This is the personal blog of Ian Ker, who was Councillor for the South Ward of the Town of Vincent from 1995 to 2009. I have been a resident of this area since 1985. This blog was originally conceived as a way of letting residents of Vincent know what I have been doing and sharing thoughts on important issues. I can now use it to sound off about things that concern me.

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Wednesday, November 26, 2014

A Strange Exception

I wrote, yesterday, that the Supreme Court judgment (draft available at http://www.supremecourt.wa.gov.au/T/transcripts.aspx) appeared to be a very literal approach to the law (http://ianrker-vincent.blogspot.com.au/2014/11/a-black-letter-day-for-democracy-in-wa.html). There was, however, one very significant exception.

The Chief Justice ruled that the Dadour poll provisions did not apply to Vincent/Perth and the G5 because the Minister had already stated that he rejected these two LGAB recommendations and that, since a poll would only be binding in the case of a vote for a rejection, a poll could make no difference to the outcome and was therefore a waste of time and money.

'Waste of time and money' is not, to the best of knowledge, a legal argument and, in any case, is a slur on the Minister (ie he would not take any notice of a strong poll that contradicted his views - okay, we know that's probably true, but it isn't a legal argument) and misunderstands what a poll would show:

- A poll with a strong (preferably binding) majority rejecting the recommendation would not be a rejection on the same basis as the Minister, who simply wants to tweak the Vincent/Perth merger to add key assets and introduce a gerrymander to ensure business dominate the new Council. The Minister still wants amalgamation but the poll result would not.

- A poll result that favours the LGAB recommendation would be a vote for a fair and equitable merger of Vincent and Perth, which is, again, totally different from what the Minister and Premier want.

The Chief Justice clearly doesn't understand that democracy isn't simply about achieving a different outcome (although, as argued above, he apparently doesn't understand the nature of the outcomes either), it's about being able to be heard.

The right to request a poll (Schedule 2.1, Clause 8, of the Local Government Act) is an absolute right, unqualified by anything other than the nature of the LGAB recommendation. It certainly isn't qualified by any Ministerial response to the recommendation or whether, in the view of the Chief Justice or anyone else, it might be 'a waste of money'.

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