Nothing To Say?

The latest 'Local Government Update' is an exercise in saying absolutely nothing.

It says nothing about the Memorandum of Consent agreed between the parties in the legal action against the Minister and the Local Government Advisory Board.

It says nothing about when the Local Government Advisory Board will submit its report (or reports) to the Minister. The LGAB report was originally due in July 2014 and the date has been a sliding feast ever since - reflecting the extreme complexity of the task the Board has been given.

It says nothing about what the Minister might do with the LGAB report and its recommendations. Will he make them public? How will he make his decisions on the recommendations - either to accept or reject, there is no other way he can respond? When will he decide?

The one thing we can - and must - hold him to is this statement in a previous 'Update' (25th August, 2014):

This statement is unequivocal. The Government will not start the process of issuing Governor's Orders until after any polls have been held. We know that the electors of the Western Suburbs and of Cockburn and Kwinana will have the opportunity to call a poll. It is also likely that the electoral rolls will have to be updated before any poll can take place.

So it seems that this commitment and the Memorandum of Consent are looking at similar timeframes.

However, given the duplicity that has been evident so far in this process, we can take nothing for granted. We must be alert to the possibility that the Minister will move to get Governor's Orders issued sooner than these statements indicate, notwithstanding that I believe that in doing so he would come dangerously close to being in contempt of court.