WA news LIVE: ‘Stop it’: WA Premier labels Perth anti-mass immigration rally a disgrace (2025)

To some football news now, and the Wide World of Sports Footy Furnace has reviewed the West Coast Eagles’ year after they ended the season at the bottom of the ladder with just one win and 22 losses.

New coach Andrew McQualter said he believed the team had improved over the year, but commentator James Hird said there was a lot of work to be done, particularly in the midfield.

“The stats we’re seeing aren’t showing there’s improvement, but you don’t know,” he said.

“It’s been a tough year for Andrew McQualter and the team, what they’ve been trying to do is exit some older players, exit players that I don’t think want to be there, even their captain, and bring in those young players.

“This is not just a rebuild of one or two seasons, this is a five, six year rebuild.”

Watch the full segment below:

Returning to the news we brought you this morning of the southern right whales frolicking off Leighton Beach.

Parks and Wildlife acting district manager Melissa Evans confirmed there are two mothers and two calves off the coast at the moment, with the adult whales measuring up to 17 metres long.

“They’ve been displaying normal behaviour, just spending their time in the shallows,” she said.

“It’s a fantastic opportunity for everybody in Perth to be able to see them so close to shore … they will bring their calves in to protect them while they are newborns.

“The mother will come up from Antarctica, they’ll give birth while up here and then the mother and calf will stay together while that calf is getting fattened up and feeding on really rich milk provided by mum, and when everyone is at an appropriate health level, they’ll make their way back to Antarctica.”

Evans says the whales, which have been at Leighton Beach since Saturday, could hang around for a few more days.

Anyone wanting to catch a glimpse of them is reminded to keep at least 300 metres away in the water. Drones must also be at least 60 metres away.

“It’s a really important time for the mother and calf to be bonding, and we don’t want to interrupt that,” Evans said.

“If the mothers get protective of their calf, they can really do some damage with those fins and their tail.”

Perth has recorded its wettest August since 1955, as it fell just 50 millimetres shy of setting a new winter rainfall record.

Last month, 203mm of rain fell across the Perth metropolitan area, compared to 174mm in July and 129mm in June.

Each month exceeded the average monthly rainfall, which hasn’t happened in nearly 30 years.

And while today is clear skies and sunshine, the start of spring will also bring with it three cold fronts later this week, with heavy rain forecast on Friday and Saturday, potentially putting a dampener on the Fremantle Dockers’ elimination final at Optus Stadium.

Looking even further ahead, the spring forecast for Western Australia predicts below-average rainfall in parts of the south-western area.

There is also a heightened fire risk for parts of the state’s north, including the Dampier Peninsular, Derby and the south-eastern Pilbara.

Returning to yesterday’s anti-mass immigration rally in the Perth CBD, WA Premier Roger Cook has just been asked whether a small group of Neo Nazis who attended the march would be charged for shouting ‘Heil Australia’.

The rally was attended by around 10,000 people who were opposing the increase in overseas migration rates since the pandemic, claiming ‘it’s the pace, not the race’ that is placing unsustainable pressure on the country’s housing and infrastructure.

Rallies were held across the country. Perth’s march was deemed mostly peaceful by police, with 11 move on notices issued, and three people arrested.

Here’s what Cook had to say about the Neo Nazis who marched at the event, and whether they should be charged under new anti-semitism laws for shouting ‘Heil Australia’.

“I’ll leave that up to the police, that’s an operational issue. Obviously, it’s incredibility offensive and I think an absolute opposite to the values that all Australians embrace,” he said.

“We want Australia to be an inclusive society, a safe society, these people are directly trying to undermine the Australian way of life, and everyone should reject them, their values and their actions.

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“Obviously [the rally] was under very close scrutiny by the police, if anyone transgresses laws that police believe should be prosecuted, they’ll obviously make arrests and prosecute.

“Let’s be very clear, not everyone at that rally yesterday was a racist, but that rally did provide comfort to racists and extremists in Australia.

“They would have looked at that rally and thought, ‘there is a good breeding ground for our evil and nasty campaign to drive division and hatred in the West Australian community’.”

WA’s ambulance ramping crisis continues to worsen, with paramedics spending a record number of hours stuck waiting outside hospitals to admit their patients.

A total of 7074 ramping hours were recorded in August, beating the previous record of 7007 set in July.

Royal Perth Hospital recorded the highest number of ramping hours, followed by Fiona Stanley Hospital and Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital.

Ramping, caused by a shortage of available beds and staff in hospitals, leaves paramedics unable to attend to other call-outs while they wait, sometimes hours, for their patient to be admitted.

The state is experiencing a higher than usual flu season, with dozens of category two and three elective surgeries delayed recently in an attempt to free up more beds for emergency patients.

WA opposition leader, Basil Zempilas, said the figures showed WA’s health system crisis was getting worse.

“Behind everyone one of those 7074 hours is a sick, injured or dying family member or loved one of somebody in the West Australian community, and this is shameful in a state as wealthy as WA,” he told Radio 6PR this morning.

The median house value in Perth has risen again to $881,867, marking an annual increase of 6.3 per cent.

According to the Cotality Home Value Index, released today, Brisbane (1.2%) and Perth (1.1%) recorded the highest monthly house and unit combined gains, with Perth ($841,928) now the fifth most expensive Australian capital city after Sydney ($1.22m), Brisbane ($949,583), Canberra ($872,957) and Adelaide ($851,125).

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In the past five years, Perth dwelling values have gone up by 81.9 per cent, the highest in the country. Regional WA prices for the same period rose 86.9%, another national record.

In Perth, the Belmont and Victoria Park areas experienced the most growth, with an annual change of 10.5 per cent.

Units also experienced a 10 per cent jump, with the median price now $624, 821.

It’s the first day of spring, and for the third day in a row, there are two southern right whales frolicking off the Perth coast this morning, near Leighton Beach.

The 14-metre mother and calf were also seen yesterday, swimming just metres from the shore, and giving one paddleboarder the experience of a lifetime, swimming underneath her board.

The pair is on an epic annual migration along the coast back to the Southern Ocean.

Here’s what’s making headlines across the country and around the world:

• Dezi Freeman remains on the run after allegedly executing two policemen in an ambush attack in Porepunkah.

• Property values across the nation are growing at their fastest rate in more than a year as cuts in official interest rates hit a housing market struggling from a lack of supply.

• Donald Trump is not dead, as he proved on Saturday with a swing of a golf club. Rumours about the US president’s health had grown on Friday night after commentators online pointed out that Trump – unusually – had not been seen in public for two days.