Please Explain - DPIRD HQ Mess

Here’s a photo from back on December 2, 2022, of the big media announcement for the long-overdue new DPIRD headquarters to be built at Murdoch University. The McGowan government made a big deal out of the fact that, despite repeated attempts, no other government in the past 30 years had found the money to replace the old MASH building at South Perth.

The latest plan, the eighth by my count since the early 1990s put forward by the old Department of Agriculture, was for a single building to house all staff. It was to be built on an 11.3-hectare site on the southeast corner of the Murdoch campus, complete with laboratories, glasshouses, field plots, and a biosecurity incident and emergency management centre. McGowan hailed it as a “once-in-a-generation investment,” while MacTiernan emphasized the urgent need for such a facility as global integration increases biosecurity risks.

Fast forward nearly two years, and what do we have? Nothing—worse than nothing, in fact. Not only has the project failed to progress, but the entire plan has now been scrapped, and we’re back to square one. Despite all the political talk about biosecurity from the past and current ministers and the importance of agriculture, when it came time to lock in the contract to build, the government hesitated and once again postponed the project. It seems the Minister can extract money from the cabinet to give to farmers in her electorate during a drought (but not in the Northern Wheatbelt during last year’s drought), but she can’t push forward with a locked, loaded, and funded project critical to the department’s future.

The proposed new DPIRD headquarters was more than just a building; it was a symbol of the government’s commitment to modernising agricultural research in WA. It was the long-awaited signal to organisations like the GRDC, which is flush with WA growers’ cash, that this state was serious about grains research and wanted to see the majority of our funds spent here in WA, attracting world-class researchers to work in world-class facilities. Out of the approximately $200 million the GRDC spends annually, WA growers generate around $60 million, to which the federal government adds another $30 million on a 2:1 formula. One would have thought this was more than enough to bring the state government to the table to ensure WA is a global player in grains research. But no, the state government seems to tune out when it comes to playing its part in backing the state’s biggest renewable industry.

This decision to abandon the Murdoch-based project raises serious questions about the government’s motives and the future of agricultural research in WA, not to mention the current minister’s clout in the cabinet and her ability to drive big projects. So what went wrong? Let’s step back a bit, recap what has happened to date, and start pulling apart the various contradictory stories we’ve been told about why this new building is not going ahead:

• September 2020: Old Agriculture Department buildings in South Perth are shut down due to safety concerns, and $20 million is announced for temporary new lab facilities.
• March 2021: 400 staff are moved to a new leased office building at Nash Street, Northbridge until a new building is constructed.
• December 2022: The government announces a new $320 million DPIRD HQ at Murdoch.
• May 2024: Budget papers lock in funding, including $40.4 million to be spent in the coming financial year, and tenders are called for a project manager.
• June 2023: Woods Bagot architects are appointed to design the new HQ.
• July 2024: The government suddenly shuts down DPIRD’s remaining diagnostic and biosecurity labs at South Perth due to asbestos fears, with up to 300 people impacted.
• August 2024: AGEIC grains research moves out of South Perth to Mandurah, and their offices are moved to Subiaco.
• August 2024: The Minister announces the new Murdoch building won’t go ahead the day before the contract was due to be signed and promises an additional $83 million to fast-track a separate biosecurity response centre at a yet-to-be-announced location and a new HQ on a yet-to-be-announced new site.

Here’s what Jarvis said about why the build was not proceeding:

• Borers and flies: Jarvis claimed that the emergence of both the shot hole borer and the Queensland fruit fly eight months ago prompted the State to consider funding a separate biosecurity building.
• Difficult build: The Minister said the Murdoch University location was “always constrained,” and that consultation had revealed that five storeys would be “difficult to build” and would fail to “future-proof the State.”
• Future-proofing: “We need a site that we, or future governments, can expand if they need to,” Ms. Jarvis said.
• Vehicle access: “It literally isn’t set up, and was never going to be set up, to have hundreds of cars coming in and out.”

Take your pick which one you believe. None of the above explanations add up. I think the government is scraping around for excuses because it is too embarrassed to admit it failed to listen to those in the know within the old Agriculture Department who said Murdoch was problematic. Let’s go through the excuses.

• Borers and Flies: The shot hole borer was first detected in 2021, and the Queensland fruit fly in 1989, with at least eight eradication programs rolled out over the years involving hundreds of contractors and vehicles each time. So how was the planning for the surge in vehicles needed for future eradication programs not factored into the original planning at Murdoch? FAIL.
• Difficult Build: If that’s the case, sack the architects and find new ones; mind you, the same architects are building Murdoch’s new Harry Butler Science Centre, so I suspect they are not the problem. Maybe having a client that does not know what they want is the problem. FAIL.
• Future Proofing: Exactly how much space do they need to future-proof the build? If 11 hectares is not big enough, where are they going to go, and how much land do they need? Claiming they lack parking space for 350 staff, a five-story building, plus space for a biosecurity surge of vehicles does not pass the pub test. Let’s do the numbers: if all the FTEs drive, they need 10,500 m² (1 hectare) for 350 cars. Double that for a biosecurity surge, and it’s 2 hectares, or they could always go up and build a multi-story car park. Or, horror of horrors, some of the staff could take the train! Anyone who’s visited Murdoch University knows there’s plenty of spare land. FAIL.
• Vehicle Access: Seriously, with thousands of students coming and going, and a major medical campus next door, if parking or traffic handling was such an issue, why did it take nearly two years to realize it? And why is there suddenly space and vehicle capacity for the new $1.8 billion Women’s and Babies Hospital next door? FAIL.

But let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and accept that parking and vehicle access are a problem. If needed, emergency biosecurity response vehicles can always be headquartered at the Claremont Showgrounds, as the Department did during the Nedlands Queensland fruit fly outbreak, or better yet, close to wherever the emergency response is targeted. Or, the workers can always drive the hired cars home each night. As for traffic management, they managed this in very constrained Bayswater during that outbreak with staggered starting times, so what’s the problem with Murdoch?

The deal with Murdoch University was supposed to be a win-win—a collaboration between the state’s leading agricultural research body and a respected academic institution. Now it’s off the table. McGowan said the Murdoch location provided the opportunity to build on existing research relationships the department has with Murdoch to deliver research and development in agriculture and food production. What’s changed?

• Soil and Chemicals: One of the problems that the Minister did not mention, but what my insiders tell me, is that the 5 hectares of land they wanted to use for trial crops was sitting on poor swampland soil and would have to be replaced at great expense. Adding to that, the proximity to housing would make it difficult to use agricultural chemicals. Now, these I can believe are valid reasons, although they were not included in the Minister’s litany of excuses. So how was this missed in the early planning stages, along with all the other imagined or real problems? Someone needs to take responsibility. Heads need to roll.

If Murdoch is off the table, where do we go next? Are they going to grovel back to Curtin and start talking to them (with no railway link)? UWA can’t possibly be on the table with their traffic problems. Failing that, where are they going to find 11 hectares in the metro area? Wait for it… the old South Perth Ag Department site, which is 20 hectares. Now, that was good planning back in the 1950s as the smart Minister of Agriculture back then managed to pick the right soil and future-proof it for parking and traffic, not to mention placing it close to a future university. One that now has a major $100 million contract with GRDC for their Centre of Crop and Disease Management, not to mention the state’s multi-million dollar Chemistry Centre. All common-sense roads lead back to Curtin or the old site, although I imagine neither will be taken up, certainly not now that Development WA has its hands on most of the old Ag Department site.

As for the asbestos and the shut biosecurity and research labs—what’s happening? What’s open, what’s closed, what can be managed? The Minister has said nothing about the July shutdown or updated the industry. The timing of this discovery is, to say the least, suspicious. If it’s so bad, why are they still there? Asbestos is not new to the management of DPIRD or to most of the schools in the state, so what the hell happened since the previous Minister decided staff had to leave in a big rush back in March 2021 to go and watch the homeless from their new digs in the rather empty-looking Northbridge office building? A building that is about as far from a farm as MacTiernan could get them. So much for the original idea of the government’s Machinery of Government efficiency changes, which brought fisheries, agriculture, and regional development together under one department, with the plan to place them all under one roof to drive efficiencies. It’s been an unmitigated failure at every level. At the rate we are going, we will have DPIRD spread across even more buildings than when they were separate departments.

This takes me to the question of cost. Was it financial constraints that led to the cancellation of the project? Did Treasury realize the costs had escalated out of control? Thanks to the ALP’s union mates in the CFMEU, I hear the total build is now closer to half a billion dollars, which is what happens when projects are allowed to slip. At the rate Metronet and the Bunbury ring road are blowing out, I bet Treasury was happy to see the project scaled back to the biosecurity build while they attempt to fill the empty desks in the Northbridge building, no doubt hoping the big HQ building would be forgotten about after the election.

Which raises the question: what happened to the $20 million announced in September 2020 to keep the South Perth facilities functional? Why spend that money only to shut the facility down within two years of the work being completed? More heads need to roll if this money has gone down the drain. I said at the time they should have relocated to the CSIRO building in Floreat, which was half empty. Another missed opportunity.

I’m also told by my sources there’s every reason to suspect the State now won’t be able to fulfill our current $40 million contract with GRDC for grains research. Worse, this circus over new buildings is likely to see the national grains research body seriously consider reallocating some of the work to the Eastern States as confidence in WA’s credibility erodes from the endless delays.

So what’s the plan for the $83 million to fast-track a biosecurity response centre at an unspecified metropolitan location? How long is this going to take? One suspects that if they had kept going with the original HQ building at Murdoch, the whole thing would be completed before the new, smaller biosecurity building is ready. When the Minister tells us that five stories at Murdoch wouldn’t future-proof the state, one wonders: are they planning to lease, buy, or build empty floors or a massive car park? My guess is it will be near the airport, as Rita won’t fund it if it’s not near a railway station; otherwise, how else do they justify spending billions on Metronet? And then there is the question of how they know the cost of something if they have no location locked down. Mind you, if the same people within the Department of Finance’s totally useless Office for Major Projects still have control over the build, then you can guarantee the next plan will be full of holes and the funding will blow out.

Mind you, at the rate DPIRD’s budget and staff numbers are shrinking (see the forward budget papers under this Minister’s watch), they might as well leave head office camped in Northbridge and split whatever funding is now on offer into three builds: (1) the Biosecurity Building, (2) the new Research Building, maybe at Curtin with all the trial plots and glasshouses located on good soil in a large site in the Swan Valley, and (3) rationalise and revitalise some of the existing regional research stations. But this is like going back to square one. Mind you, that is effectively what the Minister has announced.

Whatever they come up with, the commitment needs to go into the government’s election platform, and the staff at the Department all need to pray that their next Minister is capable of delivering it, along with proper funding for the department. Before any announcement is made, the Minister needs to step up and explain how we ended up in this mess and who in government failed to connect the dots on all the challenges of the Murdoch site when the planning work started well before 2022. If the Minister wants to get herself off the hook, she needs to detail how closely she monitored this project. Was it on her weekly meeting agenda as a standing item from the Department, and if not, why not? How often did she meet with the Department of Finance, and when did she start raising her concerns with other cabinet ministers on the progress or lack thereof in the planning?

She can’t say none of this was her job. I sat in a Minister for Tourism’s office during the lobbying and planning for the Perth Convention Centre, and that Minister (a good operator) drove the project every step of the way. That’s what good Ministers do; they don’t leave projects kicking around departments waiting for the next photo op. To salvage some credibility, the Premier and Cabinet heavies must also step in and take charge of the project. At this late stage, he now needs to lock in what will likely be a $500 million-plus project with some serious commitments to build the thing.

What do I think will happen now? Look out for no explanation. This Minister has a growing reputation for not taking kindly to criticism, so don’t expect her to take responsibility. But this is one failure too many; she is on notice for what is an epic failure. Fix it or be judged as a Minister who can’t deliver projects.

What we can expect is another photo op for the Minister in the coming weeks announcing plan No. 9. No doubt the Premier and the DG will find something else to do on the day, as industry and DPIRD staff will be falling over laughing when they read the quote, unquote government commitment to future-proofing agriculture with the latest plan. Unless, that is, everyone in the photo has a resignation letter in one hand linked to delivery of the buiold and a signed building contract in the other. Only then will anyone believe them that it will actually happen. Expect more on this from me soon.