YOUR INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION
vegetablesWA
CEO’s Report A
BY JOHN SHANNON CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, VEGETABLESWA
s we have gone through the latest state election, I have continued to work to ensure that any government will best look after the interests of the Western Australian (WA) vegetable industry. In addition to support for our financial analysis and benchmarking program, and our labour scheme facilitator, we have also discussed important reforms to the water and biosecurity acts.
I have been pleased that the Labor party has agreed to support many of the initiatives that vegetablesWA believes will progress the industry. We have also had good support from the Liberal and National parties. The February COVID-19 lockdown was soon overshadowed by bushfires, flooding and a new outbreak of Queensland Fruit Fly (Qfly) in Coolbellup, where a female and male were trapped. I’ll start by touching on the COVID-19 incident that impacted most of you in late January and early February.
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3 MINISTER for Agriculture and Food, Alannah MacTiernan, opens the Carnarvon Growers Association Field Day.
WA Grower AUTUMN 2021
From my perspective, there is one main takeaway from the recent virus scare and lockdown. Growers need to be prepared, because there is no guarantee this incident won’t be repeated. This means preparing your business, staff and processes. From a practical perspective, you should stock up on face masks and hand sanitiser.
3 CARNARVON Growers Association Field Day.
I encourage you to use the free SafeWA phone app to register your attendance at various businesses and venues. The ‘Tool Time’ section of this magazine goes into greater detail about this free phone app.
Familiarise yourself with the G2G PASS system.
Familiarise yourself with the G2G PASS system and if you are an employer, prepare a letter that employees can use to explain why they need to travel across different regions, if they need to do so. Mandatory contact registers have been expanded in WA and failing to comply with these new requirements could result in penalties of up to $50,000 for an individual and $250,000 for a body corporate, or 12 months' imprisonment.
I also highly recommend you go to the ‘COVID-19 Resources’ page on our website, as we have put together a catalogue of everything you need to safeguard yourself in the event of another outbreak.
At the time of writing this, two of my staff members are in Carnarvon, visiting growers impacted by the flooding in early February and discussing the path forward. Truyen Vo, our Vietnamese extension officer, is trying to encourage water and soil tests to avoid any food safety issues resulting from the flooding.
