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Lots more to follow
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Shire of York
Saturday, 30 April 2016
Monday, 25 April 2016
LET’S TWIT AGAIN (Mamamia’s the best Member that you’ll ever see.)
Holy Shiite,
That historic rats-nest, York, is like a retirement village for the Taliban. I’ll have to get the boundaries changed so I can get it exorcised from my electorate before the next election.
Bad week voters! Someone says the Treasurer (without any treasure) entered my backyard without telling me?
If it’s true I’m going to give that Mike Nahan a very nasty wedgie. (I’ll call it a special Parliamentary Opening Time and a Special Sitting, if he still can.)
What was he doing? Sniffing around for excess fiscal booty? Some left-over Royalties for Regions?
Mike……….Northam’s not a ‘Super-Town’ with hundreds of new permanent jobs yet. But we’re working on it.
Merredin hasn’t got a new, five-star, Mercure Hotel, full to the brim with Chinese tourists
eager for a Central Wheatbelt experience. But that’s not from a lack of trying.
The fifty thousand hectares of ‘Waterwise Rice Paddies’ at Kellerberrin was probably not a good idea. As your dedicated Minister for Water I had to can that one to allow SITA to do a country-dump at York.
And the York Light Show, bigger than the Sydney Opera House, with historic lantern slides
projected all over its historic buildings ain’t going to happen. York’s just too naughty!
However, it might get a few plastic Merinos and Papier Mache wheat sheaves if it begs nicely
NOW DON’T FORGET TO LOOK FOR ME ON www. nationalswa.com/The Team/
(sorry it has been taken over by Robots.)
SO LET’S ALL DO COFFEE & CAKE SOMETIME- YOUR MAMAMIA
‘ ON THE WATER FRONT’
(A great movie- and a WA urban disaster in the making- so Mia Davies sends out letters of complaint to water-users)
The three ingredients for human life, in order, are oxygen, water and food. Without
oxygen there would be no human life at all. Without water there is death by both
dehydration and starvation because, without water, there is no food.
In 2006, Perth, with a population of 1.256 million, had a water crisis with dam levels dangerously low. The Carpenter Labor Government built the Perth Seawater Desalination Plant at a cost of $387 million to provide an estimated 144-250 mega-litres of water, per-day or 17% of Perth’s water supply needs at that time.
In 2013, Perth, with the population of 1.970 million, had a water crisis with dams critically low. The Barnett Coalition Government had built the Southern Seawater Desalination Plant at a cost of $955 million to provide an estimated 100 mega-litres, per-day, or 20% of Perth’s water supply needs. (The Minister for Water was Bill Marmion.)
The comparative cost, output and percentages of water manufactured for both these projects are quoted in reliable, independent information resources in the public domain. Their accuracy has never been questioned.
However, a question is that one plant cost $387 million, produces at least 44% more mega-litres, per-day and provided just 3% less to Perth’s water supply at that time? The other cost nearly three times more, produces 44 % less and provided 3% more to a population that was already 58 % larger?
Actually, in this case, a 20% water supply capacity into 1.970 million does not go unless there is a math equation that nobody has heard of. And you can now add a further 230,000
thirsty citizens to this equation.
In 2016, Perth, with a population of 2.2 million, close to double what it was a decade ago, has the same water crisis with its dams now nearly empty. (The Minister for Water, for the past 3 years, is Mai Davies.)
The conundrum once again is that just over a decade ago 140 mega-litres provided Perth’s 1.256 million population with apparently 17% of its needs? And 100 mega-litres provided 20 % of a 1.970 million populations’ needs in 2013. (How? is anybody’s guess.)
So Ms. Davies, what actually is the water volume needs of Perth’s population of 2.2 million in 2016-17, without taking into consideration the needs of Rural Regional and Remote WA?, something that is not officially registered as occurring. (Perth appears to be the centre of the political, socio-economic and water-usage universe.)
Also, have you, and your department started to factor in the amount of drinking water required by Perth’s predicted population of 2.8 million in 2025 and what sources it will come from? Based on current statistical information regarding Perth’s, per capita, consumption figures, it is an extra 53 million kilo-litres per day and 19.4 billion litres per annum!
WA (along with South Australia) is the hottest and driest state in the driest continent on earth. (As a matter of water supply interest, the entire population of South Australia is 600,000 less than that of Perth.)
Perth’s reasonable predictable annual rainfall of 760mm (30 inches) of 50-years-ago no longer exists.
The problem today is that any excessive use of water by the average West Australian, compared to the rest of Australia, is caused by the climate. It is hot and dry and now the current water gathering processes will not keep up with the biggest influx of population in the state’s history.
So what is the Minister for Water, Mia Davies’, solution to how many billion litres of water go into a population of in excess of 2.8 million in a rapidly drying climate that will get worse- not better?
It is letters. Specifically, signed letters from a Catherine Ferrari, General Manager, Customer
and Community Group of the Water Corporation, the largest of the group of agencies, accountable to the Minister for Water, that enjoy the watery- gravy train that is the water resources industry in WA.(Ms. Ferrari’s surname, unfortunately is rather evocative!)
These letters make the water consumer feel that they, not the politicians and their bureaucrats and the weather conditions, are entirely responsible for a looming water crisis because of their unexplained, greedy over-use of water.
At the beginning of summer, in 2015, Perth had used 9 billion litres over its target water use. Guess why? Because it was hot and dry!
Apparently January was cooler than average and there was a sprinkling of rain. So guess what? Perth consumed less water, but is still 2 billion litres over its water target use.
In early February this year, Perth suffered a record breaking ‘four consecutive days of above 40C temperatures’ which caused 12 people to be hospitalized. So what can be predicted? Perth will be way over its target water use again.
Ms. Ferrari wants us to make sure that any water-use increases are a one-off! This defies logic as necessary water consumption for the health and wellbeing of the population of Perth will be regulated by the Highs and Lows of weather patterns, not the Minister for Water or any of her departments. (Otherwise people’s lives could be put at risk.)
The supposed overuse of 9 billion litres of water by consumers compares with the 10 billion litres lost annually through the Water Corporations’ water delivery system’s-infrastructural failures.
The particular letter in question, from Ms. Ferrari, was directed to a household to which two
FIFO workers had returned after being retrenched by Rio Tinto. No gluttonous water-orgies or a front yard like ‘The Hanging Gardens of Babylon’, just two extra adults having their daily 4-minute Waterwise shower.
The SITA question will always raise its ugly head, as long as it remains on the agenda as a politicized act of environmental vandalism in a water-deprived state.
A letter was sent to Ms. Davies when she was elected as Member for Central Wheatbelt.
It asked had the previous Member, the Minister for Regional Development and the Minister
for Lands, Brendon Grylls, been involved in any way with the SITA proposal for Allawuna Farm, Ronans, York.
It would be logical to expect that given his portfolios, (the SITA proposal was a new development in a regional area, involved land use and was in Grylls’ electorate), he would have been included in the process.
SITA had approached The Environmental Protection Authority in early March, 2013, at the same time as the WA State Election. It is highly unlikely that SITA would have done so without the prior approval of the relevant Ministers and their departments. (It was a multi-million dollar project.)
SITA was very much relying on the Coalition Government being re-elected and that the Shire of York Council and administration remained as it was- to ensure its project would proceed.
As was pointed out to Ms. Davies, if Mr. Gylls, had not been approached by SITA it would have been an embarrassment for him, both as a Minister, who should have some involvement in the application and as the Member, who should have been approached by SITA as a matter of courtesy.
Ms. Davies, who had by then become the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Regional Development, and Lands, who was Brendon Grylls until December 2013, categorically denied that he had ever met with SITA in any capacity.
I believe the Hon. Ms. Davies lied!
David Taylor.
That historic rats-nest, York, is like a retirement village for the Taliban. I’ll have to get the boundaries changed so I can get it exorcised from my electorate before the next election.
Bad week voters! Someone says the Treasurer (without any treasure) entered my backyard without telling me?
If it’s true I’m going to give that Mike Nahan a very nasty wedgie. (I’ll call it a special Parliamentary Opening Time and a Special Sitting, if he still can.)
What was he doing? Sniffing around for excess fiscal booty? Some left-over Royalties for Regions?
Mike……….Northam’s not a ‘Super-Town’ with hundreds of new permanent jobs yet. But we’re working on it.
Merredin hasn’t got a new, five-star, Mercure Hotel, full to the brim with Chinese tourists
eager for a Central Wheatbelt experience. But that’s not from a lack of trying.
The fifty thousand hectares of ‘Waterwise Rice Paddies’ at Kellerberrin was probably not a good idea. As your dedicated Minister for Water I had to can that one to allow SITA to do a country-dump at York.
And the York Light Show, bigger than the Sydney Opera House, with historic lantern slides
projected all over its historic buildings ain’t going to happen. York’s just too naughty!
However, it might get a few plastic Merinos and Papier Mache wheat sheaves if it begs nicely
NOW DON’T FORGET TO LOOK FOR ME ON www. nationalswa.com/The Team/
(sorry it has been taken over by Robots.)
SO LET’S ALL DO COFFEE & CAKE SOMETIME- YOUR MAMAMIA
‘ ON THE WATER FRONT’
(A great movie- and a WA urban disaster in the making- so Mia Davies sends out letters of complaint to water-users)
The three ingredients for human life, in order, are oxygen, water and food. Without
oxygen there would be no human life at all. Without water there is death by both
dehydration and starvation because, without water, there is no food.
In 2006, Perth, with a population of 1.256 million, had a water crisis with dam levels dangerously low. The Carpenter Labor Government built the Perth Seawater Desalination Plant at a cost of $387 million to provide an estimated 144-250 mega-litres of water, per-day or 17% of Perth’s water supply needs at that time.
In 2013, Perth, with the population of 1.970 million, had a water crisis with dams critically low. The Barnett Coalition Government had built the Southern Seawater Desalination Plant at a cost of $955 million to provide an estimated 100 mega-litres, per-day, or 20% of Perth’s water supply needs. (The Minister for Water was Bill Marmion.)
The comparative cost, output and percentages of water manufactured for both these projects are quoted in reliable, independent information resources in the public domain. Their accuracy has never been questioned.
However, a question is that one plant cost $387 million, produces at least 44% more mega-litres, per-day and provided just 3% less to Perth’s water supply at that time? The other cost nearly three times more, produces 44 % less and provided 3% more to a population that was already 58 % larger?
Actually, in this case, a 20% water supply capacity into 1.970 million does not go unless there is a math equation that nobody has heard of. And you can now add a further 230,000
thirsty citizens to this equation.
In 2016, Perth, with a population of 2.2 million, close to double what it was a decade ago, has the same water crisis with its dams now nearly empty. (The Minister for Water, for the past 3 years, is Mai Davies.)
The conundrum once again is that just over a decade ago 140 mega-litres provided Perth’s 1.256 million population with apparently 17% of its needs? And 100 mega-litres provided 20 % of a 1.970 million populations’ needs in 2013. (How? is anybody’s guess.)
So Ms. Davies, what actually is the water volume needs of Perth’s population of 2.2 million in 2016-17, without taking into consideration the needs of Rural Regional and Remote WA?, something that is not officially registered as occurring. (Perth appears to be the centre of the political, socio-economic and water-usage universe.)
Also, have you, and your department started to factor in the amount of drinking water required by Perth’s predicted population of 2.8 million in 2025 and what sources it will come from? Based on current statistical information regarding Perth’s, per capita, consumption figures, it is an extra 53 million kilo-litres per day and 19.4 billion litres per annum!
WA (along with South Australia) is the hottest and driest state in the driest continent on earth. (As a matter of water supply interest, the entire population of South Australia is 600,000 less than that of Perth.)
Perth’s reasonable predictable annual rainfall of 760mm (30 inches) of 50-years-ago no longer exists.
The problem today is that any excessive use of water by the average West Australian, compared to the rest of Australia, is caused by the climate. It is hot and dry and now the current water gathering processes will not keep up with the biggest influx of population in the state’s history.
So what is the Minister for Water, Mia Davies’, solution to how many billion litres of water go into a population of in excess of 2.8 million in a rapidly drying climate that will get worse- not better?
It is letters. Specifically, signed letters from a Catherine Ferrari, General Manager, Customer
and Community Group of the Water Corporation, the largest of the group of agencies, accountable to the Minister for Water, that enjoy the watery- gravy train that is the water resources industry in WA.(Ms. Ferrari’s surname, unfortunately is rather evocative!)
These letters make the water consumer feel that they, not the politicians and their bureaucrats and the weather conditions, are entirely responsible for a looming water crisis because of their unexplained, greedy over-use of water.
At the beginning of summer, in 2015, Perth had used 9 billion litres over its target water use. Guess why? Because it was hot and dry!
Apparently January was cooler than average and there was a sprinkling of rain. So guess what? Perth consumed less water, but is still 2 billion litres over its water target use.
In early February this year, Perth suffered a record breaking ‘four consecutive days of above 40C temperatures’ which caused 12 people to be hospitalized. So what can be predicted? Perth will be way over its target water use again.
Ms. Ferrari wants us to make sure that any water-use increases are a one-off! This defies logic as necessary water consumption for the health and wellbeing of the population of Perth will be regulated by the Highs and Lows of weather patterns, not the Minister for Water or any of her departments. (Otherwise people’s lives could be put at risk.)
The supposed overuse of 9 billion litres of water by consumers compares with the 10 billion litres lost annually through the Water Corporations’ water delivery system’s-infrastructural failures.
The particular letter in question, from Ms. Ferrari, was directed to a household to which two
FIFO workers had returned after being retrenched by Rio Tinto. No gluttonous water-orgies or a front yard like ‘The Hanging Gardens of Babylon’, just two extra adults having their daily 4-minute Waterwise shower.
The SITA question will always raise its ugly head, as long as it remains on the agenda as a politicized act of environmental vandalism in a water-deprived state.
A letter was sent to Ms. Davies when she was elected as Member for Central Wheatbelt.
It asked had the previous Member, the Minister for Regional Development and the Minister
for Lands, Brendon Grylls, been involved in any way with the SITA proposal for Allawuna Farm, Ronans, York.
It would be logical to expect that given his portfolios, (the SITA proposal was a new development in a regional area, involved land use and was in Grylls’ electorate), he would have been included in the process.
SITA had approached The Environmental Protection Authority in early March, 2013, at the same time as the WA State Election. It is highly unlikely that SITA would have done so without the prior approval of the relevant Ministers and their departments. (It was a multi-million dollar project.)
SITA was very much relying on the Coalition Government being re-elected and that the Shire of York Council and administration remained as it was- to ensure its project would proceed.
As was pointed out to Ms. Davies, if Mr. Gylls, had not been approached by SITA it would have been an embarrassment for him, both as a Minister, who should have some involvement in the application and as the Member, who should have been approached by SITA as a matter of courtesy.
Ms. Davies, who had by then become the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Regional Development, and Lands, who was Brendon Grylls until December 2013, categorically denied that he had ever met with SITA in any capacity.
I believe the Hon. Ms. Davies lied!
David Taylor.
Tuesday, 19 April 2016
THERE ONE DAY- GONE THE NEXT.
(Why? Has this website been contaminated with web-crawler detritus and become
the Nationals own Allawuna Farm?)
In the past week a strange algorithm has appeared within the official website of the Nationals WA which implies it no longer exists as it did.
Information on the activities of the ministerial team of Terry Redman, Colin Holt and Mia Davies is no longer directly accessible on www.nationalswa.com/The Team/.
The site is now under the control of robots.txt files that is normally put in place to prevent access by nasty search engine crawlers- which could be engineered by computer savvy, disgruntled and/or disgusted constituents.
The system includes a protocol, Robot Exclusion Standard that indicates access by certain searches which could overwhelm a particularly underwhelming political party, broad spectrum information resource.
Robot.txt files installers claim that this protocol ‘should not be used as a means to hide your web pages from Google search results’.
Even though much of the information can be accessed on other sites, this advice appears to have, so far, fallen on deaf ears with ‘The Team’.
Why and how this act of political constipation has occurred will probably remain another mystery hidden within our Westminster parliamentary system.
It could be that the community message from York, regarding the potentially devastating effects of the Allawuna Farm, Ronans, waste dump site, has led to an angry-response fuelled melt-down of the Nationals WA main cyber organ.
The contacting of 145 Councillors between Mundaring and Kalgoorlie, by a concerned York citizen, fearful of the future quality of the water supply delivered by the Goldfields pipeline, could have been the catalyst for such a website crisis.
It should be remembered that a reason given why the metropolitan area can no longer bury its waste on the coastal sand plain is that there is the potential for serious groundwater contamination in such soil conditions.
SITA makes a claim, supported by the Minister for Water, Mia Davies, that its
method of underground waste storage will not allow the leaching of contaminates.
Given this, there is no reason why waste disposal sites cannot still be developed on the coastal plain, other than the fact that the powerful Perth
electoral lobby does not want them there. (The result is called political self-preservation.)
Notwithstanding, maybe the disparity between what is good for them (Perth) and what is good for the rest of us could be finally striking a sympathetic chord?
It could also be because of the unravelling of Royalties for Regions myth, with nothing really having changed for the better in the bush since 2008? Or maybe it is because the Nationals WA can no longer afford to pay their internet service provider or their webmaster?
David Taylor.
In the past week a strange algorithm has appeared within the official website of the Nationals WA which implies it no longer exists as it did.
Information on the activities of the ministerial team of Terry Redman, Colin Holt and Mia Davies is no longer directly accessible on www.nationalswa.com/The Team/.
The site is now under the control of robots.txt files that is normally put in place to prevent access by nasty search engine crawlers- which could be engineered by computer savvy, disgruntled and/or disgusted constituents.
The system includes a protocol, Robot Exclusion Standard that indicates access by certain searches which could overwhelm a particularly underwhelming political party, broad spectrum information resource.
Robot.txt files installers claim that this protocol ‘should not be used as a means to hide your web pages from Google search results’.
Even though much of the information can be accessed on other sites, this advice appears to have, so far, fallen on deaf ears with ‘The Team’.
Why and how this act of political constipation has occurred will probably remain another mystery hidden within our Westminster parliamentary system.
It could be that the community message from York, regarding the potentially devastating effects of the Allawuna Farm, Ronans, waste dump site, has led to an angry-response fuelled melt-down of the Nationals WA main cyber organ.
The contacting of 145 Councillors between Mundaring and Kalgoorlie, by a concerned York citizen, fearful of the future quality of the water supply delivered by the Goldfields pipeline, could have been the catalyst for such a website crisis.
It should be remembered that a reason given why the metropolitan area can no longer bury its waste on the coastal sand plain is that there is the potential for serious groundwater contamination in such soil conditions.
SITA makes a claim, supported by the Minister for Water, Mia Davies, that its
method of underground waste storage will not allow the leaching of contaminates.
Given this, there is no reason why waste disposal sites cannot still be developed on the coastal plain, other than the fact that the powerful Perth
electoral lobby does not want them there. (The result is called political self-preservation.)
Notwithstanding, maybe the disparity between what is good for them (Perth) and what is good for the rest of us could be finally striking a sympathetic chord?
It could also be because of the unravelling of Royalties for Regions myth, with nothing really having changed for the better in the bush since 2008? Or maybe it is because the Nationals WA can no longer afford to pay their internet service provider or their webmaster?
David Taylor.
Sunday, 17 April 2016
A BIG TWIT AND FACEBOOK FACIALS (From MAMAMIA, your much-loved Member)
Recently, Mia Davies responded to a well-
crafted, well researched letter regarding SITA’S Allawuna Farm tip. Her
response was farcical, placing the problem squarely on everyone else’s
shoulders but hers.
David Taylor.
A BIG TWIT AND FACEBOOK FACIALS
(From MAMAMIA, your much-loved Member)
Yo Central Weetbix Kids
I read that ‘The Real Voice of York’ bloggy thing that I like to call ‘The fading Echo of York’.
I’m so angry that I’ve had to write a letter to answer some pertinent, impertinent questions about me and that cash-cow SITA.
In fact I had to show off my awesome Oracle. Now don’t be grubby, my Oracle allows me to answer impertinent questions with total ambiguity, meaning my answers could be meaning anything.
Like ‘the rain, the drought, will conquer’, meaning you’ll either need a bigger umbrella or you’ll be sucking dirt through a straw.
It also allows me to be like Pontius Pilot, there’s nothing I can do and I wash my hands of York’s
problems, in bottled water.
I do keep being constantly constant in my slightly peeved attitude towards a few rather small, and not really all that smelly trucks, driving up and down the Great Southern Highway.
Now I’ve had a lightbulb moment.
Why don’t we call it SITIP ROAD and divert all York traffic through Northam, Beverley and Brookton? Problem solved Hey!
What you don’t appear to understand is that I’m the Minister for Water, that CO2 stuff.
When and if it falls from the sky, it’s the Bureau of Meteorology’s problem. When it hits the ground it’s the Minister for the Environments problem. That’s young Alby Jacob, who used to chop down trees for a living.
Then there’s Watercorp, Waterwise and all those others with their ‘trotters in the trough’ but who truly-ruly care. (Agencies such as DPAW, DoH, MRA, DePox, FiB and WGAF.)
I suppose you could say my department, not me, does some analysis on why you can dig big holes in water catchment area and fill it with sh*t.
My agency is for referrals only and makes no decisions. I say it handles everything with ‘rigour’. Others claim it’s more like rigor-mortis. (Yes, we do have some spectacular nose-picking competitions at lunchtime.)
My agency’s expert analysis is done on a ‘who pays wins’ basis. There’s no such thing as an independent expert in politics.
Some of you may think what Mamamia actually does for a living. (That’s why I don’t like a lot of you.)
I’m also the Minister for Sport and Forests. So I spend a lot of my time making shore? (bloody check spell) sure that WA sporting clubs are issued with lots of permits to hold ‘Chook Raffles’ and there’s plenty of wood to make paper for the tickets.
Recently some sporting club members refused to jump into the Swan River, off Elizabeth Quay,
because of matters-‘faecal’.
The only had to swim 400 metres.
All I have to say to them is ‘Suck it up princes and princesses’, raw sewage up the nostrils cleans out the sinuses. Obviously their Chook Raffle ticket allocation will be cut off.
TO OFFER RE-ELECTION DONATIONS TO ME- PLEASE DO NOT HESITATE TO CALL MAMAMIA ON 9041 1702 (MERREDIN OFFICE) 9622 2871 (NORTHAM OFFICE) or email mia.davies@mp.wa.gov.au . We take Mastercard & Bankcard only.
David Taylor.
A BIG TWIT AND FACEBOOK FACIALS
(From MAMAMIA, your much-loved Member)
Yo Central Weetbix Kids
I read that ‘The Real Voice of York’ bloggy thing that I like to call ‘The fading Echo of York’.
I’m so angry that I’ve had to write a letter to answer some pertinent, impertinent questions about me and that cash-cow SITA.
In fact I had to show off my awesome Oracle. Now don’t be grubby, my Oracle allows me to answer impertinent questions with total ambiguity, meaning my answers could be meaning anything.
Like ‘the rain, the drought, will conquer’, meaning you’ll either need a bigger umbrella or you’ll be sucking dirt through a straw.
It also allows me to be like Pontius Pilot, there’s nothing I can do and I wash my hands of York’s
problems, in bottled water.
I do keep being constantly constant in my slightly peeved attitude towards a few rather small, and not really all that smelly trucks, driving up and down the Great Southern Highway.
Now I’ve had a lightbulb moment.
Why don’t we call it SITIP ROAD and divert all York traffic through Northam, Beverley and Brookton? Problem solved Hey!
What you don’t appear to understand is that I’m the Minister for Water, that CO2 stuff.
When and if it falls from the sky, it’s the Bureau of Meteorology’s problem. When it hits the ground it’s the Minister for the Environments problem. That’s young Alby Jacob, who used to chop down trees for a living.
Then there’s Watercorp, Waterwise and all those others with their ‘trotters in the trough’ but who truly-ruly care. (Agencies such as DPAW, DoH, MRA, DePox, FiB and WGAF.)
I suppose you could say my department, not me, does some analysis on why you can dig big holes in water catchment area and fill it with sh*t.
My agency is for referrals only and makes no decisions. I say it handles everything with ‘rigour’. Others claim it’s more like rigor-mortis. (Yes, we do have some spectacular nose-picking competitions at lunchtime.)
My agency’s expert analysis is done on a ‘who pays wins’ basis. There’s no such thing as an independent expert in politics.
Some of you may think what Mamamia actually does for a living. (That’s why I don’t like a lot of you.)
I’m also the Minister for Sport and Forests. So I spend a lot of my time making shore? (bloody check spell) sure that WA sporting clubs are issued with lots of permits to hold ‘Chook Raffles’ and there’s plenty of wood to make paper for the tickets.
Recently some sporting club members refused to jump into the Swan River, off Elizabeth Quay,
because of matters-‘faecal’.
The only had to swim 400 metres.
All I have to say to them is ‘Suck it up princes and princesses’, raw sewage up the nostrils cleans out the sinuses. Obviously their Chook Raffle ticket allocation will be cut off.
TO OFFER RE-ELECTION DONATIONS TO ME- PLEASE DO NOT HESITATE TO CALL MAMAMIA ON 9041 1702 (MERREDIN OFFICE) 9622 2871 (NORTHAM OFFICE) or email mia.davies@mp.wa.gov.au . We take Mastercard & Bankcard only.
Monday, 11 April 2016
RAIN FALLS!
LETTER TO THE EDITORS
Dated April 14, 2016
Mr. Bob Cronin
Editor-in-Chief
West Australian Newspapers Limited
CC
Mr. Brett McCarthy
Editor
The West Australian Newspaper
Gentlemen,
Dated April 14, 2016
Mr. Bob Cronin
Editor-in-Chief
West Australian Newspapers Limited
CC
Mr. Brett McCarthy
Editor
The West Australian Newspaper
Gentlemen,
Your Ref: - The West Australian
Newspapers coverage of Rural, Regional and Remote
WA’s economic, political and social affairs.
Congratulations Bob on your ‘Walkley Award’ for services to Australian journalism. It is well deserved.
Also congratulations Brett on your longevity as Editor of The West Australian. You have only three years to go to catch up to Paul Murray, the longest serving editor in Australian newspaper history.
Paul Keating once called The West Australian Newspaper ‘The Worst Australian’ and a former Editor, Paul Armstrong, called it an ‘international newspaper’. Both were wrong.
Keating was politically motivated and Armstrong was waxing lyrical over a state newspaper, without overseas bureaux, with its national news coverage gathered from John Fairfax newspapers and its international news from the usual sources such as AAP, AP and Reuters, not its own staff.
International newspapers are those that are published internationally with its content sourced by their own editorial staff, and are archived in prominent libraries and universities as being an accurate record of the particular psyche of their country of origin. Conversely, easily accessible, printed version copies of The West Australian are difficult to obtain in any other Australian state, let alone overseas.
Brett, on your appointment as Editor in 2009, West Australian Newspapers Limited’s, Chief Executive, Chris Wharton, said of you that ‘under his leadership, The West Australian will be tapped into the West Australian community and will reflect the aspirations of the people of this great state’.
Maybe Mr. Wharton should have added ‘all’ between ‘of’ and ‘the’ as a fair portion of your readership, among the 551,000 living in Rural, Regional and Remote, WA, do not feel that your newspaper gives coverage to- or in any way adequately reflects, their aspirations.
It could be said that your country coverage reflects Dorothea Mackellar’s, ‘My Country’ covering ‘droughts and flooding rains, and fire and famine’, other disasters and mining booms, but with very little to do with any important, broad-spectrum needs, wants, ambitions and aspirations.
Rural, Regional and Remote West Australians often suffer from 70 per cent less required healthcare services, pay up to 50 per cent more for fuel and domestic gas and are forced to pay similar council rates to those living in the metropolitan area, despite domestic properties having less than half the Gross Rental Value. This is fact not fiction!
Brett, you would be aware that the newspaper you used to edit, Perth’s The Sunday Times
has launched a campaign titled ‘Fair go for WA’s Regions’. It is based on The Australian Bureau of Statistics data that confirms the inequitable gulf between the quality of life enjoyed by Perth residents compared to most of the rest of the state.
Also, unfortunately, the sustainability of life, suggesting there is a much shortened life expectancy through disease, suicides and the carnage on rural roads.
Brett, it is probably time The West Australian Newspaper realized that without the massive
economic input by Rural, Regional and Remote, WA, into the states’ treasury and economy,
you and your staff would not be there or it would be just a ‘parish-pump’ publication.
Given this, it is about time The West Australian gave half-a-million citizens, living outside the metropolitan area a ‘Fairer Go!’. ‘Fair Go’ may infer that you are plagiarizing The Sunday Times.
A ‘Fairer go for Everyone’ or a ‘State of the State’ campaign could answer the questions that we, as a state, not just Perth, have every right to have answered.
In depth investigations such as:-
WHAT PRICE ROYALTIES FOR REGIONS?
Has $5.6 billion really been squandered?
NATIONAL’S CARD GAME!
Brendon Grylls’ Country Age Pension Fuel Card could now be costing $28 million a year. Is it used for fuel or beer?
NOT SO WATERWISE!
The Minister for Water is accused of allowing blue asbestos to be buried near a water catchment area, on pristine farmland in the Avon Valley. One concerned mother has emailed the 145 Shire Councillors, from Mundaring to Kalgoorlie, warning of the potential danger to their drinking water supply.
WA’S WATER HAZARD!
Will the state be dry by 2025? Why? And what can be done!
GOING, GOING, GONE!
Regional state schools are being shut, so now which rural towns will not survive? and why?
COUNTRY CURRICULUM VITAL
The Minister for Education claims that regional students in 2016 are significantly better off than their predecessors. The West Australian has gone back 50-years and obtained the 1966 syllabus for Northam Senior High School and its 2016 version.
This Minister has always had something to answer for. It is alleged that he was a very average Liberal Party official who was originally elected through forgery and branch-stacking and one of his favourite electioneers was a convicted felon, Katrina Nicole Watts, who has served two jail terms for stealing as a servant.
PERTH’S PROFIT AND LOSS
Is Perth really $7 billion in the red each year and ruining our state’s economy? What does it contribute to export earnings, or is it just our anchor in the Indian Ocean?
THE NATIONAL’S GONE ROGUE
Once the country party, what does it stand for now?
Brett, you above most others would be aware of the declining significance, relevance and influence of The West Australian. Less than 10 per cent of the states’ population would purchase a copy on a daily basis.
Yet it still has time to make a significant contribution to the welfare of everyone in WA.
I leave this in your capable hands.
WA’s economic, political and social affairs.
Congratulations Bob on your ‘Walkley Award’ for services to Australian journalism. It is well deserved.
Also congratulations Brett on your longevity as Editor of The West Australian. You have only three years to go to catch up to Paul Murray, the longest serving editor in Australian newspaper history.
Paul Keating once called The West Australian Newspaper ‘The Worst Australian’ and a former Editor, Paul Armstrong, called it an ‘international newspaper’. Both were wrong.
Keating was politically motivated and Armstrong was waxing lyrical over a state newspaper, without overseas bureaux, with its national news coverage gathered from John Fairfax newspapers and its international news from the usual sources such as AAP, AP and Reuters, not its own staff.
International newspapers are those that are published internationally with its content sourced by their own editorial staff, and are archived in prominent libraries and universities as being an accurate record of the particular psyche of their country of origin. Conversely, easily accessible, printed version copies of The West Australian are difficult to obtain in any other Australian state, let alone overseas.
Brett, on your appointment as Editor in 2009, West Australian Newspapers Limited’s, Chief Executive, Chris Wharton, said of you that ‘under his leadership, The West Australian will be tapped into the West Australian community and will reflect the aspirations of the people of this great state’.
Maybe Mr. Wharton should have added ‘all’ between ‘of’ and ‘the’ as a fair portion of your readership, among the 551,000 living in Rural, Regional and Remote, WA, do not feel that your newspaper gives coverage to- or in any way adequately reflects, their aspirations.
It could be said that your country coverage reflects Dorothea Mackellar’s, ‘My Country’ covering ‘droughts and flooding rains, and fire and famine’, other disasters and mining booms, but with very little to do with any important, broad-spectrum needs, wants, ambitions and aspirations.
Rural, Regional and Remote West Australians often suffer from 70 per cent less required healthcare services, pay up to 50 per cent more for fuel and domestic gas and are forced to pay similar council rates to those living in the metropolitan area, despite domestic properties having less than half the Gross Rental Value. This is fact not fiction!
Brett, you would be aware that the newspaper you used to edit, Perth’s The Sunday Times
has launched a campaign titled ‘Fair go for WA’s Regions’. It is based on The Australian Bureau of Statistics data that confirms the inequitable gulf between the quality of life enjoyed by Perth residents compared to most of the rest of the state.
Also, unfortunately, the sustainability of life, suggesting there is a much shortened life expectancy through disease, suicides and the carnage on rural roads.
Brett, it is probably time The West Australian Newspaper realized that without the massive
economic input by Rural, Regional and Remote, WA, into the states’ treasury and economy,
you and your staff would not be there or it would be just a ‘parish-pump’ publication.
Given this, it is about time The West Australian gave half-a-million citizens, living outside the metropolitan area a ‘Fairer Go!’. ‘Fair Go’ may infer that you are plagiarizing The Sunday Times.
A ‘Fairer go for Everyone’ or a ‘State of the State’ campaign could answer the questions that we, as a state, not just Perth, have every right to have answered.
In depth investigations such as:-
WHAT PRICE ROYALTIES FOR REGIONS?
Has $5.6 billion really been squandered?
NATIONAL’S CARD GAME!
Brendon Grylls’ Country Age Pension Fuel Card could now be costing $28 million a year. Is it used for fuel or beer?
NOT SO WATERWISE!
The Minister for Water is accused of allowing blue asbestos to be buried near a water catchment area, on pristine farmland in the Avon Valley. One concerned mother has emailed the 145 Shire Councillors, from Mundaring to Kalgoorlie, warning of the potential danger to their drinking water supply.
WA’S WATER HAZARD!
Will the state be dry by 2025? Why? And what can be done!
GOING, GOING, GONE!
Regional state schools are being shut, so now which rural towns will not survive? and why?
COUNTRY CURRICULUM VITAL
The Minister for Education claims that regional students in 2016 are significantly better off than their predecessors. The West Australian has gone back 50-years and obtained the 1966 syllabus for Northam Senior High School and its 2016 version.
This Minister has always had something to answer for. It is alleged that he was a very average Liberal Party official who was originally elected through forgery and branch-stacking and one of his favourite electioneers was a convicted felon, Katrina Nicole Watts, who has served two jail terms for stealing as a servant.
PERTH’S PROFIT AND LOSS
Is Perth really $7 billion in the red each year and ruining our state’s economy? What does it contribute to export earnings, or is it just our anchor in the Indian Ocean?
THE NATIONAL’S GONE ROGUE
Once the country party, what does it stand for now?
Brett, you above most others would be aware of the declining significance, relevance and influence of The West Australian. Less than 10 per cent of the states’ population would purchase a copy on a daily basis.
Yet it still has time to make a significant contribution to the welfare of everyone in WA.
I leave this in your capable hands.
Yours
sincerely
David Taylor
Manager
West Australian Newspapers Syndication Department
1990-2001.
David Taylor
Manager
West Australian Newspapers Syndication Department
1990-2001.
*****
(Now that it hardly ever rains, does the Minister for Water have any idea as to why, and have any realistic solutions to possible future serious water shortages? And does she really feel she will get re-elected?)
Amid the washing dangling from apartment balconies, hundreds of bizarre, garish blue leaches cling precariously to vertical walls. These are large plastic water tanks to capture the rain that rarely falls.
The nearby dark green walls of the rainforest jungle are speckled with the rusty brown leaves of vines dying because there has been no rain for months.This is Kota Kinabalu, the Capital City of Sabah, Borneo, Malaysia. It is a tropical paradise with an annual rainfall of 2800 millimetres, until now.
Some towns, close to the capital, have had dry taps since before February 8, 2016, the Chinese New Year of the (extremely thirsty) Monkey. The Tawau River has shrunk to the size of a drain.
Sabah’s State Disaster Relief Committee is on high alert with barges and water tankers being deployed to small villages that have run out of water.
There are rumours of children and the elderly falling ill on Palau Banggi Island because of lack of a water supply. The typical political response is that ‘no one has died from drought in the island’s 30-year history’. This is not the answer to the question.
In the luxury hotels of Kota Kinabalu, tourists are politely requested to try and conserve the city’s precious water supply, while the rest of the population suffer from having their water supply cut-off regularly.
Some of the public amenities used by tourists at world-renowned wildlife parks have not been flushed for days, possibly weeks. Mixed with the high temperatures and humidity, the stench, and potential health risk, is almost beyond comprehension.
(In addition, Palau Islands, a Pacific island paradise, has just two weeks of drinking water left and schools are shut, half the time, because they do not have enough water for their students. The Marshal Islands and the Federation of Micronesia have also issued similar water supply states of emergency.)
The distance between Perth and Kota Kinabalu is only 1,000 kilometres more than between Perth and Sydney, its rainfall is four times greater, with its metropolitan population being just 500,000. (Yet it, and others, drastic water supply problems could soon be mirrored in Western Australia.)
Now for our capital city, Perth, in the State of Western Australia, Australia, and a future water resource prognosis for a much larger population in a rainfall region lucky to receive an average of 700 millimetres per annum.
Perth’s Bureau of Meteorology has such difficulty in predicting rain, it now informs us as a percentage calculation. (Today there will be a possible 20 percent chance of rain and the possibility of a storm.)
Regularly, neither of these fading phenomena occurs, particularly rainfall.
Yet our Minister for Water, Mia Davies, has done nothing to prevent the possible environmental and economic rape of York through refusing to protect a precious groundwater collection area from metropolitan detritus.
This, at a time, when even the rainfall bibliography of Noah’s Ark may not measure up to the volume of rain required to refill our dams.
SITA’s huge underground toxic waste dump, complete with blue asbestos residue, buried on valuable farmland, close to a water catchment area and near an historic, clear-water well, is still proceeding. (Even though it is Ms. Davies job to totally protect our state’s precious water resources)
If that is not bad enough, the area is subject to strong, seasonal winds and Temperature Inversion that can both spread, and trap, escaped toxic fumes. It is also within Australia’s most volatile earthquake zone and can only be accessed by one of WA’s most deadly rural roads.
You could not pick a worse-case-scenario other than making it a Nuclear Test Site. (It can only be hoped that the waste is relocated to the site at North Bannister.)
If not, as Minister, Ms Davies could excise the site and say no! She could approach the new Minister for Agriculture, Dean Nalder, and ask him to excise the site in the public interest as part of an invaluable farmland precinct and approach the Minister for the Environment, Albert Jacob, to overturn the SAT decision for environmental reasons (and ask him, as part of the powerful Liberal Christian Lobby, to pray for rain, in tongues, at the same time.)
(Regarding SAT, there is not a group of public interest decision makers more emotionally inept than a bunch of lawyers, out of a courtroom, out of their community interest recognition cognitive depth and not accountable for their decisions.)
Ms. Davies could also approach the Minister for Planning, John Day, asking him to intervene.
This Minister, has already stated that he considers the Great Southern Highway to be unsuitable for continuous heavy transport traffic and that this could stultify the future development of WA’s oldest inland town, York.
If you asked Mr. Day, off the record, how a National Party Minister, elected to represent rural interests, could allow the potential destruction of a historic town of 3,000 people, he should say it is beyond anyone’s comprehension.
Will the Minister for Water and the Member for Central Wheatbelt do any of these things, now mentioned, that she should do? No she will not, because she considers it is not in her own best political/personal interest- currently.
So Ms. Davies should be given the constant reminder that, at this point in time, she and her parliamentary partners have little chance of winning the next election.
SITA’s waste dump may well be the biggest political blunder in her ministerial career that may end on Saturday March 11, 2017 and make her future as the Member for Central Wheatbelt uncomfortable. This is if she manages to cling to her seat.
(If SITA is funding the Coalition, then the Nationals are accepting blood money.)
So what does Ms. Davies intend to do to alleviate the effects of a drought that could last long after the punishing dry weather conditions of El Nino, spreading across South East Asia and Australia, subsides?
What does the Bureau of Meteorology weather modelling show for the foreseeable future, other than the rapid drifting of South-West regional rainfall patterns, south, over the Southern Ocean?
Her Waterwise Campaign is not working, so what innovative contingency plans does, Ms. Davies, have in the likely event that the annual rainfall over the South West Division of Western Australia continues to rapidly decline to the point where that it can no longer meet population demand?
It is not tomorrow’s problem, it is today’s and it is hers!
Pumping our finite aquifer resources into extinction is not an option.
So what does the Minister envisage as the alternative?
Does it include the development of improved technology to facilitate the capture of potable rainwater, as it falls, where it falls?
It is called ‘surface run-off harvesting’. On a large scale it involves percolator tanks, on a smaller scale it involves recharging pits, wells and shafts to increase
groundwater retention.
Of course there is also individual roof capture into rainwater tanks which is the method used in Kota Kinabalu.
It certainly does not include the option of pumping water from the Ord River, as there is no money for such a project, with the WA economy in freefall. (A new desalination plant would also be out of the question while there is still the new Burswood Sporting Complex to pay for.)
And, probably, not surface run-off harvesting as this involves the expenditure of financial resources the state should have, but does not.
One solution could be that all new housing developments constructed within WA must have measures in place for grey-water retention and surface run-off harvesting.
But for now it is back to the drawing board, with the current initiative being the Waterwise Campaign to shower in your pants, and reduce the amount of time reticulated sprinkler systems are used. And, of course, the possible increase of the cost of household water consumption, again, as a usage-restraint measure.
Does Ms. Davies have answers to any of the questions regarding
her plans for the future to alleviate the state’s dwindling water supply? Most
fear she does not and will not in the future!
She may also have another political crisis on her mind to keep
it occupied until the next election.
The major platform for the National Party’s re-election is now falling apart at the seams, along with its credibility as being the party that protects the rights of country people.
In the past week there have been explosive, underlying allegations of commercial ineptitude, international political/economic ignorance and deliberate pork-barrelling causing massive wastage in the National Party’s use of Royalties for Regions funding, particularly in the Pilbara.
All National Party Ministers will now be focussing on public damage control,
including Ms. Davies.
Her cohort, Brendon Grylls, stands accused of wasting part of nearly $2.4 billion in mostly failing or financially unsustainable housing and social infrastructure projects in the Pilbara and the Kimberley.
It is a substantial part of in excess ( of the now known) $5.6 billion spent as Royalties for Regions funding since 2008, throughout most of the state, which has shown little to no quantifiable, positive financial socio-economic return to West Australians, especially those in the regions. (This $5.6 billion is the cost of just a few edifice built in Perth, the new sports stadium, the Fiona Stanley Hospital, the Perth Children’s Hospital and Elizabeth Quay.)
Mr. Grylls based his infrastructural, financial support rationale on a continuously booming mining industry developed on an exorbitantly inflated iron ore price and unparalleled demand, and a rapidly expanding, yet potentially transient, local population sourced from major mining companies. (An extremely risky mindset.)
None of these companies, including such luminaries as BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto, were in the least bit interested in assisting Grylls to build and support permanent communities in the region as the FIFO system was far less costly to them. (You do not have to be a Rhode Scholar to understand why.)
Even small local manufacturers involved in the use of steel products were aware of the potential for a collapse in pricing and demand, as China began to stockpile iron ore and steel nearly three years ago. (It was not a particularly big secret, and a substantial rumour that Mr. Grylls should have been well aware of.)
Grylls could be accused of putting West Australian shirts, on a one-trick-pony
Some businesses were more than happy to assist a totally out-of-control, Mr. Grylls’, in his irrational, self-interest support for local, expensive, housing developments in his electorate, by honouring the adage ‘let’s make hay while the sun shines’ at the taxpayer’s expense.
As early as June, 2015, Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show that the population of the Pilbara had declined by 0.7 percent and any need for luxury apartments, and extravagant, unused amenities, was declining.
Now you can understand why the Premier, Colin Barnett, was not enamoured with the suggestion of the imminent return of Mr. Grylls to the front bench. (He would far rather see Grylls disappear into the Federal political landscape where he can be of less damage to WA’s bank balance.)
It is also more than likely, with the use of hindsight, Premier Barnett would be more than happy to take up the suggestion of the Liberal member for Peel, Murray Cowper, and strip the Minister for Regional Development, Terry Redman, of this portfolio, as he is equally to blame.
The even more damning revelation, as far as the Nationals’ are concerned, is that irrefutable statistical data shows all the expenditure on Royalties for Regions projects has made not one iota of difference to the overall quality of life experienced by people living in most of rural regional and remote, WA.
This has come in the form of a dramatic expose in the Perth Sunday Times called ‘Fair Go for WA’s Regions’.
Emails to, and meetings with, senior reporters from this newspaper, involving the discussion of some generic social, political and economic problems faced by rural communities, such as York, has appeared to finally bear fruit.
If it has involved the input of a reporter, Peter Law, and an Editor, Martin Saxon, then these two investigative journalists should be highly commended
The Oscar winning film ‘Spotlight’ focusses on the terrible damage done to hundreds, indeed thousands of Catholic parishioners over decades, by the priesthood.
The report ‘Fair Go for WA’s Regions’ focusses on the damage done to the vast majority of WA’s, 551,000, rural regional and remote citizens through the lack of quality education facilities, health care, psychiatric care, roads and employment opportunities, over the decades, when compared to Perth.
On April 30, 2009, the then Minister for Regional Development, Brendon Grylls launched his Country Age Pension Fuel Card.
As Grylls was also the Member for Central Wheatbelt, one of the major factors in its release was that it would assist in allowing eligible retirees on fixed incomes to access the additional 70 percent of required health care not available in his electorate. This included resources such as chemotherapy, kidney dialysis and psychiatric treatment (with its attendant suicide prevention) available in the metropolitan area.
It had to be provided state-wide to an estimated 30,000 eligible recipients that had increased to 45,000 by 2015. If everyone has used their card to the maximum amount, a staggering sum of at least $140 million has been spent, when averaged out over the past 7 years.
Although the fuel card- cum- taxi voucher could be considered to be a necessary public service for the disadvantaged, it was originally mooted because areas such as the Central Wheatbelt have poor primary and secondary health care facilities and virtually no public transport. (This remains exactly the same, today!)
Now it is alleged that the Country Age Pension Fuel Card is the centre of a black-market scam. The recipients use it to sell their $500 fuel allocation to others for cash.
Since 2008, a combination of Brendon Grylls and Mia Davies, have spent some portion of the entire Wheatbelts’ Royalties for Regions’ average annual funding of $65.8 million in the Central Wheatbelt Electorate. (This is around $709 per person.)
The quantifiable value of this to the Central Wheatbelt communities with regard to any form of better services, or increased employment opportunities is highly debatable as this region has lost 0.5 percent of its population over recent years.
The Minister for Education, Peter Collier, has had the audacity to claim recently that ‘students in 2016, who live in the regions, are significantly better off than their predecessors’.
This comes from a man who many of his colleagues believe lied and cheated to get elected.
In the past Mr. Collier has been accused of forging signatures and using people’s names without their consent as a means of political branch stacking in his favour. (Those who assisted Mr. Collier in his electioneering campaign, and were praised by him for doing so, are the convicted thief Katrina Nicole Watts and Michael Watts.)
A senior power broker in the Liberal Party, Noel Chrichton-Browne once said of Collier ‘he is a very ordinary party official that was barely able to answer a question at his pre-selection’. So you can take anything, close to being lucid, that the Hon. Peter Collier has to say with a grain of salt.
If Collier cared to check, those allegedly poorly educated predecessors, such as those at Northam Senior High School, studied French, German, math, the sciences and humanities to University entrance level. (Only then he can pull his foot out of his mouth.)
In the past six months Mia Davies has managed to supply the Central Wheatbelt with new Waterwise showerheads, a skate park, have its swimming pools cleaned, have some local water supply upgrades and hire a new club Development Officer for Northam at a probable cost of $354.50 per head of population, based on averages.
This is while her constituents die nearly a decade earlier than in Perth, suffer from treatable cancers and type 2 diabetic obesity, are constantly killed and maimed on third-world quality roads, commit suicide through drug abuse and depression, receive a second rate education, cannot find employment and pay twice as much for petrol, diesel, auto-gas and a domestic gas supply as their city cousins.
Congratulations Ms. Davies, this is a formidable Curriculum- Vitae of over three years of your constituent support that you can present, with pride, to the Central Wheatbelt voters at the next election, just 11 months away.
However you are not on your own, the rest of your Nationals team have a lot to answer for including exactly what improvements have been made to the quality of life of the average rural, regional and remote West Australian through the expenditure of $5.6 billion over the past eight years.
The answer is ‘sweet bugger-all’! (other than the interesting herd of plastic cows at Cowaramup.)
David Taylor.
(A Waterwise Footnote: Recently Colin Barnett blamed dirty WA kids for closing the Elizabeth Quay waterpark. On Sentosa Island, Singapore, thousands of children use its waterpark each weekend. They are Malay, Tamil, Indian Chinese, Korean, European, Australian and American. They run through the water fountains in bathers and street clothes in searing heat and soaring humidity.
Do they contaminate the water? no they do not. Nice one Colin!)
The major platform for the National Party’s re-election is now falling apart at the seams, along with its credibility as being the party that protects the rights of country people.
In the past week there have been explosive, underlying allegations of commercial ineptitude, international political/economic ignorance and deliberate pork-barrelling causing massive wastage in the National Party’s use of Royalties for Regions funding, particularly in the Pilbara.
All National Party Ministers will now be focussing on public damage control,
including Ms. Davies.
Her cohort, Brendon Grylls, stands accused of wasting part of nearly $2.4 billion in mostly failing or financially unsustainable housing and social infrastructure projects in the Pilbara and the Kimberley.
It is a substantial part of in excess ( of the now known) $5.6 billion spent as Royalties for Regions funding since 2008, throughout most of the state, which has shown little to no quantifiable, positive financial socio-economic return to West Australians, especially those in the regions. (This $5.6 billion is the cost of just a few edifice built in Perth, the new sports stadium, the Fiona Stanley Hospital, the Perth Children’s Hospital and Elizabeth Quay.)
Mr. Grylls based his infrastructural, financial support rationale on a continuously booming mining industry developed on an exorbitantly inflated iron ore price and unparalleled demand, and a rapidly expanding, yet potentially transient, local population sourced from major mining companies. (An extremely risky mindset.)
None of these companies, including such luminaries as BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto, were in the least bit interested in assisting Grylls to build and support permanent communities in the region as the FIFO system was far less costly to them. (You do not have to be a Rhode Scholar to understand why.)
Even small local manufacturers involved in the use of steel products were aware of the potential for a collapse in pricing and demand, as China began to stockpile iron ore and steel nearly three years ago. (It was not a particularly big secret, and a substantial rumour that Mr. Grylls should have been well aware of.)
Grylls could be accused of putting West Australian shirts, on a one-trick-pony
Some businesses were more than happy to assist a totally out-of-control, Mr. Grylls’, in his irrational, self-interest support for local, expensive, housing developments in his electorate, by honouring the adage ‘let’s make hay while the sun shines’ at the taxpayer’s expense.
As early as June, 2015, Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show that the population of the Pilbara had declined by 0.7 percent and any need for luxury apartments, and extravagant, unused amenities, was declining.
Now you can understand why the Premier, Colin Barnett, was not enamoured with the suggestion of the imminent return of Mr. Grylls to the front bench. (He would far rather see Grylls disappear into the Federal political landscape where he can be of less damage to WA’s bank balance.)
It is also more than likely, with the use of hindsight, Premier Barnett would be more than happy to take up the suggestion of the Liberal member for Peel, Murray Cowper, and strip the Minister for Regional Development, Terry Redman, of this portfolio, as he is equally to blame.
The even more damning revelation, as far as the Nationals’ are concerned, is that irrefutable statistical data shows all the expenditure on Royalties for Regions projects has made not one iota of difference to the overall quality of life experienced by people living in most of rural regional and remote, WA.
This has come in the form of a dramatic expose in the Perth Sunday Times called ‘Fair Go for WA’s Regions’.
Emails to, and meetings with, senior reporters from this newspaper, involving the discussion of some generic social, political and economic problems faced by rural communities, such as York, has appeared to finally bear fruit.
If it has involved the input of a reporter, Peter Law, and an Editor, Martin Saxon, then these two investigative journalists should be highly commended
The Oscar winning film ‘Spotlight’ focusses on the terrible damage done to hundreds, indeed thousands of Catholic parishioners over decades, by the priesthood.
The report ‘Fair Go for WA’s Regions’ focusses on the damage done to the vast majority of WA’s, 551,000, rural regional and remote citizens through the lack of quality education facilities, health care, psychiatric care, roads and employment opportunities, over the decades, when compared to Perth.
On April 30, 2009, the then Minister for Regional Development, Brendon Grylls launched his Country Age Pension Fuel Card.
As Grylls was also the Member for Central Wheatbelt, one of the major factors in its release was that it would assist in allowing eligible retirees on fixed incomes to access the additional 70 percent of required health care not available in his electorate. This included resources such as chemotherapy, kidney dialysis and psychiatric treatment (with its attendant suicide prevention) available in the metropolitan area.
It had to be provided state-wide to an estimated 30,000 eligible recipients that had increased to 45,000 by 2015. If everyone has used their card to the maximum amount, a staggering sum of at least $140 million has been spent, when averaged out over the past 7 years.
Although the fuel card- cum- taxi voucher could be considered to be a necessary public service for the disadvantaged, it was originally mooted because areas such as the Central Wheatbelt have poor primary and secondary health care facilities and virtually no public transport. (This remains exactly the same, today!)
Now it is alleged that the Country Age Pension Fuel Card is the centre of a black-market scam. The recipients use it to sell their $500 fuel allocation to others for cash.
Since 2008, a combination of Brendon Grylls and Mia Davies, have spent some portion of the entire Wheatbelts’ Royalties for Regions’ average annual funding of $65.8 million in the Central Wheatbelt Electorate. (This is around $709 per person.)
The quantifiable value of this to the Central Wheatbelt communities with regard to any form of better services, or increased employment opportunities is highly debatable as this region has lost 0.5 percent of its population over recent years.
The Minister for Education, Peter Collier, has had the audacity to claim recently that ‘students in 2016, who live in the regions, are significantly better off than their predecessors’.
This comes from a man who many of his colleagues believe lied and cheated to get elected.
In the past Mr. Collier has been accused of forging signatures and using people’s names without their consent as a means of political branch stacking in his favour. (Those who assisted Mr. Collier in his electioneering campaign, and were praised by him for doing so, are the convicted thief Katrina Nicole Watts and Michael Watts.)
A senior power broker in the Liberal Party, Noel Chrichton-Browne once said of Collier ‘he is a very ordinary party official that was barely able to answer a question at his pre-selection’. So you can take anything, close to being lucid, that the Hon. Peter Collier has to say with a grain of salt.
If Collier cared to check, those allegedly poorly educated predecessors, such as those at Northam Senior High School, studied French, German, math, the sciences and humanities to University entrance level. (Only then he can pull his foot out of his mouth.)
In the past six months Mia Davies has managed to supply the Central Wheatbelt with new Waterwise showerheads, a skate park, have its swimming pools cleaned, have some local water supply upgrades and hire a new club Development Officer for Northam at a probable cost of $354.50 per head of population, based on averages.
This is while her constituents die nearly a decade earlier than in Perth, suffer from treatable cancers and type 2 diabetic obesity, are constantly killed and maimed on third-world quality roads, commit suicide through drug abuse and depression, receive a second rate education, cannot find employment and pay twice as much for petrol, diesel, auto-gas and a domestic gas supply as their city cousins.
Congratulations Ms. Davies, this is a formidable Curriculum- Vitae of over three years of your constituent support that you can present, with pride, to the Central Wheatbelt voters at the next election, just 11 months away.
However you are not on your own, the rest of your Nationals team have a lot to answer for including exactly what improvements have been made to the quality of life of the average rural, regional and remote West Australian through the expenditure of $5.6 billion over the past eight years.
The answer is ‘sweet bugger-all’! (other than the interesting herd of plastic cows at Cowaramup.)
David Taylor.
(A Waterwise Footnote: Recently Colin Barnett blamed dirty WA kids for closing the Elizabeth Quay waterpark. On Sentosa Island, Singapore, thousands of children use its waterpark each weekend. They are Malay, Tamil, Indian Chinese, Korean, European, Australian and American. They run through the water fountains in bathers and street clothes in searing heat and soaring humidity.
Do they contaminate the water? no they do not. Nice one Colin!)
Monday, 4 April 2016
FAIR GO FOR WA’s REGIONS
YORK has suffered from unwarranted political interference in its governance
and, conversely, lack of support by its’ Local Member in its fight against SITA.
Metropolitan newspapers are now seriously questioning the use of Royalty for Regions funding that has failed to provide a fair and equitable social and economic balance between the city and country
Over the past eight years elected members of the National Party have neglected to rectify this imbalance and have actually contributed to it.
Satirical evaluation of any politician’s performance is a public weapon used against politician’s policy inadequacies whether they are Labor, Liberal, Nationals or Greens.
Some may say it is disrespectful. However, more than everyone else, politicians do not automatically deserve respect, they all must earn it.
Any apology required is to the poor, long suffering voter! And the truth can hurt!
David Taylor.
Metropolitan newspapers are now seriously questioning the use of Royalty for Regions funding that has failed to provide a fair and equitable social and economic balance between the city and country
Over the past eight years elected members of the National Party have neglected to rectify this imbalance and have actually contributed to it.
Satirical evaluation of any politician’s performance is a public weapon used against politician’s policy inadequacies whether they are Labor, Liberal, Nationals or Greens.
Some may say it is disrespectful. However, more than everyone else, politicians do not automatically deserve respect, they all must earn it.
Any apology required is to the poor, long suffering voter! And the truth can hurt!
David Taylor.
MORE TWITS FROM MAMAMIAS TWIT THINGY
(including some April Fool stuff from my In-Your-Facebook)
Some hot Goss Constituents,
With the state’s economy plunging to the bottom like the Titanic, there are very few jobs in marketing, cocktail waitressing and being a nanny, the things that I’m good at. Who can afford a decent Dakari these days, or someone else looking after the kids?
So what am I grumpy about you ask?
Some hick-hack at The West Australian has had the temarity (??) tomerity (??)- sorry temerity to write dosperaging (??), desporaging, (??), sorry disparaging remarks about Royalties for Regions.
(My Check spell isn’t working.)
I’ll have you know that Royalties for Regions got me, Brendy and the rest of our terribly talented Nationals crew, into power and created zillions of new jobs and business opportunities in the Central Wheatbelt and elsewhere . (I’ll tell you all about them later when I find out what they are.)
I must have a little giggle here. I honestly thought it was ‘Royalty for a Region’……meaning me, seeing my dad, as a former President of the National Party (WA) was party royalty.
What that columnist doofus (just love that word) is saying of Brendy’s ‘R for R’ baby is that the taxpayer is paying the price because the Treasurer now has to borrow to fund it.
How dare he say that!
So, Brendy’s blown, sorry invested, over $20.3 million in the Pilbara so he can get re-elected. Because the locals can’t pay the debt for the rest of the $57 million he ‘pork- barrelled’ is ‘tuff titties” and their problem. So York should be grateful we only invested $1.8 million in your Local Government-owned pub.
Now that rag, ‘The Sunday Slimes’, is actually accusing us Nationals of killing-off our voters.
It quotes that Labor Party, corrupt union stooge, the Australian Bureau of Statistics of saying that my voters can expect to die eight years before Colin Barnett’s do.
It’s not my job to help out, fat, fag smoking, drunk driving, cancer suffering constituents, who can’t find a psychiatrist.
Delivering better education, better policing, better roads, better health care and better social amenities is MY priority.
The ‘Slimes’ got one thing right. If there is any neglect, it has been going on for decades.
So it’s nothing to do with me, Brendy, and the rest of the Nationals crew. We’ve only been in power and representing Rural, Regional and Remote WA since 2008!
TO SEND GLOWING REPORTS ABOUT ME- TO ME- PLEASE DO NOT HESITATE TO CALL MAMAMIA ON 9041 1702 (MERREDIN OFFICE) 9622 2871 (NORTHAM OFFICE) or email mia.davies@mp.wa.gov.au
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