Wipeout: Role of Forced Local Government Amalgamation Debacle

The count of the WA state election is not yet finalised, but it is clear that the Liberals have taken a hammering - so much so that, as Jessica Strutt has observed, hardly any (actually 3) of their lower house MPs have any experience of being in opposition. And of those, one has experience in Victoria not WA and another (Colin Barnett) is unlikely to stay very long.

There is already a lot of soul-searching among Liberals and comment (not really analysis) in the media, with common targets for blame being:
- the 'it's time' factor, coupled with Barnett's personal unpopularity
- the One-Nation preference deal
- the state's financial situation
- Roe 8/Perth Freight Link
- end of the mining boom
- Australia's highest unemployment
- failure of Barnett/Turnbull to address WA's GST return

All of these are important, but one thing has barely rated a mention and yet the decline in Liberal/Barnett fortunes can be traced back to it - that is the debacle of Barnett's local government so-called reform.

The duplicity of Barnett, having stated in the lead-up to the 2013 WA election that there would be no forced local government amalgamations and, moreover, forcing Tony Simpson into an embarrassing backdown after he stated that forced amalgamations were Liberal policy, kick-started a grass-roots protest that
- spread like wildfire across much of the metropolitan region, comparable to but more widespread than the Roe 8 protests;
- forced the Local Government Advisory Board to abandon all but one of the Minster for Local Government's proposals;
- resulted in three proposals being subject to binding polls that all resoundingly rejected forced amalgamations; and
- saw Barnett forced to backdown on all the amalgamations and, to use his words, "fly the white flag".

I attended many community meetings during that time and one common reaction was people's saying they had voted Liberal all their lives but would never vote Liberal at state level again.

And that is exactly what happened. As Antony Green has pointed out, a very large part of the precipitate fall in the Liberal primary vote went, not to protest parties such as One Nation, but directly to the ALP.

Look at the areas where the grass-roots protest movement really took hold (Kalamunda; Serpentine-Jarrahdale, Mundaring) and you will see a litany of seats previously held by the Liberals falling to Labor. From holding all of the hills seats, the Liberals now hold none.

Other areas (eg Cockburn; Kwinana) were already Labor but now look to be impregnable.

The seat of Perth (which includes most of the City of Vincent) has fallen back to Labor with a bang, no doubt mobilised by the highly-effective 'one-in, all-in' campaign initiated by then Mayor Alannah MacTiernan and strongly followed up by her successor (now member for Perth) John Carey. Barnett's intention to split the City of Vincent between Perth and Stirling and the strong community reaction against it no doubt put the seat of Perth from marginal Liberal to safe Labor.

Lest We Forget. WA Parallels in NSW?

Just in case there might be some truth in Col's hoping that voters have short memories, along comes NSW Premier Mike Baird's resignation, at least partly in response to a massive decline in popularity resulting from forced local government amalgamations.

Almost exactly two years ago, WA Premier Colin Barnett finally 'ran up the white flag' in response to widespread opposition to his proposed forced local council mergers.

The immediate cause in NSW might be more specific than those causing Col Pot's retreat in WA in 2015, but the result could be the same - victory for community and commonsense.

There is still much water to flow under this particular bridge, but even such speculation is heartening.

I urge the people of WA not to forget Barnett's perfidy in trying to force council amalgamations despite having ruled them out in the previous election. March 11, 2017, is our opportunity to make him and his government pay for lying to us and wasting so much of our time, effort, money and emotional energy in making him see reason.

http://www.governmentnews.com.au/2017/01/deliverance-will-new-nsw-premier-smash-council-mergers-de-merge-others/?platform=hootsuite

Do Unto Others …………

Minister for Transport and Agriculture, Dean Nalder, has followed Tony Simpson in resigning from Cabinet and former Minister, Helen Morton, has come out in support of them.

There is common thread in these three narratives and that is arrogance, lack of communication and even bullying.

Tony Simpson is reported as saying he was kept in the dark by the Premier’s Office and had to “second guess” Colin Barnett’s policy positions by listening to talkback radio. There were numerous examples of this lack of communication during the local government so-called reform fiasco, including when Col unilaterally ran up the white flag despite being defeated on only three of the proposals.

Dean Nalder is reported as saying "Colin is making irrational decisions without consultation with respect to Ministers". He instanced Perth Freight Link, the sealing of the Cape Leveque Road and the announcement of new Boyanup sale yards, all matters within his portfolios, as cases where the Premier directed him without discussion or made announcements without even informing him.

Former Minister, Helen Morton, is even more forthright. According to the ABC's Jessica Strutt, Helen Morton has accused staff in the Premier's office of running a "machine" of bullying, intimidation and threats of ministers. Morton says both Tony Simpson and Dean Nalder, who have quit Cabinet, have been victims of it. She also saw it when she was a minister.

Clearly, Col cannot continue as leader of the WA Liberals (and hence as Premier), without the confidence of key Liberal MPs or of the community, but it is not clear who might replace him. This itself is a direct consequence of Col's arrogance and bullying.

For me, I can't see anyone currently in the Parliamentary Liberal Party who has the qualities necessary to be an effective Premier. After the March 2017 election, the Liberals' talent pool will be considerably smaller.

Meanwhile, head-in-the-sand Mount Lawley MLA, Michael Sutherland (in whose electorate I now unfortunately reside after the recent boundary changes) said there is no leadership crisis, despite the current leader being so on the nose (Crisis 1) and the total lack of competent alternative leaders in the Parliamentary Liberal Party (Crisis 2).

The manner of Simpson and Nalder making their announcements suggests that their frustration has driven them to "do unto Col as he has done unto them". I can only hope that whoever is Liberal leader after the next few days (even if it is still Col) learns the pragmatic lesson of 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you'.

Minister Simpson Resigns - No Confidence in Barnett

I've been away from this blog for several months, largely due to illness, but I couldn't let Local Government Minister, Tony Simpson's, resignation from Cabinet, on the grounds that he no longer had confidence in Premier Colin Barnett's leadership, pass without comment.

Readers of this blog (and the more recent one dealing with the City of Perth Act) will know that I have been very critical of Simpson in his role as Local Government Minister. 

In retrospect, however, it is unclear how much of the local government so-called reform (aka forced amalgamation) fiasco was Simpson being malicious and how much his simply being unable to stand up to Barnett. Certainly the fatuous and false 'economies of scale' argument came from Col's half-baked economics - I commented more than once that he must have attended the lecture on economies of scale but skipped the next one on diseconomies of scale. 

Simpson was often the scapegoat for Col's ignorance and intransigence.

Even so, Simpson cannot be held blameless, as he should have stood up to Col - that was the time to resign - but, in fairness, he was too new a minister for resignation to have had much effect.

Simpson has performed much better and more consistently in his other portfolios of Community Services, Seniors and Volunteering, and Youth, but these are not high profile ones and he has got little public recognition from them.

Col's predictable and rather puerile response was that Simpson's resignation provided an opportunity for someone else to be a Minister - as if the Government benches in Parliament were brimming with talent. Whoever gets the gig, we can only hope that their tenure will be short-lived.

DAPs To Start Feeling The Heat

Further to the previous post on the South Perth successful court action on DAPs (http://ianrker-vincent.blogspot.com.au/2016/02/david-slays-goliath-again.html), Vincent Mayor John Carey is moving a motion at tonight's briefing meeting that Council work actively to reign in the DAPs. Tonight's meeting is a briefing and the actual decision will be made next Tuesday (8th March). You can address either tonight's briefing or the Council Meeting on 8th March.

Councillor Elizabeth Re, City of Stirling, has emailed the dapaffectedcommunities group to say:

I am sorry I cannot attend the Tuesday council meeting tonight at the Town of Vincent as I will be attending the City of Stirling meeting whereby I have put forward a similar notice of motion to stop the DAP’s  at the City of Stirling  council meeting tonight.

The more Councils formalise their opposition to the DAPs (or at least the way they currently over-ride local communities and planning schemes), the more likely action to reign them is - especially with the next state election being just 12 months away. So lobby your own Council, if you can, to pass similar resolutions and make the DAPs a central issue in the next state election.

Remember, the DAP debacle comes on top of failed forced local government reform, reneging on MAX light rail, the contentious Perth Freight Link, failures of hospital programs and out-of-control state debt.

Roe 8 Decision Highlights Deeper Malaise

No doubt many words will be written and spoken (and cartoons drawn), and rightly so, about the Supreme Court decision invalidating the environmental approvals for the contentious Roe 8 highway project across the Beeliar wetlands.

For those who want to find out more, the judgment can be downloaded from http://decisions.justice.wa.gov.au/supreme/supdcsn.nsf/judgment.xsp?documentId=4DC12FEF66845A8248257F1D00095F93&action=openDocument&SessionID=EA3F2IOG9F.

The Editor of the West Australian is increasingly isolated in supporting Roe 8 and the broader Perth Freight Link, which flies in the face of decades of bipartisan freight planning for Perth and WA - and was cobbled together only to 'replace' MAX light rail funding when then-PM Tony Abbott said the federal government would only help fund road infrastructure, not public transport.

In finding that the Environmental Protection Authority ignored its own policies, Chief Justice Wayne Martin highlights the politicisation, incompetence or worse that has infected too many important decisions of public service and so-called independent agencies. Even now, Barnett's response is that Roe 8 will go ahead because he'll find a way around the Supreme Court's judgment.

There is another court case in progress that highlights precisely the same issue - this one about the Development Assessment Panels (DAPs) ignoring the requirement to have regard to local Town Planning Schemes. Wayne Martin's judgment will give great heart the many who are aghast at the DAPs' riding roughshod over long-standing community expectations that have been enshrined in their local town planning schemes, which have the status of law under the Planning and Development Act, 2005.

Why is it that we can no longer trust our governments or agencies that supposedly represent our interests to do so impartially, intelligently and with integrity? Why do we have to resort to the courts to ensure that they do the jobs they were elected (no mention of the PFL in the 2013 WA election) or employed to do?

Strange Day - Now I Agree With Simpson

Regular and long-time readers of this blog will be aware that I have a long-running and fundamental difference of view with both Premier Colin Barnett and Local Government Minister, Tony Simpson, on local government matters. So it is with some trepidation that I follow my agreement earlier today with Col (http://ianrker-vincent.blogspot.com.au/2015/10/i-agree-with-col-pity-col-doesnt.html) with an agreement with Tony Simpson.

According to the ABC (below): 

Local Government Minister Tony Simpson stopped short of saying Ms Scaffidi should resign, but said a member of Cabinet who acted in the same way would be sacked.

The ABC also reported that:

Mr Simpson flagged changes to annual returns in the local government sector including that they be lodged more frequently and be made more accessible to the public.

I agree, but it is only a couple of months since local governments refused to take an opportunity to support doing just that (http://ianrker-vincent.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/rocks-in-their-heads.html), so local councils will now be on the back foot and the Minister has the high moral ground.

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-07/lord-mayor-scaffidi-unable-to-release-in-information-defence/6833886

Col Pot's Potty Economics

Yet again, Colin Barnett shows he doesn't understand local government - not to mention having incredible cheek to lecture others on financial responsibility when he has presided over economic disaster, driven by his 'captain's picks' of infrastructure spending.

If the rates on an individual property go up by $600, as he instances, this is almost certainly due to either (a) the Valuer General revaluing properties (as is required every few years) and increasing the value of some by more than others or (b) the property being revalued as a result of improvements, additions or alterations.

In the former case, even if Council rate revenue were to remain the same, some properties would pay more and others less.

Looked at another way, the highest rate increase for 2015/16 is 8% (Victoria Park). For this to equate to $600, the previous rates payable must have been $7,500 - which implies a 'Gross Rental Value' (the basis on which rates are calculated) of just under $100,000. By comparison, the GRV of my house in Mt Lawley is about one-quarter of that - even the 8% rate increase would be $150 - not $600.

So it looks like the $600, if, indeed, it is a real figure and not just a figment of Col's imagination, is most likely largely the result of revaluation, for one reason or another, or the property is a commercial one not, as many people would have assumed, a residential one (ie the case facing most people). Of course, $600 is important to business as well as to households, but Col shouldn't be misleading us into thinking about how $600 would affect us as individuals.