Revealed: WA Govt’s $6.4 million spend on ‘failed’ DPIRD relocation

The WA Government spent $6.4 million on plans to build a new headquarters for the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development at Murdoch University before pulling the pin last month, it can be revealed. The figure was disclosed in Parliament late last month when deputy Liberal leader Steve Martin grilled WA Agricultural Minister Jackie Jarvis on the “failed move”. It was the latest revelation in the ongoing saga to relocate DPIRD’s asbestos-riddled South Perth facilities. Former Agriculture Minister Alannah McTiernan first announced the planned $320m Murdoch facility in December 2022, saying it would enable collaboration opportunities between students, researchers and industry to solve major challenges facing WA’s agriculture industry. Construction on the 11.3ha site, within an existing agricultural precinct in the south-eastern corner of the campus, was set to begin this year and be completed by 2027. But on August 8, Ms Jarvis announced the build had been cancelled and the State would instead look for undeveloped land. She said the site was now considered “unsuitable”, noting the location was “always constrained” and that consultation had revealed a planned five-storey building would be “difficult to build” and fail to “future proof the State”. “We need a site that we, or future governments, can expand if they need to,” Ms Jarvis said. At the same time, she announced an additional $83m would be spent fast-tracking a separate Biosecurity Response Centre at a metropolitan location yet to be announced. Shadow agriculture minister Colin de Grussa told Countryman the original decision to build the new DPIRD facilities at Murdoch seemed to have been made without any proper due diligence, specifically regarding the practicality of locating an operational government facility at a university. “This is yet another legacy issue which has come out of the previous minister’s disastrous tenure,” Mr De Grussa said. “The fact that it has taken over 18 months to understand that the decision to build the facility at Murdoch was flawed speaks volumes of a department which is still suffering the consequences of the Labor Government’s disastrous machinery of government initiative.” Announcing the cancellation last month, Ms Jarvis insisted the work done on planning could still be used for a new site. But Mr De Grussa said he had no confidence the new facilities would be completed by 2027 given the Cook Government’s track record of delayed projects. “My primary concern is that the delay may compromise the State’s ability to respond to biosecurity pests and disease outbreaks,” he said. “My fear is that DPIRD’s biosecurity capability had been degraded to such an extent that the Government does not have the in-house expertise, resources and facilities necessary to deal with an incursion.” In the meantime, most DPIRD staff have been moved from the 60-year-old South Perth facility to a leased site at the Claremont Showground. It comes as WA battles biosecurity threats on numerous fronts, including the polyphagous shot-hole borer. A DPIRD spokesperson told Countryman some critical diagnostic services were continuing from laboratories at the South Perth site, while some biosecurity response functions were being temporarily carried out at the Claremont Showground. “Some services, such as molecular diagnostics, animal microbiology, histopathology and entomology, are also continuing at reduced capacity,” they said. “The department is progressing with the acquisition of modular buildings, which can be installed quickly at the new State Biosecurity Response Centre location to enable the broad range of diagnostic and laboratory services to resume at the earliest time.” They said DPIRD was also in discussion with several other metropolitan research and development providers to access facilities to enable continuation of research. The Australian Export Grains Innovation Centre laboratories were among the latest to relocate from DPIRD’s South Perth site, with AEGIC moving its WA-based noodle and Asian product division to the Sustainable Innovative Food Technology facility at Nambeelup. SIFT opened earlier this year, providing state-of-the-art facilities to facilitate food and product innovation among startups and established companies. The facility is operated by the Future Food Systems Co-operative Research Centre and Murdoch University, and located within the Food Innovation Precinct of WA at Peel Business Park AEGIC executive general manager Courtney Draper said it was an “ideal” fit in the medium term. “Our technical experts have been hard at work moving equipment and setting up the new noodle labs at SIFT, which I’m pleased to say are already operating,” she said. “AEGIC’s labs are the crucial link between our market insights and market education services, allowing us to identify opportunities for Australian grains and develop solutions to benefit both the Australian grains industry and our export markets.”