Peta Baer-Deputy President-Shire of East Pilbara

30/01/2026

One of the great honours of being on council is the ability to be involved in activities like this!

Congratulations to our 33 new Citizens!

I love being able to call the East Pilbara home, and now we have more people calling Australia, and the East Pilbara home.

22/12/2025

Wouldn’t it be fantastic if the WA government could roll out a similar program in WA.

The distance travelled by pregnant women in WA in both the antenatal and postnatal period is astounding. I wonder what difference this sort of service could make!

Meredith Hammat MLA Kevin Michel MLA Roger Cook

At 35 weeks pregnant with twins, Brianna became the Women’s first virtual hospital patient.

She met in person with her local team at Grampians Health as well as specialists at the Women’s here in Melbourne using a secure virtual hospital platform. This meant the Women’s team could watch her having an ultrasound of her babies live, seeing exactly what the regional clinicians were seeing in real time.

That real-time view let both teams consult and decide about the best care for her and her babies together. Because of the findings, the clinicians surprised Brianna by advising that they deliver her babies right away instead of waiting for the planned caesarean the following week. This collaborative approach meant not only were the twins given the best possible care, it also meant Brianna could stay close to home and have her babies where she planned.

“Although the unexpected outcome surprised me, I’m incredibly grateful for this project. It saved me hours of travel and stress, and I felt supported by both teams every step of the way,” Brianna said.

This milestone is part of the Victorian-first Virtual Hospital pilot, jointly delivered by the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Austin Health and funded by the Victorian Government. The pilot connects regional hospitals with Melbourne-based specialists. This cuts down travel time and makes care easier to access.

Grampians Health (Ballarat) is now on board. Bendigo will be joining early next year. For pregnant women needing advanced maternal-fetal care, they can now have joint consults with their local specialists in regional Victoria and Melbourne based experts in complex pregnancy care.

The consult was led by A/Prof Clare Whitehead and Dr Sarah Malone, Maternal-Fetal Medicine experts. Carly Struck, Project Manager – Clinical Operations at Royal Melbourne Hospital, supported them, while Dr Natasha Daureen Frawley, Clinical Director of Women’s and Children’s Services at Grampians Health, and Tonia Mitchell, Nurse Unit Manager - Maternity Outpatients, joined virtually.

Learn more about the project here: www.thewomens.org.au/virtualhospital

The Royal Melbourne Hospital Grampians Health Ballarat Austin Health Victorian Department of Health

16/12/2025

My heart is with the Jewish community following the horrific terrorist attack in Bondi.

What should have been an ordinary day was shattered by violence and hatred, and the grief and fear that follows ripples far beyond one place or one community. To those who are hurting, mourning, or feeling unsafe, please know you are not alone.

Everyone has the right to exist peacefully. Everyone deserves to live, gather, worship, and move through the world free from violence, fear, and hatred.

I stand in solidarity with the Jewish community and with all who are calling for compassion, safety, and humanity in the face of such cruelty.

May we hold one another closer, speak out against hate, and keep choosing care over division.

If this brings up difficult feelings, you don’t have to carry them alone. Lifeline 13 11 14.

ID: A minimalist illustration of a blue menorah with glowing flames on a light background, framed by a simple blue border. Text below reads “WITH THE JEWISH COMMUNITY.”

10/12/2025

Today was the final experience day, and graduation, of my Leadership WA LeadAbility Program.

I have learnt so much and experienced an immense amount of growth, both personally and professionally. This was an incredible opportunity to connect with so many passionate, and motivated leaders, including participants, but also the speakers, mentors, and facilitators.

I was voted as the Valedictorian by my cohort, which was really humbling. This meant I had the honour of presenting the Valedictory speech today. One of my 2026 goals is to push myself more with my public speaking, and gain some more experience in a wide variety of speaking engagements, so this was an awesome start to that goal.

I have felt such a strong sense of satisfaction and gratitude as I put this clip and the captions together. I can barely recognise the person speaking, but I do know that I am proud of how far I have come, and I can feel more good things to come!

05/12/2025

Yesterday I had the privilege of attending the International Volunteer Day Garden Party hosted by the Governor of WA, Chris Dawson AC APM, and his wife Darrilyn Dawson.

More than 600 volunteers and representatives from volunteer organisations came together, and Volunteering WA put on an incredible celebration of everything volunteers contribute to their communities.

I met some truly inspiring people including Beppie from Wheelchairs for Kids and Shazzy Tharby who is championing Neurodivergent and Mental Health advocacy.

I am really grateful to have been there in such generous and passionate company, representing Scouts WA. Our volunteer community is extraordinary and it was a real honour to be part of the day.

04/12/2025

*ENOUGH IS ENOUGH*

I had the pleasure of meeting Edith and visiting the community of Punmu earlier this year. It was my first time visiting the community and I was struck by the beauty of Lake Dora, the resilience of the community, and the tranquility of being out on Country. I cannot wait to visit again.

While there we spoke with residents about the challenges of living so remotely. One of the biggest concerns facing raised was the condition of the roads leading to their community.

As we come in to wet season again, we are still waiting on adequate funding to be released to repair the roads damaged by cyclone Zelia in February, and I am increasingly concerned for the health and safety of the residents.

I am beyond frustrated by the lack of action and accountability from our State Government, and you should be too. Our people are at risk and it should matter to us all.

I am writing to local members Kevin Michel MLA (member for Pilbara), Divina D’Anna MLA (member for Kimberley), and Hon Don Punch MLA (minister for Aboriginal Affairs), as the representatives for our region and our people I ask that they advocate strongly to protect the health and safety of our community.

If you would like to do the same I have left their emails in the comments. We can’t sit idly by any longer.

A mammoth effort by community members saves $400,000 worth of food for the Punmu remote community, but the incident reignites the debate about the condition of WA's most remote roads.

29/11/2025

Tonight I get to put on one of my other many hats to attend the Pride WA Pride Parade in Perth.

I am here representing Scouts WA as the Branch Commissioner Diversity and Inclusion.

I love this part of my work because I get to work with youth and build safe spaces for all in Scouting!

26/11/2025

It is way past crunch-time.

Our Governments keep passing the buck and throwing up their hands. Someone has to step up, the wet season has started and the damage will only become more urgent.

25/11/2025

Imagine if the end users actually designed the infrastructure targeted at them.

What would change? Would we have more inclusive communities? Better utilisation of our public infrastructure?

I will continue to say this til the end of time; no conversation about us, without us.

23/11/2025

Another step forward in equality!

🏳️‍🌈

22/11/2025

Ordinary Council Meeting

You're warmly invited to attend the Ordinary Council Meeting on 28 November 2025 at the Newman Council Chambers.

Agenda https://tinyurl.com/4zb4jyc9

Date: Friday, 28 November 2025
Time: 10:30 AM
Location: Newman Council Chambers

Can’t attend in person? The meeting will be live-streamed on the Shire's YouTube channel for your convenience here: https://www.youtube.com/

21/11/2025

Can we now work on some better services through our Regional Hospitals. Like being able to access fetal monitoring with support from skilled Obstetricians via telehealth.

Our region needs increased access to quality healthcare to start improving our health outcomes. The East Pilbara has some of the lowest health outcomes in the state and our people are suffering.

This is a start, yes, but we have a long way to go.