Adrian Fry for Albany Council

01/06/2026

We need councilors that don't just represent the blue line.

04/04/2026

The damage this will cause to the Great Southern is in the $billions.

It's bad for Nedlands - but existential for the Great Southern.

Labor and DPIRD should be ashamed.

Claremont council has slammed the state government’s response to the deadly tree borer as an “unmitigated disaster” as it prepares to spend $20,000 a month on treatments.

“There is no question that this has been an unmitigated disaster by DPIRD,” deputy mayor Paul Kelly said, “We should never be in the position that we are currently in.”

“It’s not going to be a cheap fix, but it’s like a cancer. If you don’t attack it early, it costs more later, or the end results are deadly,” Councillor Sara Franklyn said.

Read the story on page five of this week’s POST: postnewspapers.com.au

10/02/2026

The problems of that people in the great southern experience aren't labor/liberal but city/regional.

We have to end the chronic under-investment in health and education.

Here's a new idea - cutting off the bottom part of WA and creating a new state of Australia - Southern Heartland.

s124 of the Australian constitution anticipates that this would happen in the future and outlines the constitutional process.

Read the document attached to see how this is the solution to the problems of chronic under-investment we experience.

04/02/2026

Bushfire risk and environmental damage are real and serious issues that should be treated seriously - but governments also need to be far more aware of young people themselves, rather than responding from a distance with blanket rules and enforcement.

We should start by vouching for young people. Most are far better-intentioned than they’re often given credit for. They want to gather, connect, and enjoy the world around them not cause harm.

We also need to be honest: we will never make this perfect. There will always be some mess, some risk, and some poor decisions. The question is whether we engage with that reality constructively, or pretend it can be eliminated entirely.

Right now, too often the response is easy risk elimination “no”, “ban it”, “call the police”. That doesn’t make risks disappear; it just pushes them out of sight.

A better approach is to engage with risk directly: work with young people, set clear expectations, provide guidance and practical support, and find ways to say yes to more of this than we currently do.

These are public lands. Government departments should be trying harder to make safe, responsible use possible not defaulting to discouragement.

What the current situation says loud and clear is that the Department isn't properly engaging with their stakeholders! Young people are harder to engage with, but they have legitimate desires to use these spaces for recreation - including bush-doofs - provided it is done well.

If we want healthy communities, we need to stop managing young people out of public life and start building systems that include them, even when it’s imperfect.

I've put in the comments the letter of complaint I wrote to Parks and Wildlife about the concerning attitude this post reveals.

Do better Parks and Wildlife WA.

03/02/2026

Freedom of speech is not alive and well in Albany.

The Albany Advertiser has banned me from viewing their page - essentially to stop this account from providing fair analysis of their coverage.

The Albany Advertiser should be ashamed.

It's likely because I complained that they were publishing AI content.

30/01/2026

Many people tick 'no religion' on the census - not because they don't have a religion - but because it's not well described.

Here's my post about Australia's invisible belief system that's practiced by both the religious and non-religious.

Every culture is invisible to its own belief system. Australians are not different, our invisible religion centres on maintaining the 'good life'.

15/12/2025

It’s striking how quickly parts of the media and political class have defaulted to “gun violence” as the explanatory frame for yesterday's horror. That instinct deserves scrutiny.

1. Policy coherence matters
Australia already operates under some of the most restrictive civilian fi****ms laws in the world. If such a regime is now deemed “not fit for purpose,” ("we need tougher laws") we should be clear about why. Simply layering additional restrictions onto an already restrictive framework risks becoming symbolic rather than effective. History shows that determined attackers substitute tools when access is constrained. Cars, trucks and planes have unfortunately proved to be highly effective for terrorists.

We would be very skeptical when an already very high dose of a drug seems to be ineffective and the only solution is more of a thing which isn't delivering the results we need.

2. Existing laws arguably limited harm.
In this case, the attacker’s lack of access to a handgun appears to have materially reduced lethality. The reason heroic bloke managed to stop one of the attackers is because shotguns/ rifles are harder to maneuver in confined spaces. That is not an argument for deregulation, but it is clear evidence that current settings are already having an impact.

3. This was not an “access” failure.
The presence of improvised explosive devices in their vehicle makes that clear. No one has lawful access to IEDs. If the explanatory model is simply “availability,” we quickly end up in absurd territory - there is no credible policy lever that eliminates access to improvised weapons (e.g. steak knives) without eliminating modern society itself.

4. The uncomfortable reality is ideological.
The core issue is that there exist small but dangerous cohorts of citizens and non-citizens whose aims are fundamentally incompatible with peaceful coexistence. No amount of regulation resolves a problem rooted in belief, intent, and radicalisation. A society can be tolerant, but it cannot be naïve about actors who explicitly reject peaceful coexistence. This is the problem to be solved.

14/12/2025

Should never have happened. Must never be tolerated.

14/11/2025

The quarantine zone for the shot hole borer has been extended again. It's just a matter of time until Albany is in the 'quarantine zone'.

Labor need to wake up.

The City of Albany need to start taking action to warn people moving to the Great Southern from Perth.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Evzmpmd6S/

The state has binned its old A and B quarantine zones in place for the past two years.

14/11/2025

The City of Albany isn't taking this threat seriously.

Labor has been woefully inadequate.

In 20 years much of the forest in the South West and Great Southern will be lost to a pest that we can eradicate.

Landowners - not the State or Federal Government - will soon have to pay to have borer-infested trees removed from their property.