WANNEROO MLA Sabine Winton is now a member of Mark McGowan’s Cabinet due to the premier’s mid-week reshuffle.
A former teacher Ms Winton has responsibility for the Early Childhood Education, Child Protection, Prevention of Family Violence and Community Services portfolios.
The Early Childhood Education portfolio is new, which the state government said highlighted its importance.
Ms Winton and South West MLC Jackie Jarvis were sworn in as Cabinet Ministers on Wednesday, December 14.
A farmer and businesswoman Ms Jarvis has taken on the portfolios of Agriculture and Food, Forestry and Small Business.
Simone McGurk, who lost the Child Protection, Women’s Interests, Prevention of Family and Domestic Violence and Community Services portfolios, has been given Training, Water and Youth.
After the change there was some comment that Training and Water were not major portfolios.
But concerns about how the proposed cuts to the amount of water available to North Wanneroo and Gingin growers have been part of recent election campaigns and is an issue Winton, who chaired the North Wanneroo agriculture and water taskforce, is familiar with as it is in her patch.
One respondent during the Gnangara groundwater allocation plan consultation period even raised concerns there would not be enough water available in Gingin to support an increased demand in food production.
The City of Wanneroo, while supporting the overall need to reduce groundwater abstraction has spoken out against water cuts to growers being the solution, has said if the proposed 10 per cent water reduction for the agriculture and horticulture sectors came into effect in 2028 those sectors would be required to reduce their usage to 56.5GL per annum.
This meant North Wanneroo growers would need to reduce on average 6.9 million litres per annum for each license and Gingin agriculture users would lose access to 14.6m litres of water per annum per licence while Swan Valley users would need to reduce by 1.4m litres per annum per licence.
At a February 15, 2022 council meeting North-East ward councillor Glynis Parker said agribusiness in the city should be supported and that Covid-19 had highlighted the importance of local produce while former North-East ward councillor and now Mayor Linda Aitken said if the plan for water cuts was adopted it would mean relying on the eastern states or oversees for produce.
In 2015-16 City of Wanneroo growers supplied agricultural produce including strawberries, cabbages, peas, sweet corn and capsicums worth $85.7 million.
On June 3 former Water minister Dave Kelly released the Gnangara groundwater allocation plan, which confirmed reductions for the agriculture and horticulture sectors would be 10 per cent but also that commercial nurseries and tree farms would be exempt.
At the time deputy mayor Brett Treby said the city would like to see industry exemptions granted to commercial nurseries and tree farms expanded to include the food production industry and would continue to advocate for local growers to ensure those businesses remained viable and could continue to provide a local supply of fresh produce.
