Toodyay Herald

A ‘fourth wave’ of the virus is expected to peak across Australia this month but be shorter and less severe than previously.

There were 75 new WA hospital admissions – including one directly into intensive care – during the seven-day period, and 14 people aged 75-99 died.

The Wheatbelt infection rate for same period was 193 per 100,000 people, compared with 381 in the city.

Re-infections accounted for 16 per cent of all new cases overall, compared with 13 per cent the previous week.

State health officials said only a third of all West Australians had received a recommended fourth dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Passenger rail services were not affected.

Local residents with gophers, wheelchairs and prams have complained that the bitumen pathway across the town’s busy east-west rail link is dangerous.

They feared tumbling off the crumbling edges onto the track and being unable to get out of the way of approaching trains.

The crossing is also used by children.

The PTA said a year ago that a controlled crossing with gates and an audible warning signal would cost about $1 million.

There was “no solid timeframe” for the upgrade to be done, a spokesperson said.

Agriculture Minister Alannah MacTiernan said grain handler CBH had bought a 105ha site at Northam to boost WA export capacity to three million tonnes a month over the next decade.

The State had contributed $200,000 for road and rail design, Ms MacTiernan said.

The new site is 20km east of Northam at Avon Industrial Park on the Great Eastern Highway and WA’s east-west rail link.

CBH says it is using four temporary sites there to receive grain, and was building five more to handle this year’s harvest.

These would be converted to permanent storage under a $4 billion plan to expand WA grain handling over the next decade.

The new ‘Meenar’ facility would include new rail sidings and grain loaders.

The State says it wants to give all shire voters the choice to number their preference for as many or few candidates as they wish.

Toodyay councillors say optional preferential voting could encourage party politics and “other alliances” to form.

WA councils currently use first-past-the-post voting which critics say allows candidates with the most votes to win even if they lack a majority of all votes cast.

The State says optional preferential voting is fairer, more representative and offers more choice.

Toodyay councillors backed WA Local Government Minister John Carey’s push for smaller councils but oppose his call for shires the size of Toodyay to elect only five councillors instead of the current nine.

They said it could cause “ongoing disruption” in agricultural areas where seasonal demands could limit participation.

Toodyay will instead seek seven councillors, which the Minister says is acceptable.
The shire has operated most of this year with only eight councillors after Cr Ben Bell’s resignation last January.

A seven-member council would save Toodyay ratepayers $23,000 a year after councillors voted 8-0 last July to give themselves a 17.4 per cent pay rise.

Toodyay also backed the Minister’s plan to give shire presidents new powers to expel councillors from the chamber if they “unreasonably and repeatedly interrupt meetings”.

Similar rules apply in Federal and State Parliament.

Proposed new standing orders would enable shire presidents to issue a formal “first warning”.

A president could “red card” councillors who continued to be disruptive which meant they could still vote but be banned from speaking or moving items of business for the rest of the meeting.

The shire has asked that red cards also bar councillors from seconding motions, which may cause items of business to lapse without debate.

Tougher proposed penalties for breaches of local government law include up to three months’ suspension for repeat offenders.

Suspended councillors would not be paid sitting fees or allowances or allowed to attend council meetings.

They would also be banned from using their official shire title or council email addresses while suspended.

Repeat offenders could be disqualified from office.

The shire warned that “political influence” should not be allowed to interfere with suspensions.

The reforms include a new Chief Inspector of Local Government with the powers of a standing inquiry to investigate shire councils, intervene in administrative affairs and monitor councillor behaviour.

The role is intended to replace an authorised inquiry, such as in Toodyay three years ago, which was seen to be too costly and slow to address “significant issues”.

The reforms also seek to remove the WA Local Government Association from legislation to clarify that it is not a State Government entity.

The reforms are expected to be introduced to the WA Parliament – where the McGowan Government has a record Labor majority in both Houses – early next year.

The shire had earlier agreed to a WHN request for a three-week delay in publicly announcing the shock closure while its Northam-based CEO was on leave.

Next month’s removal of GP services in Toodyay means local physiotherapy and pathology services will also cease.

Local patients will instead have to travel to Northam or Midland to see a GP or access other medical services such as blood tests.

The shire has been unable to find new doctors in time to keep the busy centre open.

It had provided WHN with free rent worth $38,500 a year and also paid for medical centre power, water and other costs.

The shire had also paid for fit-out expenses when WHN started leasing the ratepayer-owned medical centre in 2012.

Shire CEO Suzie Haslehurst reported to last month’s council meeting that WHN would retain patient records but had agreed to transfer them free of charge to new GPs.

She said one GP had contacted the shire about operating locally as a private business “with significant support from the shire”.

Two others living in Toodyay had also said they would be interested in working locally.

The shire had been contacted by allied health service providers, including for physiotherapy treatment.

The Wheatbelt Primary Health Network had offered to help the shire assess GP credentials and proposals.

Ms Haslehurst said the shire’s previous 2012 contract with WHN did not fit any of the four business models provided by medical support agency Rural Health West.

Most remote WA local government authorities owned their own general practices which were operated by a principal GP.

The Shire of York did not provide any subsidy or support for local GP services, while Northam and Chittering provided minimal support in the form of a rental subsidy.

A report to last month’s council meeting said that a suitable GP business model for Toodyay had yet to be decided.

Ms Haslehurst told The Herald later that it would take at least four months for the shire to advertise and establish a new GP clinic in Toodyay.

The shire was currently in the process of drafting documents and advertising tenders based on professional health services advice.

It was also continuing to lobby Federal and State Governments to raise awareness of the “increasing impost on regional local governments to provide GP and allied health services”.

The council had not budgeted this year to fund new GP services beyond the existing subsidy provided to WHN.

Any additional cost may require the council to consider amending its recent 2021-22 budget which was adopted in August.

Ms Haslehurst said any significant subsidy to attract new doctors to Toodyay may require rate rises.

If this was the case, she recommended that ratepayers should first be consulted to determine if they wanted to pay more to keep local doctors and other health services operating in Toodyay.

Toodyay relies on agriculture to sustain its local economy.

Most grain grown in the Central Wheatbelt is trucked to local receival depots, shifted to Northam and railed to Kwinana for shipment to overseas markets.

Buyers are offering $50 a tonne more to ship grain from newer, faster grain handling facilities in Esperance and Geraldton.

Local farmers blame grain handler CBH and the state government for failure to modernise local grain handling networks.

Large amounts of bulk grain stored under tarpaulins at Northam are from last year’s harvest – some of it already triple-handled.

CBH’s Kwinana Zone – which has 72 receival sites stretching from Coorow to Dalwallinu, Lake King and Williams, including Northam – produces about half the state’s grain harvest.

Most of it – not just wheat – is exported through the port of Kwinana to Asian countries including Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, China and the Philippines.

Less than 10 per cent of the harvest is sold to the WA domestic market.

Esperance has only six receival sites but these were built in the 1980s and are far more modern and can handle bigger trucks than those in the Kwinana Zone, which were built 60 to 80 years ago.

Annual WA crop sizes have grown significantly in the last 10 years, from 12-14 million tonnes to more than 20 million tonnes in just the past two years.

Many farmers believe the added strain will overwhelm WA’s outdated grain handling facilities and cause them to fail.

They say it is absurd that local grain is highly sought after by overseas buyers but can’t reach the port fast enough to meet demand.

It highlighted the urgent need for concerted action by government and industry to build better truck and rail access to the port.

Farmers say while WA has enough space to store grain, it can’t be shifted fast enough and ends up clogging the system.

They say fixing this logistical problem is of paramount importance for regional WA and the state economy.

WA Agriculture Minister Alannah MacTiernan said two big harvests in a row had caused major logistical challenges in delivering grain to the port.

However, they needed to be seen in perspective, she said.

Rail networks were being upgraded and the Minister said she was confident local farmers would again get good returns for this year’s crop.

CBH has a comprehensive plan to deal with the surge,” she said.

“Projects to upgrade the Kwinana Zone rail network will start rolling out later this year.

“There will always be logistical problems with such big increases – we get that,” she said.

“It won’t be optimal but capability is being increased.

“Our focus is on getting it out.”

A CBH spokesperson said the company had added 2.4 million tonnes of temporary storage to its network in preparation for this year’s harvest.

A further 300,000 tonnes of permanent storage had also been added.

À total of 3.3 million tonnes was currently stored in the network and this level was falling as out-loading continued.

“Farmers are best placed to make informed decisions for their business,” the spokesperson said.

“However, they will not be forced by CBH to tip their grain on the ground.”

The same roads are used by local farmers to transport hundreds of tonnes of grain for the shire’s annual harvest and to cart bulk hay, wool and livestock to market.

Councillors voted 8-0 in May to adopt the new mining rate in this year’s shire budget and sought State approval on July 15.

The shire was still reponding to queries from State officials on August 10 when councillors voted 6-0 to adopt a new 2022-23 shire budget that required miners to pay $200,000 a year to cover road repair costs.

It was not until September 3 – more than six weeks after the initial shire request and a week after an August 31 statutory budget deadline – that officials rejected the new rate.

Based on legal advice, councillors then voted 6-0 at a Special Council Meeting on September 28 to ask the State Administrative Tribunal to quash the rejected rate from this year’s budget.

They agreed to postpone the new rate until next year’s budget.

Ms Haslehurst said the shire was currently reviewing its 2022-23 budget and talking to Chalice about road maintenance contributions.

“They’re being receptive,” she said.

WA Local Government Executive Director Tim Fraser said the shire needed to “re-arrange” its rates in a way that did not require ministerial approval.