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My name is Rex Ryles and I have lived in Western Australia since the late 1970s, having moved from South Australia. I began working in Esperance for $2.50 per hour driving an International 2150B truck, hauling grain and gravel. I experienced many vehicle and machinery breakdowns in those days, but it taught me good bush mechanical and problem-solving skills that have served me well.

By 1989 I established Desert Sands Cartage Contractors, a cartage and earthmoving company at Laverton in the Eastern Goldfields of WA, a business I still own and operate today. We supply water, fuel, tipping products and machinery haulage throughout the harsh and isolated wider Central Australia region.

Even though my business keeps me incredibly busy, I have been privileged to serve as a Laverton Shire Councillor for more than 20 years from 1997-2021 including a term as Deputy Shire President, and on many community, council and national committees, including the Outback Highway Development Council (OHDC) and the Goldfields Esperance Regional Road Group. In 2008 I was inducted into the Shell Rimula Wall of Fame in recognition of my lifelong commitment to the transport sector and in 2023 I was honoured with an Eminent Service Award by the Shire of Laverton for over 20 years of service.

Many of those years were served alongside my great friend and President of the Shire, Patrick Hill, beginning in 1998 when he founded the OHDC to upgrade and seal Australia’s longest shortcut, the 2,700km Outback Way, running from Laverton, Western Australia to Winton, Queensland, via the Northern Territory’s Red Centre. This Council and project spanned two states, the Northern Territory, plus five councils.

The Outback Way offers huge benefits to WA, QLD, NT and SA from both social and economic perspectives. Our mission is to improve access, services, and economic opportunities for rural and remote Australians, ensuring equity for our communities. The OHDC has continuously lobbied for road upgrades while promoting tourism opportunities along the route. The combined GDP across all areas of the Outback Way is $5.5 billion from a total population of 38,951 – it is truly extraordinary, especially when considering that the total GDP of mining activities in the Shire of Laverton is ramping up to $6 billion.

The goal is to complete the sealing of the iconic Outback Way by 2032, which will make it the nation’s third East-West transnational road. This is precisely the kind of national development project that our nation needs, opening up many Australian towns to tourism, improved access to precious resources such as food and water, and reducing costs for farmers and other Australians by providing adequate transport routes.

That’s why I joined the Australian Citizens Party; It is the only political party with the vision and the policies for large-scale nation building and development of inland Australia. The need for such progress for rural and regional communities, and the benefits for Australia as a whole can only be achieved if we return to a publicly owned national bank of credit which can properly fund such projects.

It is also critical that we establish a public Post-Office Bank to solve the problem of providing accessible banking services to the thousands of communities who have been abandoned by the major banks as a result of them closing local bank branches.

The Labor Government are stopping our live sheep exports, which is destroying opportunities for many Australians. I believe we need to keep the sheep, and effectively support local manufacturing and the export of Australian produce alike.

I endorse and support the ACP’s Fighting Platform for economic and national sovereignty and for an end to corruption in government and the corporate sector, and I ask for your vote, if you want a better future for our kids and grandkids.