Too Little, Too Late

Col Pot and Homer Simpson must be overjoyed at the latest response from local government mayors, predictably responding to the totally inadequate funding for amalgamations in the WA Budget last week.

Anyone with any knowledge of local government or organisational change in general knows that the $15 million allocated by the State Government (or even the $60 million including loans) is totally inadequate. The inevitable result will be either that the changes are not implemented as well as they should be and/or ratepayers will be paying for the changes over many years to come.

But the real issue here is that Mayors and Councils should have been resisting the process by which the Government has been trying to force changes on communities that do not want them. As Commissioner Lynton Reynolds said at a community meeting in Canning a few months ago, whatever his personal views on amalgamations he took an oath when appointed to represent the interests of the Canning community - community after community has clearly said it does not want the changes being forced on them by Col and Homer.

It is ironic that it took a government-appointed Commissioner to say this while elected Mayors were largely silent and focussing on the details of proposed changes.

Why has it taken the Mayors so long to wake up to this? And why, even now, are they focussing on the cost rather than the fundamental democratic principle that communities should have a say in how they are governed.