All very biblical, but the reality is that in putting his new proposal to the Local Government Advisory Board, he has made an enemy of the City of Perth, which several times had made it very clear that it was not interested in taking the whole of Vincent. I doubt that any state government really wants to make an enemy of the capital city Council - however it is configured.
So is there an alternative explanation of this apparent conversion?
The Government's proposal, along with those made by the City of Vincent and the City of Perth, has to be assessed by the Local Government Advisory Board, which will then make a recommendation to the Minister for Local Government. The LGAB may advise that the Minister accept or reject a proposal but may not, without substantially repeating the process, recommend significant changes to any of them.
The Minister may only accept or reject the advice of the LGAB - he cannot accept any other proposal nor can he amend a proposal recommended by the LGAB.
So the LGAB has to choose between three proposals and could choose the City of Perth's. If it does so, the Minister can only accept that recommendation (against his own Government's preferred proposal) or reject it, in which case the status quo would remain for Vincent and Perth (against the whole basis of the Government's local government agenda).
No prizes for guessing which the Minister would choose in that situation. And the Premier would claim the high moral ground by saying he tried to respond to the Vincent Community but the 'independent' Local Government Advisory Board decided differently.
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