Incorrect Call For Nominations

Surely the 'Call for Nominations'  for the local government elections on 19th October 2013 is at best misleading - or perhaps it gives hope to those of us who believe the emperor's forced amalgamation process should not succeed. It calls for nominations for 4-year terms or in some cases (such as where Vincent's Mayor has jumped ship*) 2-year terms, which would end in October 2017 or 2015 respectively.

And yet the emperor has published a timeline for amalgamations that would see commissioners installed on 1st July 2015 - less than 21 months after the October 2013 elections.

In the interests of honesty and truth (virtues in very short supply in this saga) in advertising, the call for nominations should at least state that the WA Government has stated its intention to abolish most of the metropolitan local governments and install commissioners on 1st July 2015.

*  No comments about rats and sinking ships, please.

Backdown Barnett

Amazing - another example of an entirely predictable community backlash causing a substantial change in policy. What is it with this Government that it is so out of touch with real people that it can't even anticipate the blindingly obvious.

I wouldn't blame the families here on 457 visas if they adopted the spirit of the slogan that led to the War of American Independence: no taxation without representation - in their case, it might be 'no taxation without education'.

More Lies? Or Just a Promise that 'Doesn't Matter'

As a Councillor for the then Town of Vincent, I was always supportive of our schools and their need to upgrade facilities on what are often small sites. Indeed, the whole issue of 'Where Will They Go To School' as families moved back into the inner suburbs, was one which I was very concerned.

So I am disappointed to see the reduction in funding for much-needed enhancements to the Mt Hawthorn Primary School.

Guardian Express, 27th August 2013

I am not surprised, though, given the stated view of the Premier that "Promises don't matter".

Another Penny Dropping?

Alannah MacTiernan and Vincent Council have placed their faith in coming to agreement with the City of Perth on incorporation of the whole of Vincent, notwithstanding the fact that the Premier and the Local Government Minster seem to have different views about this.

Now it becomes clear that the City of Perth isn't enthusiastic about taking on the whole of Vincent, anyway.

Guardian Express, 27th August 2013

And whilst this is an officers' report not yet the endorsed view of elected Council, it is hard to believe that this report would have come to Council without a reasonable certainty of its being supported by elected members.

I hate to say "I told you so", but I did tell you so in my earlier post, 'Pyrrhic Victory'.

Not Convincing

I didn't hear Local Government Minister, Tony Simpson, on ABC (and it's not on the ABC website - at least not yet), but the 'Freo's View' report of it sounds what one would expect on the basis of recent (non)performance.

http://freoview.wordpress.com/2013/08/27/fremantles-council-amalgamation-fight/#comment-19639

Oh! Did he really say "twinkering"? Perhaps he had been reading Wayne Visser's poem of that name, which comes across as unnervingly appropriate:

Making changes, swift and small

That seem to matter not at all

Yet send us forth on tangled ways

Into the heart of life's great maze.

Non-Evidence-Based Policy

For those who have been wondering at the lack of evidence from Barnett and Co about the 'benefits' of larger local governments, there is nothing new in a government's inability to base policy on evidence - nor in changing from co-operation to coercion.

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But the evidence is there for Barnett and Co to ignore, too.

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The Penny Drops - At Last

At long last, Alannah MacTiernan, Mayor of Vincent, has realised what this blog has been saying for the past month - Barnett and his minions/ministers can't be trusted, can't get their acts together and simply say what they think serves their purposes best at any particular time.

Click to enlarge

And I'm not sure that 'Vincent ratepayers were celebrating' on August 14 about the possibility of the whole of Vincent being swallowed up by the City of Perth - not if Vincent's own consultation is anything to go by (see previous post on this blog).

Vincent Council Ignores Its Own Consultation

Perhaps in answer to the question I posed in the previous post, Margaret found the item below on-line. It seems that Vincent Council has ignored consultation it has already undertaken and would, therefore, be potentially embarrassed by the results of a referendum.

BTW, the headline is a product of its time and has since been shown to be at best partially correct (Bayswater is enthusiastic about taking over Bassendean and part of Stirling - not sure there are many other enthusiasts out there any more).

What's changed, Alannah?

Back in 1993, when the State Government refused to hold a referendum on the splitting of the City of Perth, Perth City Council ran its own referendum.

Guess who was a City of Perth Councillor at that time - our very own Alannah MacTiernan.

Fast-forward to 2013. The WA Government is forcing changes (splits/amalgamations) to local governments and has stated its intention to remove the provision in the Local Government Act that allows electors to call for a poll on any such changes.

Why, I wonder, does Vincent, with Alannah as Mayor, not think it worth emulating the 1993 City of Perth in running its own referendum - perhaps in conjunction with the October 2013 local government election.

This referendum should have two questions (to avoid the problems of the republic referendum, which split the vote between two republic options).
- Should the City of Vincent be split between Perth and Stirling, as proposed by the WA Government?
- Should Vincent continue as a local government in its own right or become part of the City of Perth?

And Again! Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

In the 9th November 1993 debate on the City of Perth Restructuring Bill, the process leading to the 'autocratic announcement being made by the Government' was described thus (Hansard, 9th November 1993):

"…nothing was contained in the policies and programs of the Government when in Opposition to indicate that it had a proposal of this kind in prospect."

"…no consultation occurred at all with the elected members. Not only did the ratepayers of Western Australia not know a thing about this, but also the PCC councillors had to find out by the small number of leaks that occurred."

"Despite a clear, unanimous proposition put to the Minister that there must be a referendum on this question, he simply sat there … and repeated the lines that the decision had been made and the Government would not change it."

"In the context of no election policy relating to this question - in fact, some policies that directly contradict it - no consultation with the elected representatives is the height of arrogance. It is a totally undemocratic stance to say to the electors and ratepayers, "I'm sorry. We're not going to consult you. Your views don't matter."

Now, it is true that these statements were made by Dr Carmen Lawrence who, as Leader of the Opposition, had good reason to portray the Government in a bad light, but no Government member interjected, corrected or contradicted any of these statements - despite frequent such responses in other parts of the debate.

If this all sounds horribly familiar, it's probably because it's all happening again - but this time Barnett wants to reverse part of the decision he so fervently supported back then. Funny, though, I don't recall his admitting to having made a mistake back in 1993.

Oh! What a Tangled (World Wide) Web We Weave.

Thanks to the electronic archiving on-line of the Hansard records of parliamentary debates in Western Australia we can see some of the views expressed previously by the Premier of WA on local government.

On 9th November 1993, the Legislative Assembly debated the City of Perth Restructuring Bill, which had been introduced by the then Liberal Government. Colin Barnett was then Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party and Leader of the House in the Legislative Assembly - and hence responsible for ensuring the passage of the Bill through the lower house of the WA Parliament. Whilst he did not speak directly on the Bill, he made a number of interjections, including:

"Do you think it is equitable that the central city should cross-subsidise selected residential areas…? (Hansard, p6493). [By implication arguing that the about-to-be-created municipalities of Vincent, Victoria Park and Cambridge received subsidies from the CBD.]

"Sheer nonsense. What you are saying is that the dormitory areas of Perth are not viable, but suburbs everywhere else can pay for themselves." (Hansard, p6493) [By implication arguing that the about-to-be-created municipalities of Vincent, Victoria Park and Cambridge were viable.]

"Don't you believe in a capital city for Western Australia?" (Hansard p6496) [In response to comment from Diana Warnock that: "The Government has presented this report as justification for splitting up the city in this way and how it can be done economically. People simply are not able to believe the figures.]

"Where is the democracy in that?" (Hansard p6497) [In response to Diana Warnock's statement that : "Most of us want to see improvements in in the planning for the central city, and that is why we advanced the idea of a central city planning authority."]

"…of the 27 councillors only three represent the capital city. Little wonder that it is bereft of life, it lacks planning, it is visually unattractive, and it is empty at the weekends. That is a consequence of the imbalance of the Perth City Council structure, and that must be addressed. (Hansard, p6497). [Presumably this means that if Perth were to reabsorb the whole of Vincent, he would want to ensure that the 11,000 electors of the City of Perth would have more influence than the 20,000 electors of Vincent - a good old-fashioned gerrymander, reminiscent of Jo Bjelke Peterson in Queensland.]

"That is a very efficient council." (Hansard, p6514). [In response to mention of Peppermint Grove by Dr Geoff Gallop.]

Stirring in the ranks

There is stirring in the ranks of those who are unhappy with Col's threat to remove the 'Dadour Amendment' poll provisions of the Local Government Act. This is an issue of democracy and does not depend on one's views of the proposed local government amalgamations themselves. If the proposals are well-thought-out and beneficial, Barnett should be able to convince us of their value.
Go to http://www.communityrun.org/petitions/my-local-government-my-decision for further information and to sign.

Missing the Point

I suppose I should be flattered that Alannah MacTiernan thought my 'Speaker's Corner' piece in the Perth Voice worth responding to. However, it appears that she has missed a key point - namely that you won't get better than you ask for. The Mayors of Kwinana and Stirling are standing up for their communities and their right to have a real say in the process; why are Vincent residents denied this?

Mayor MacTiernan no doubt has her own personal recollections of the City of Perth, having been a Councillor there before being elected to the WA Parliament. These might have coloured her current perception.

She raises the issues of place-making and 'lively street cultures', without, apparently, realising that these are very different beasts in Vincent and Perth. Place-making in a capital city with a daytime transient population of over 100,000 (workers plus visitors) every day is different from placemaking in a smaller centre in close proximity to residents where activity is smaller-scale and more likely to be evenings and weekends

It was Vincent (at the instigation of myself and Vincent's Executive Director of Planning), along with Fremantle, Claremont, Cockburn, Gosnells, Kwinana, Subiaco and Victoria Park that sponsored the 2009 Mainstreet Conference. There was no interest in doing so from the City of Perth.


City of Perth does some good things, no doubt, but the skills and attitudes required to do these things in a CBD are not the same as those required for an inner-urban mixed residential area with urban villages.

I also hope that City of Perth, should Vincent be absorbed by it, becomes a bit more efficient and expeditious in carrying out infrastructure projects. How many years, now, has Wellington Street been a disaster area? And the changes to William Street and St George's Terrace seemed to go on for ever, too.

And, please, no more green worms - as one who fought against the pink milk crates that David Bromfield would have inflicted on the residents of Vincent, I've had more than my fill of garbage masquerading as art.

Word of the Week

Sociopath (from the Urban Dictionary)
A person with antisocial personality disorder. Probably the most widely recognized personality disorder. A sociopath is often well liked because of their charm and high charisma, but they do not usually care about other people. They think mainly of themselves and often blame others for the things that they do. They have a complete disregard for rules and lie constantly. They seldom feel guilt or learn from punishments.

From How to spot a sociopath
Sociopaths are masters at weaving elaborate fictional explanations to justify their actions. When caught red-handed, they respond with anger and threats, then weave new fabrications to explain away whatever they were caught doing.

Sociopaths are masters are presenting themselves as heroes with high morals and philosophy, yet underneath it they are the true criminal minds in society who steal, undermine, deceive, and often incite emotional chaos among entire communities. They are masters at turning one group of people against another group while proclaiming themselves to be the one true savior. Wherever they go, they create strife, argument and hatred, yet they utterly fail to see their own role in creating it. They are delusional at so many levels that their brains defy logical reasoning.

You cannot reason with a sociopath. Attempting to do so only wastes your time and annoys the sociopath.

At last……………

A Mayor who is willing to stand up and say that the emperor's forced local government changes are not in the interests of his community. [See 'Kwinana Comes to Life' for another.]

Perth Voice, Saturday 24th August 2013. [Click to enlarge]

Another unfunded 'promise'

And we shouldn't be surprised if the bidding consortia build up the price now they know there could be $100 million more available.

Confusion and Mixed Messages

From the Guardian Express, 20th August 2013 (click to enlarge)

 

Serendipitous Sunset

Sun sets on the City of Vincent (Photograph: Ian Ker © 2009)

Singer/songwriter/folkie Don McLean was in Perth on Monday and, of course, he sang his 'anthem', Vincent. How eerily appropriate are these lines from that song:

I could have told you, Vincent, this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.

They would not listen, they're not listening still, perhaps they never will.

More Lies

Just when you thought it might (? - not really!) be safe to believe something a Minister in the Barnett Government said - even if only because even the most cynical of them must see their credibility getting rather thin - there comes another example of lies, incompetence, mushroom treatment or simple confusion.

Barnett Government Fails To Follow Due Process

It seems that local government is not the only issue on which the Barnett Government thinks itself above the law and its requirements for due process.

The WA Supreme Court has ruled invalid the WA Government's approval of the James Price Gas Hub in the Kimberley, on the grounds that the process was flawed.

The Barnett Government has shown similar lack of respect for well-established requirements of the law in its forcing of local government amalgamations and will be subject to similar legal challenges.