Business News - WA
At Close of Business podcast September 20 2024
(upbeat music) All the latest business news from WA deliver daily. (upbeat music) At close of business, news briefing. (upbeat music) Good afternoon and welcome to the Outclose of Business podcast, I'm Sam Jones and I'll be reading a Friday headlines. The federal government's ambitious target building 1.2 million new homes by 2029 is fanciful according to a leading residential builder as crippling skilled labor shortages persist. That target under the national housing accord would mean WA builders would need to construct at least 24,000 new homes per year with that number currently sitting at around 15,000. Speaking at a business news breakfast event, JWH Group joint group general manager, Jay Walter, said the federal government's target was fanciful. He said it was dangerous for the federal government to put the figure out there as they had no chance of reaching it. He also said skilled immigration programs needed to be put in place to support the industry. His calls for greater skilled immigration to aid the state and nation's tight labor market were echoed by fellow panelists at the property sector breakfast. Hispario managing director Ben Lyle said the target was feasible pointing to the peak of around 30,000 homes built in 2015, but said the main challenge was the competition for labor. And in our state's north now, WA Defense industry minister Paul Papalier has endorsed the thinking behind Gina Reinhart's Pilbara Iron Dome concept as the state pushes for protection of its economic heartland. Mrs Reinhart recently told a conference that the nation should invest in an Israel-style defense system dubbed an Iron Dome to protect its multi-billion dollar resources assets from foreign attack. Israel's high-cost deflection system intercepts foreign missiles as they approach. It's a system Mrs Reinhart once replicated in the Pilbara in protection of the national interest among other high-tech defenses. In a conversation with Business News this week, Mr Papalier did not go as far as calling for an Iron Dome, but said the state had long advocated for a larger defense presence in the Pilbara region. He pointed to the state's submission to the 2023 Defense Strategic Review, where it called for greater military involvement in WA's northwest. Mr Papalier said the defense sector was growing substantially in WA, but he was disappointed by the lack of defense presence in the Pilbara, which he dubbed the jewel in the crown of the nation's biggest export revenue generator. And finally, the Chamber of Minerals and Energy WA says investment on the scale of MetroNet is needed to get the state's main energy grid running on renewables reliably and affordably. The CME has sounded a warning on the trajectory of prices and reliability in the state's main power grid, where wholesale prices have doubled over three years. In a report published this morning, CME warned that greater action was needed to keep the state's industrial operators running, and said major industrial power users face increased uncertainty in the current power market. Wholesale electricity prices in the southwest interconnected system have gone from $46 per megawatt hour in 2021 to $96 per megawatt hour this year. CME members account for around 60% of large industrial users in the network, based on modeling by end-game economics. CME proposes embarking on a $15 billion swift decarbonisation pathway, which would see the state lean on gas as a firming fuel and invest heavily in transmission and renewables generation. That's all for today's headlines. You can read more at businessnews.com.au. Coming up on the podcast, I speak with Justin Friss about the Perth Football League. [MUSIC] Celebrate business leaders, entrepreneurs, and trailblazers with business news events. With our flagship event series bespoke online events, webinars, book launches, and Gala Awards programs, our forums showcase the policies and issues affecting Western Australia within industry and government. Our events are your platforms to engage and connect with the Western Australian business community. Visit businessnews.com.au/events for more information. Welcome back to the Outclothes of Business podcast. I'm sat here with Justin Friss. Justin, how are you going? Very good, Sam. Great to be with you and hello to all the listeners. Great. And Justin, you wrote a piece on the Perth Football League for the September 16 edition. What prompted you to write that? I just thought, Sam, I, as you know, I'm very passionate about sports business, not just on the field, but offered as well. And we just sort of be really interesting to see the Perth Football League in terms of a business model. It's the largest competition of its kind in Western Australia in terms of amateur Australian real football. began in 1922, sorry, rebranded as the Perth Football League in 2019. And with that, there's been a real shift in terms of the league becoming a really strong community focused business. And that's the most important thing, because it has a massive catchment area in terms of clubs and teams. And with that, there's a large network of people that are able to benefit from that. So the league have really worked hard in building additional relationships with existing partners, and that's really flowed through. And if we look at their financial result from last year, they were able to, the Perth Football League, were able to get their sponsorship up in the vicinity of around $774,000. So in context, they're only the top tier of WIFL clubs, which is State League would attain that amount of money. So that's a fantastic result. Yeah. And who did you speak to from there? I understand it was Andrew Doar, and he's relatively new, isn't he? Yeah. So Andrew came in during the 2022 season. And so just toward the back end of 2022, and that was at a time where the league was going through a bit of a shift. It sat in, I guess, so to speak with the Western Australian Football Commission, which is the state governing body for Australian rules football. And since, I guess 2022, 2023, the Perth Football League's had a bit more of ownership in terms of being able to create its own partnerships and deals. It still obviously has a close relationship with the WI Football Commission. However, it's able to go out a bit more on its own and create some of these things. And ways of this revenue growth isn't just through entity sponsoring competition, sponsoring apparel. It's leading to things like events as well. So earlier this year they had a business lunch forum where a lot of the clubs were able to come together, they were able to invite their sponsors and they were able to get together and kind of give back to their partnerships and also work on their income streams as well. But one thing, and I'm pretty sure you're keen to get to as well, Sam, is it's not just about males playing Australian rules football in the Perth Football League. There's also equal emphasis from the Perth Football League on the integrated competition, which is footballers with intellectual and physical disabilities and also in the women's competition as well. And so what's the growth like in terms of the women's and the other competitions? I imagine it's quite an uptick in the past sort of few years. Yeah, it's really, really positive. So particularly something that's very close to my heart, in particular, as the integrated football competition. So that was established a few years ago now. It's really grown. It was a 12 team competition this year. During my interview for this piece, I managed to speak with Swan District's Chief Executive Officer, Jeff Dennis. So many would know he obviously oversees Swan District's Football Club. They're a very powerful and traditional West Australian Football League club, but they're the only team of within that competition that have fielded an integrated side, which I think is very, very special. And they place equal emphasis on their integrated side in terms of resources and promotion as they do with their able-bodied teams, which I think is really, really heartened. And they're also looking and expanding that space potentially next year. And from a women's side of things, there were 68 teams that played in the women's competition this year. And one thing that a lot of people involved in sport administration have known for a while, and it's really coming to the forefront now, is it's not just about females getting outside and having a kick with their friends. It's a whole different group of people coming to community sporting clubs and leagues. So just say, for example, if you have a community football club and you field a women's team, you're going to be getting people coming along to training and games that might not have any interest with Australian rules football. They might be new to the country, they might be new to the state, but they might want to go and support their friend or one of their loved ones. Suddenly they're in your club, they're able to buy things from the canteen, they can purchase merchandise. And without this initial, I guess, connection by having someone interested playing that they want to go and see, they might not have had any exposure to your club. So this is something that's really, really powerful, and many clubs in the Purple Football League and the League itself have really embraced that. And that exposure is also translated into the hard work that they've been doing in the streaming side of things. So they're streaming matches on YouTube, streamer. They've also signed a deal with SCN Radio to broadcast games, and they've been getting some really good traction on social media, which is really the way forward for this type of competition, because it is a completely different market to the Australian Football League because it's purely grassroots. And so, obviously, a lot of transition for the League over the last five years or so, what's the end goal or what's the goal for the next few years for them? The Purple Football League are really hopeful of just building on what they are in their community focused, and part of that, they're aiming to be as sustainable and as independent as they can. They understand that they obviously want to have key relationships with those existing stakeholders, but ultimately the end goal from their point of view is to achieve as much self-sufficiency and independence as possible, and given the way that they're performing off the field, and the way that the on-field product is presented both digitally and if you're at an event, I think they're heading in the right direction. And in WA, you know, and Australia as a whole AFL has always kind of been seen as the pathway into AFLs through maybe a private school or a fairly wealthy club. Is this, you know, leveling the playing field for other people? Most definitely, and as we touched on a little bit earlier, it's not just about the male-based competitions, it's about female football and also the integrated competition. So, since the integrated football competition has started, it's inspired a whole new industry. So, there's an entity called WA All Abilities that has started up and it's involving all members of the community, whether able-bodied or with a able-bodied, with a physical disability, intellectual disability, doesn't matter anymore, anybody can play the game, and those footballers are also getting an opportunity to represent their state, and whether, you know, not just at a national level, but also reasonably as well, which is something that up until about 10, 15 years ago, that had never happened before, and it's great to see that things have changed. Great. Okay, well, Justin, thanks for joining me. For the readers that would like to take a look at your story, that's on page 20 of the September 16 edition, and I encourage them to read it because it's obviously something that's close to your heart and it's a beautifully written piece. Thank you very much, Sam, and look forward to catching up soon. The latest business news delivered daily. 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