Vincent Council Goes For Wrong Target Again

I was critical of Vincent Council for its focus on 'One-in, All-in' last year, when I believed it would have been better to focus on the potential for not becoming part of the City of Perth. Like too many councils, many of which are now regretting what they did, Vincent allowed itself to be suckered in to presenting its own proposal for amalgamation.

Recent events appear to have proved me right, with the LGAB recommending the 'One in, All in' proposal but the Premier and, reluctantly, the Minister didn't like it so are going to deal with us by proposed legislation that is so preposterous that it now 'requires' counter-action by the City of Vincent.

Just when the focus should be on establishing our right to a poll under the Local Government Act, Vincent Council has put out a petition seeking a referendum in opposition to the proposed City of Perth Act.

Now, I agree the City of Perth Act proposed by the Premier would be an abomination and severely detrimental to the Vincent community and to democracy, but it is some way off, and the immediate priority should be to establish the right to a Dadour Poll - that opportunity will not come again and if we don't take advantage of it we can rightly be labelled as not serious about electors' democratic rights.

Frankly, there is zero likelihood of getting a referendum out of this Premier, who continues to maintain that his process is proper and above-board. He knows what the outcome of such a referendum would be and he doesn't knowingly set himself up for embarrassing defeat.

Calling for such a referendum is a purely populist device that will make Council and those who sign feel good - but will achieve nothing. On the other hand, the law is on our side with regard to a Dadour poll (http://ianrker-vincent.blogspot.com.au/2014/11/lgab-is-wrong-wrong-wrong.html).

One councillor has taken me to task for 'confusing' electors given that the City of Vincent was running its own petition about the proposed City of Perth Act. I only heard about this petition indirectly late yesterday, by which time my Dadour petition had already been out there for several days.

That councillor was him/herself confused as (s)he wrote: We are in a different position than other Councils now who are actually going to be merged or amalgamated as a direct result of the LGAB recommendations being accepted. How are we entitled to a poll Ian?

Well, Councillor, the Local Government Act clearly states that the right to a poll is triggered by the recommendation of the LGAB not by any purported Ministerial response to it. Indeed, the Minister legally cannot respond to an LGAB recommendation that triggers a poll right until the poll process has been concluded.

I was also surprised that the councillor expressed concern about the "significantly high benchmarks required for a result", which is an incredibly defeatist attitude. Other Councils are pressing for a poll despite that and some, but probably not all, will achieve the requirements. But it won't take many successful ones for the whole house of cards to collapse.

We have been critical of the Minister's process and his attempts to bend the law, so surely we have to show faith in the democratic process - if we do not, we are no better than Simpson - effectively saying "the law won't give us what we want, so we'll change the rules".

The Communities' Action Alliance strategy of nurturing the Nationals and targeting key Liberals to encourage them not to support such an Act is much more likely to pay off as it is focussed and allows the Premier to back down in the party room, in the face of the threat of being defeated in Parliament, rather than in the public arena. We know, for example, that he did precisely that in respect of his move to remove the Dadour poll provision of the Act.