the electorate she supposedly represents.)

Before the last election and her rise to power, on the then disappearing coattails of Brendon Grylls,
Ms. Davies, voted against a similar law being introduced. Now times, aspirations and allegiances have changed.

The portfolio that appears to enthral Ms. Davies the most is being the Minister for Sport and Recreation. It gives her the photo opportunity to grin like a Cheshire cat, in a hard hat, behind Premier Barnett, as Perth’s new $1.5 billion sports stadium raises over Burswood, next to the Crown Casino.

It also gives her a chance to clutch a football and smile once again in support of the $50,000 Super Coach Fantasy Football competition published by Perth’s The Sunday Times.  This increases the circulation and profits of a newspaper owned by the world’s most powerful media baron, Rupert Murdoch, who does not have a philanthropic bone in his body.

For Mia Davies to promote Western Australian football is fine, but not a News Limited, profit motivated, nation-wide competition.

However, Murdoch’s Australian newspaper empire does give editorial support to politicians who do him a promotional favour, even in itty-bitty, little old WA.(Maybe that is a reason for the photograph and article on page 13 of the Sunday , February 21, edition of The Sunday Times.)

Now if the St. Ronan’s SITA dump goes ahead and some blue asbestos, covered in ‘Glad-Wrap’ pops out of the water while you are trying to have a picnic amid the piles of litter at St. Ronan’s Well, you may wish to think again about voting for Mia Davies in the 2017 State Election and she may need all the editorial help she can get from The Sunday Times.

In the 2013 election Ms. Davies lost 10.9 per cent of the Two Candidate Preferred National Party lead over her nearest rival. A similar swing could see her out of office.

It will be the choice of the Central Wheatbelt electors which includes the voting community of York as the second largest population in her constituency.

If you chance to meet the Hon. Mia Davies, just remind her that her re-election chances may well hinge on the support of York as to whether she retains her seat or not. And that, if the St. Ronan’s landfill goes ahead, maybe as many as 2,327 former supporters will not vote for her .

She will know what that means on election night when she finds that fresh water takes precedence over a rubbish tip in any electorate and any violation of a precious water source allowed by any West Australian Minister for Water is unthinkable.

Also tell her that the Wheatbelt, including the Central Wheatbelt, is listed as the single region in Western Australia that was continuously losing population during a period when the state’s population and economy was booming.

Let us hope that Ms. Davies takes note and a historic well’s future wellbeing means ‘all’s well that ends well’ for York’s economic future!

David Taylor.
Shire of York Ratepayer