The Government’s latest election ‘rabbit out of the hat’ which proposes to water down its one vote one value policy, is an attempt to appease rural communities but does not protect representation of farming regions at all according to WAFarmers.

WAFarmers president Trevor De Landgrafft said it was interesting that the Government had reacted in this way under continuous lobbying pressure from WAFarmers and other regional groups.

“Our state election policy views any cut in rural representation detrimental to rural issues and will disadvantage farming communities,” he said.

“We have been lobbying for the electoral system to remain untouched for some time now but this effort by the Government does not go far enough.

“The changes announced by Premier Geoff Gallop last week are really a ‘Clayton’s Move’ at appeasing rural concerns. We view them as means to achieve electoral gains, not reforms, with Labor moving to protect their regional strongholds in the mining and pastoral areas and leaving farming seats in agricultural areas vulnerable.

“Many seats in the agricultural regions are held by Coalition candidates and would remain subject to the one vote, one value reform which if implemented would result in fewer seats in the Parliament to represent farming issues.”

The WAFarmers State Election Policy document laid out the concerns for regional areas covering issues such as property rights, water resource security, the formation of a Dairy Negotiation Agency, the live export trade as well as farming sustainability, but above all else the need for full parliamentary representation.

“Many of the issues affecting agricultural communities would be lost if a reduction in seats led towards priorities focussing on metropolitan and mining issues with a small voice being heard from farming WA,” Mr De Landgrafft said.

“Farming communities will suffer under the proposals currently on the agenda and WAFarmers will resist any reforms that seek to reduce the seats in the Lower House. The Gallop Government has been criticised for being metro-centric and this stunt doesn’t help that perception.”

Until such time as Mr McGinty personally assures WAFarmers that the Government has dropped its electoral reform platform in its entirety, WAFarmers will remain committed to opposing this policy.

Surely as Attorney General and Minister for Health, Mr McGinty realises that there is no such thing as ‘half pregnant’, which is being proposed in this case. If he is prepared to drop half of the electoral reform policy, he should be prepared to drop the lot.