What Did We Learn in 2013?

It's to be hoped that collectively we did learn something from 2013 or we shall fall into the trap enunciated by George Santayana: those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

The overwhelming lesson from 2013 in WA is that our senior state politicians either can't be trusted or are incompetent.

We had Colin Barnett making all sorts of promises in the election campaign and then stating unashamedly that promises didn't matter because people didn't read the detail.

Specifically, he stated before the election that there would be no forced local government amalgamations under a Liberal government - then just a few months later he announced proposals aimed at exactly that. As part of that, he said he was going to remove the Dadour amendment to the Local Government Act, which allowed electors to call for a binding poll on amalgamation proposals - fortunately, he couldn't even get that through his own party room.

Then he introduced a Bill into the Parliament that would have removed the requirement for the Local Government Advisory Board to seek public submissions for at least six weeks on amalgamation proposals. This Bill hasn't yet passed the Upper House and the LGAB has stated that it will seek submissions on all proposals in late January.

And where was the Labor Party in all this? Covertly supporting Colin Barnett, that's where. There has been a deafening silence from David Templeman and other Labor figures on the whole farago, although in the debate on the Local Government Amendment Bill he did say that:
"…there has been an abuse of trust. There has been an abuse across the sector. The government told things to certain sections of the sector, changed its mind, rethought things and backflipped, which has undermined trust. That is where the government has fallen down most spectacularly. The government has failed to keep the trust of the very local governments it needs assistance from in this reform process, many of which have been willing participants, including South Perth, Victoria Park and Cockburn. They were willing participants in the reform process and recognised the need for reform. The government failed to keep their trust because it changes its mind constantly. The Local Government Amendment Bill 2013 is an example of that. That trust has been abused and therefore those local governments are very uncertain about where this whole process will lead and the future of their council, their ratepayers and their council employees."

Outside of this, though, the ALP appears to have been conspicuously absent from the debate and it has been up to the community and a few local governments to seek to keep Colin Barnett (Col Pot) and Tony (Homer) Simpson accountable, if not honest.