Spud king Tony Galati and brother Vince slammed as ‘disingenuous’ after third groundwater theft fine

Spud king Tony Galati has been slammed by a magistrate as “disingenuous” after he and his brother were fined for the third time in less than six years for commercial groundwater theft for their South West farm — this time illegally extracting enough to fill 90 Olympic swimming pools. In his latest legal saga, the spud king and his brother Vince were hit with $10,000 in fines for drawing a total of 1,180,742kL of water from an underground source in the South West coastal groundwater area — nearly 200 million litres more than what their licence allowed. The pair pleaded guilty in Bunbury Magistrates Court via audio link on Friday, where it emerged they had overdrawn the water over an 11-month period from July 3, 2020 to irrigate potatoes at their farm near Bunbury. Defence counsel Peter Weeks told the court the incident was the result of an oversight by a general manager, who was no longer employed by Galati Group. But it was found that the same worker had also allegedly failed to monitor water extraction levels in previous incidents in 2016 and 2017, prompting Magistrate Joanne Andretich to label the pair’s guilty plea and remorse “disingenuous”. Galati — who has become a household name in WA — had also previously been fined $40,000 in court for growing more potatoes than agreed under Potato Marketing Corporation regulations, an association that has since shut down. In sentencing, Ms Andretich said responsibility for checking water levels fell on the co-directors, particularly after previous convictions. “It was incumbent on them to take more care in monitoring the general manager’s activities and a higher duty to ensure he was doing his job properly,” she said. “They ought to have been more vigilant and it is unfortunate these new measures were not implemented previously. “The (farming) industry relies heavily on honesty, particularly when you have a water source that is already fully allocated.” During the court appearance, Mr Weeks submitted neither of his clients gained an additional benefit from using the excess water on their crops. “There’s no hiding there was a commercial gain to be made by the overdraw but it is not a case of it being a greater commercial benefit,” he told the court. “It was not greater than ordinary and neither of my clients gained extra profit.” It was also submitted the Galati brothers also held a licence for another property that allowed up to 400,000kL of water to be drawn and they could have applied to borrow a temporary licence. However, prosecutor Michael Olds said because the two licences concerned separate water sources, a transfer of water resources would not have been possible. Both men were ultimately fined $5250 each for their respective charges and ordered to pay almost $500 each in court costs.