Tony McRae MLA, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture and Forestry; the Midwest and Wheatbelt, visited the Avon Catchment Council office in Northam on 27 July 2005. Council staff and some community Members provided Mr McRae with the opportunity to see first hand the benefits of implementation of Landcare work for salinity management in the Tammin Catchment. The South Tammin (group successful LV group) Mr McRae was impressed by the extent of Landcare works in the Tammin Catchment. He is particularly interested in the way the group had tackled salinity at a landscape scale. Productive use of salt land is particularly well represented in the catchment, and is combined with some commercial and non-commercial tree plantings for ground water control. Mr McRae said “the Wendy Dymond lookout put salt land management into a landscape perspective for me. It gave me and understanding of commercial production options for managing such sites.” The impact of salinity on major infrastructure such as the goldfields pipeline, Great Eastern Highway and East to West rail line and Mr McRae was interested in the Avon Catchment Council’s approach to engage with Local Governments via the Investment Plan to tackle such issues as rising groundwater impacts on important infrastructures. Tony had the opportunity to view sub-surface drainage and had discussion with ACC Chair Wayne Clarke on benefits and impacts of such engineering works. Mr McRae has made a commitment to communicate with the ACC and has a good understanding of the Avon’s issues and the positive ways the ACC are dealing with them.