Former WAFarmers president John Hassell reflects on farming advocacy and providing voice for industry
A fifth-generation farmer descending from pioneer Captain John Hassell, Mr Hassell has farming in his blood.
He crops a combination of wheat, barley, canola, oats and lupus across 1400ha and has a self-replacing flock of 3500 Merino ewes.
Since stepping down from the helm of WAFarmers at the end of his four-year term earlier this year, Mr Hassell has had more opportunity to spend time and focus on his farm.
Kojonup farmer Steve McGuire took the reins from Mr Hassell as WAFarmers president.
'There's no shortage of things to do, so I haven't been bored; we've been straight into seeding,' Mr Hassell said.
'My son and I did the entire program between the two of us. I think we did pretty well — got in and even got the long weekend off in June.'
Living on farm with Mr Hassell is his wife Michelle, son George, daughter Chelsea and three grandchildren.
Mr Hassell's latest venture is installing tile drains to address waterlogging in paddocks, improving yields, suppressing weeds and disease, enhancing soil structure, and allowing for optimal seeding, spraying and spreading.
'It's a contracting job that I'm looking forward to, and I enjoy getting out and talking to people,' he said.
Mr Hassell is still actively against the Federal Government's ban on live sheep exports and remains a firm supporter of the sheep industry despite dropping prices, and remains the vice-president of the National Farmers' Federation.
He said farmers were turning away from sheep to cropping as a result of the ban and 'massive downward pressure' on the price of wool.
'It's not so economic to run wool, and the price of sheep meat and the productivity of sheep is not growing as fast as cropping,' he said.
'It's an economic reality that you do more cropping.'
In the lead up to the Federal election, Mr Hassell spent time as a campaigner and spokesman for Keep the Sheep — lending his voice to the communities that would be impacted as a result of the ban and not simply because he was a farmer.
'It's been a major change that, unfortunately, has had an impact on the schools, the footy teams, and the local IGA — all these things that the Keep the Sheep campaign was about,' Mr Hassell said.
'If I don't have live sheep to sell, or if I can't sell live sheep, the price goes down — I'll change my enterprise mix and I'll survive, but my community won't.
'It was only ever about community, about the truck drivers, about the shearing contractors, about all the people who you know actually make up a part of our town.'
He said the 'worst thing' about the announcement of the ban was there was no set date for it to come into effect.
'There was no incentive for anybody to put any incentive, any money, or any investment into any part of the supply chain because it could have been banned the following week,' Mr Hassell said.
'No one knew.
'I think that huge amount of uncertainty just absolutely knocked the confidence out of everybody.'
Mr Hassell said the ban announcement led to an almost immediate oversupply of sheep, causing the price of sheep to crash 'almost instantly'.
'I think the Federal Government made a massive mistake in doing that, and in doing that I don't think they realised just how much damage they did to our communities and to our businesses,' he said.
As NFF vice-president, Mr Hassell is focused on ensuring farmers across the country receive representation, as is the case with South Australian farmers experiencing the drought.
'We're trying to find ways around getting fodder from WA through to SA, which has got some restricted biosecurity there,' he said.
'They put a kind of blanket ban on WA . . . they need to probably have a closer look at where their biosecurity issues are, because WA is pretty good in terms of no serious disease issues.
'They've got one little pest that they're worried about — the green snail — and we've got to try and find a way of making sure they don't take it across the border when they take hay and fodder.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Perth Now
7 minutes ago
- Perth Now
Major step towards cutting maximum medicine cost to $25
Australians will pay no more than $25 for selected medicines for the first time in more than 20 years under a proposal to be brought before parliament. It will be the second cap on medicines on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) introduced by the Albanese government in three years, after it cut the maximum price of PBS prescriptions from $42.50 to $30. "The size of your bank balance shouldn't determine the quality of your health care," Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said. "My government will continue to deliver cost-of-living relief for all Australians." PBS medicines would be capped at $7.70 for pensioners and credit card holders until 2030. The bill's introduction is largely a formality, with its passage through the lower house all but assured thanks to Labor's massive 94-seat majority in the 150-seat House of Representatives. The election promise is the Albanese government's next priority after it introduced childcare safety and HECS debt reduction legislation. Federal Labor has been talking up plans to strengthen the PBS amid concerns the scheme will be targeted as a bargaining chip in US trade negotiations to ward off threatened pharmaceutical tariffs. Mr Albanese has repeatedly said the scheme was not up for negotiation. Australia eased its biosecurity restrictions on US beef imports last week, but the prime minister has denied the move was linked to US trade talks, noting it followed a 10-year review of Australian biosecurity rules. Beyond new legislation, conflict in the Middle East will likely prompt fierce debate on the parliamentary floor after Mr Albanese said Israel had breached international law by blocking the flow of food aid into Gaza. "Quite clearly, it is a breach of international law to stop food being delivered, which was a decision that Israel made in March," Mr Albanese said on ABC's Insiders program on Sunday. He stopped short of saying Australia would join France in recognising a Palestinian state, but said his government would decide at "an appropriate time". "Hamas can have no role in a future state," he said. "Hamas are a terrorist organisation who I find, their actions are abhorrent." Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Michaelia Cash said Mr Albanese failed to adequately condemn the role of the group in the ongoing conflict. The government is also likely to come under pressure regarding transparency when parliament resumes, after a Centre for Public Integrity probe revealed only a quarter of freedom of information request responses returned by the government in 2023-24 were un-redacted. By comparison, the Morrison government returned almost half of its FOI requests as complete documents in 2021-22.
West Australian
7 minutes ago
- West Australian
Major step towards cutting maximum medicine cost to $25
Australians will pay no more than $25 for selected medicines for the first time in more than 20 years under a proposal to be brought before parliament. It will be the second cap on medicines on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) introduced by the Albanese government in three years, after it cut the maximum price of PBS prescriptions from $42.50 to $30. "The size of your bank balance shouldn't determine the quality of your health care," Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said. "My government will continue to deliver cost-of-living relief for all Australians." PBS medicines would be capped at $7.70 for pensioners and credit card holders until 2030. The bill's introduction is largely a formality, with its passage through the lower house all but assured thanks to Labor's massive 94-seat majority in the 150-seat House of Representatives. The election promise is the Albanese government's next priority after it introduced childcare safety and HECS debt reduction legislation. Federal Labor has been talking up plans to strengthen the PBS amid concerns the scheme will be targeted as a bargaining chip in US trade negotiations to ward off threatened pharmaceutical tariffs. Mr Albanese has repeatedly said the scheme was not up for negotiation. Australia eased its biosecurity restrictions on US beef imports last week, but the prime minister has denied the move was linked to US trade talks, noting it followed a 10-year review of Australian biosecurity rules. Beyond new legislation, conflict in the Middle East will likely prompt fierce debate on the parliamentary floor after Mr Albanese said Israel had breached international law by blocking the flow of food aid into Gaza. "Quite clearly, it is a breach of international law to stop food being delivered, which was a decision that Israel made in March," Mr Albanese said on ABC's Insiders program on Sunday. He stopped short of saying Australia would join France in recognising a Palestinian state, but said his government would decide at "an appropriate time". "Hamas can have no role in a future state," he said. "Hamas are a terrorist organisation who I find, their actions are abhorrent." Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Michaelia Cash said Mr Albanese failed to adequately condemn the role of the group in the ongoing conflict. The government is also likely to come under pressure regarding transparency when parliament resumes, after a Centre for Public Integrity probe revealed only a quarter of freedom of information request responses returned by the government in 2023-24 were un-redacted. By comparison, the Morrison government returned almost half of its FOI requests as complete documents in 2021-22.
The Age
4 hours ago
- The Age
Power giant warns of ‘two-speed' green shift which benefits only the rich
Millions of Australians face being left behind in the race to greener energy, one of the nation's largest power distributors has warned, as renters miss out on huge savings from solar panels while homes without off-street parking cannot install electric vehicle chargers. From this year, home-owners with solar panels stand to benefit from even bigger electricity bill cuts following the introduction of federal government rebates wiping thousands of dollars off the cost of installing batteries that can soak up their excess energy. Increasing home battery uptake has many advantages: it will enable Australia to harness more of its world-leading per-person solar panel uptake to use after sunset, drive down greenhouse gas emissions and smooth out volatile price swings across the market. But the household clean energy boom may create winners and losers, warns Ausgrid, the largest power distribution company on Australia's eastern seaboard. The company points to renters and lower-income Australians who are unable to make the switch and are forced to stay on increasingly expensive fossil fuel-based energy supplies. 'The problem we see is that if you don't own your own home, or have the financial wherewithal, you are faced with the full system cost of the transition,' said Rob Amphlett Lewis, Ausgrid's group executive of distributed services. Loading 'What we are in danger of is a two-speed transition that works for the 'haves' and is paid for by the 'have-nots'.' Ausgrid and other Australian distribution network service providers are seeking to expand their reach beyond building and maintaining the network's poles and wires and into other future-facing functions where they believe they are well placed to deliver more efficient outcomes for consumers. Their push, however, has opened a major new rift in the industry between network operators and a wide range of other electricity market participants, which are urging regulators against any waiver from 'ring-fencing' rules designed to prevent monopolies from encroaching on competitive markets, and argue it could drive up costs.
