Several points regarding The WA COUNTRY HOUR guests interviewed. Trevor Whittington CEO of WAFarmers on Friday 31st of January & Bevan Steele from WA Firearms Traders Association on Monday 3rd of February.
Trevor Whittington claimed there were death threats from Rec Shooters/lunatic fringe that caused WAPol to pull out of the WAFarmers Firearms Roadshow.
WAPol hasn't said "death" threats yet. Nor is anyone saying who is responsible for any alleged threats...except Trevor Whittington.
Some have claimed Bevan Steele (WAFTA) rejected that & said it was farmers who made death threats. That is incorrect.
Bevan said there is no way Trevor Whittington would be able to know if it’s Rec Shooters or angry Farmers or any other cohort. The only ones likely to know are Investigating Police Officers & fairly sure, if they knew who it was, they sure as heck wouldn't tell anyone whilst a matter is still "operational"
So Trevor is wrong or Trevor is right...Unsure which is is more deeply concerning.
In his Friday interview Trevor said he & others had copped abuse/flak on social media from anonymous people. Bevan can only be referring to that when he said Trevor had brought it upon himself (paraphrasing)
At no point did Bevan make any claim about death threats being from farmers or rec shooters. Bevan Steele did question quite rightly why Mr Whittington was speaking public for WAPol whilst WAPol has been largely quiet apart from a short statement ABC Country Hour Presenter read out. That statement did not mention death threats or what’s sometimes termed by some as “an imminent risk of a threat to life”.
WAPol press release read out on the radio said it was “operational reasons” & safety.
Mr Whittington clearly said in the interview that WAPol had “received threats” and it was only when the interviewer asked Mr Whittington what sort of threats did he say death threats against senior police.
He indicated at one point that Firearms Branch were planning to attend. He said there was back & forth with WAPol & the minister’s office.
He clearly said WAPol attendance was cancelled by “higher up command”
Now if it’s an operational matter I’m deeply wondering why on earth the minister’s office was involved at all, let alone now during a very political election campaign.
I’m sure there’s a reason, we can only hope its forthcoming.
The WAFarmers Firearms public meetings are now going ahead. Apparently they're now about collecting questions to be forwarded to WAPol.
Good idea. That is, it would have been a GREAT IDEA to have public roadshow meetings BEFORE attending any Primary Producers Firearms Advisory Board meetings. It might have lessened the embarrassingly clueless looking “representation” they provided.
It’s like the member groups were willing participants in divide & conquer. Something Mr Whittington seems to have repeated & amplified on the radio last Friday.
Now the PGA cannot comment. The chairman may but the operation of the PGA's business comes under the direction of the Voluntary Administrators. They may be rescued, they may face liquidation but currently they do not operate in the Ag Lobby space at all.
The other 3 remaining member groups of the PPFAB are the Kimberley Pilbara Cattleman’s Association, Vegetables WA & Wines of WA.
All silent.
These roadshow meetings should have been PPFAB public meetings with the actual delegates from all member groups in attendance. Remember without any authority the Minister declared his hand picked PPFAB was to be the only representation for all primary producers. Where are they all & how did they actually consult with all non members through out Agriculture? They didn't.
Still unconfirmed, but although CEO of WAFarmers, Trevor Whittington is thought to have been Chairman of Wines of WA when the PPFAB was formed.
If correct that is remarkably odd & more so if Mr Whittington was CEO of WAFarmers whilst the Wines WA delegate on the PPFAB (?)
We do know the Merino Breeders Association, WA Grains Group & other Ag groups were never invited to join the PPFAB.
We still cannot find any Landcare group, any Farm Improvement group or or ant stud breeder group, any Catchment group invited or consulted, no roo shooter group, none.
In fact we can’t find any group who was invited to join but didn’t
Its unconfirmed at this stage but it does look like 5 groups were chosen to the exclusion of all others.
If so why?
We might find out why, we might not.
Mr Whittingtons claimed that political parties largely stayed out of the debate. That was a total jaw dropper. There were several Firearms ePetitions to parliament. One with over 32,000 signatures. PGA & WAFarmers didn’t support nor promote it. Why?
492 sections in the Bill and it was denied passage by the Labor Party to the Upper House’s Legislation Committee. The PPFAB & its individual member groups silent. Why?
97% of the Bill was denied debate in the Upper House before it was bulldozed through into law. The PPFAB outrage at the sheer arrogant contempt for the Parliament…missing. Why?
I don’t know any Rec shooters who had a view on forming a primary producer licence. As a primary producer I didn’t want one. It’s unclear but primary producers that also compete in club sports will now have to have 2 separate licenses.
If they’re also collectors its 3 licences.
Having 3 seperate fees can never be ruled out with separate licences.
This was made clear by many. But the PPFAB have not publicly commented on this debacle. Why?
The wedge was farmers get 10 firearms & rec shooters only allowed five.
We had genuine need & fit and proper person tests THAT HAD TO BE APPROVED BY WAPol before that the Law Reform Commission report clearly supported & it also clearly opposed setting numerical limits.
PPFAB supported numerical limits & extra licences, we didn't. Why?
Their correct move, “Sorry minister that’s contrary to the LRC’s Project 105, we can’t accept that” and when the minister got to a predetermined agreed number of unacceptables, all PPFAB should have resigned from the minister’s board in protest.
Instead they look like willing, wiful origami, folding as directed & now trying to deflect their failure.
Some are claiming all sorts of theories why the PPFAB got so much wrong. Were they enablers, were they preparing for future career opportunities within Government circles
I’m not convinced of any of those & I’m reminded of the old saying…
Never underestimate 2 things
Incompetence & the extraordinary lengths some go to just to conceal it.
But lets just circle back. Lets return to the allegation of death threats. I’m not police hierarchy but I’d have thought WAPol repsonse would be with step in and cancel the events or allow them to run with an extremely large police presence.
When we all attended the massive Live Export public meeting at Katanning some years ago, everyone was stunned at extraordinary level of Police presence in attendance.
It’s like “there’s been death threats, we police aren’t coming but you go right ahead”
Sorry not buying that. That dog won’t hunt.
Police aren’t scared of threats, they respond to threats. If WAPol has had actual death threats then they’d know by who. Those people would be in custody or detained for questioning then released if all is ok.
It’s not just what’s been said, it’s also what’s not being said.
Until WAPol's "higher up command" as Mr Whittington described them come forward with the facts of the risk and the threat I'm wondering how on earth he outside WAPol & CEO of WAFarmers knows what he alleges to know about risk & threat.
And what was the involvement of the Minister's office the Mr Whittington claimed was involved.
All very bizarre.
You can find Mr Whittington's interview on the ABC Radio archive.
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