Dirty Tricks?

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And I'm not referring to the West Australian's 'downgrading' of City of Vincent Mayor, John Carey, by the lack of an initial upper case letter. Perhaps the sub-editor thought that capital letters are reserved for capital city office-bearers.

And Yolanda Zaw still hasn't caught up with the fact that the revised State Government proposals, as submitted to the Local Government Advisory Board, do not place the whole of the City of Vincent into an enlarged City of Perth - as noted previously in this blog (http://ianrker-vincent.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/premiers-porky-wheres-logic-or-fairness.html), the riverside area of Banks Precinct is excluded.

I recall that not so long ago, Premier Colin Barnett was encouraging the City of Perth and the City of Vincent to work together on amalgamation. Now we have the City of Perth going it alone with surveys of Vincent residents - presumably so that it can massage the results in a way that suits it.

At the very least, I hope that the City of Perth publishes a full report on its survey - including how the survey was set up, the preamble to respondents, questions asked, response rates and any other issues that might have influenced the results. As I know from professional experience with many surveys (not to mention the 'Leading Questions' lesson from 'Yes, Prime Minister'), surveys can be slanted (consciously or subconsciously) to give whatever answer is sought.



Here's a thought, too. Is City of Perth in breach of Section 3.20 of the Local Government Act, which relates to the performing of functions outside its area without the consent of the local government responsible for the area. This section is primarily to do with physical works, but the principle would seem to apply equally to non-physical works such as surveys.