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.

More on coat of arms

I noticed, in passing today, that Eleni Evangel's billboard on Beaufort Street has had the state coat of arms covered over by a piece of blue plastic (which is nevertheless in danger of blowing off).

I don't know when the WA Today photograph (see my previous post http://ianrker-vincent.blogspot.com.au/2017/03/illegal-political-advertising-misuse-of.html) was taken (although it is presumably recent for the story to benewsworthy), but covering up the coat of arms on the Beaufort Street billboard is tacit acknowledgment that its use was, at best, inappropriate.

I questioned the legality with the Electoral Commission, which replied (very quickly - perhaps indicating that I was not the first to raise the issue):

Use of ‘common badging’ and the State Coat of Arms during the caretaker period is a matter for the Department of Premier and Cabinet under Caretaker Conventions.The Electoral Act 1907 does not address the use of such images during campaign periods. 

The Caretaker Conventions do not specifically mention election advertising, but do state:

This would appear to exclude use of the State coat of arms for any other purpose, including election advertising.

Illegal(?) Political Advertising - misuse of WA coat of arms

First, a disclaimer. Although a long-term resident of the City of Vincent (since 1985), the recent changes to electoral boundaries has shifted me from Perth into Mt Lawley. Clearly, the electoral commission has the same lack of appreciation of 'community of interest' as the Local Government Advisory Board - Mt Lawley south of Walcott Street is very different from Mt Lawley north of it.

Nevertheless, I retain a close interest in the state seat of Perth - and the main candidates clearly support me in this, as I keep getting literature from both Eleni Evangel and John Carey - as well as, correctly, from Simon Millman and Michael Sutherland, candidates for Mt Lawley.

It has previously been reported that Eleni Evangel, member/candidate for Perth, has chosen not to use the Liberal brand in her billboard advertising - although her fliers do have the Liberal brand prominent.

What I do not recall seeing mentioned, however, is that she IS using the WA Government brand/cost of arms (see pic). Is this legal?

http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/second-proliberal-billboard-adorns-lisa-scaffidi-building-20170303-guq0mz.html

And while on the subject of political advertising, can we reduce visual pollution by restricting candidate-specific advertising to the candidate's own electorate. The billboards above are in the Perth electorate and Michael Sutherland should not inflict himself on all and sundry.

South Perth: Find Out What Your Candidates Stand For

I'm not a resident of South Perth (although I was when I first came to WA in 1977), but I applaud the South Perth community for taking the initiative to call a Town Hall meeting at which all seven candidates for the 11th March state election will be able to talk to and be quizzed by the community on an equal footing.

If you are a voter in the South Perth electorate, particularly if you are unsure who to vote for or want to find out how each of the candidates would proposes to represent you on issues of particular concern in South Perth, then take a little of your time to go along.

Telling NSW What We Already Knew In WA

There's an intelligent and incisive assessment by Marie Samson in 'Government News' (http://www.governmentnews.com.au/2017/02/forced-council-mergers-nsw-government-got-wrong) of why forced local government amalgamations came such a cropper in NSW - all of which sounds horribly familiar to those of who were involved in the resistance in WA.

Indeed, coming so soon after the debacles in WA and Queensland, the NSW Government's 'bull-in-a-china-shop' approach can only be seen as a wilful and ideologically-driven refusal to learn from experience or to recognise facts.

An important issue raised in the assessment is clear identification of the roles of local and state governments. The government could have spoken about giving councils more scope and more political clout at state and federal level, rather than bypassing them with new agencies like Urban Growth and the Greater Sydney Commission. In essence, the state government is doing things that local government ought to be doing.

Sounds familiar to WA people fighting the oppressive and arbitrary decision-making of the State-sponsored Development Assessment Panels.

So, to make it easy-to-understand for any government thinking about local government amalgamations, here are the six key factors identified from the NSW experience:

n  Be clear and honest about your intentions from the start

n  Back them up with sufficient evidence and share this evidence

n  Engage closely with communities around what the benefits are to them

n  Listen to and act on residents’ concerns

n  Be consistent with your reasoning and apply it evenly and fairly

n  Build independence into the process, including drawing boundaries, engaging with communities and assessing proposals

Time for Voters' Question Time

Day after day, week after week, year after year, we see parliamentary question time (both federal and state) degenerate into a farce of dorothy-dixers, political point-scoring, obfuscation and name-calling. 

Very occasionally, but increasingly rarely, some useful information is elicited. 

Both sides of politics, whether in government or opposition, are equally to blame, so let's think about how we might actually get some value from Question Time.

Here's a 'radical' (ie democratic) thought. Instead of politicians setting the questions, why not let voters do so? 

The on-line technology to do this already exists. In the UK, e-petitions gaining 10,000 valid signatures will get a response from Government and those with 100,000 will be considered for debate in the Parliament (https://petition.parliament.uk). In the past two years, 380 e-petitions have received a government response and 48 have been debated in Parliament - sometimes with a full day of debate. 30 are currently awaiting a government response and 7 a debate in Parliament.

Only 14 petitions with the requisite 100,000 signatures have been refused debate in Parliament.

Incidentally, e-petitions seem to be totally beyond the WA Parliament (which still requires hard copy with written signatures). E-petitions are accepted by the Federal Parliament, but are referred to the appropriate Minister rather than debated  under public scrutiny.

If our Parliaments and Government find e-petitions too threatening, perhaps we could (in the words of Monty Python) make the move 'from accountancy to lion-taming via banking' (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azkFz1ZbXyU). 

It would be a brave PM, Premier or Minister who responded to a question from voters by slagging off the questioners or effectively refusing to answer the question.

Victory in NSW - But For Whom?

As reported in an earlier post (http://ianrker-vincent.blogspot.com.au/2017/01/lest-we-forget-wa-parallels-in-nsw.html) drawing on reports in Government News, the Government of new NSW Premier, Gladys Berejiklian, has done an about face on some forced local government amalgamations.

Regional amalgamations will be abandoned, but the people of Sydney are not so lucky. Sydney communities whose councils have already been merged will not be given the opportunity to de-merge by plebiscite and those currently the subject of court action will depend upon the outcome of those actions.

As Keith Rhoades, President of Local Government NSW, has stated, this is clearly a political compromise that is likely to satisfy no-one (http://www.lgnsw.org.au/news/media-release/media-release-political-compromise-lost-opportunity).

However, there are some winners as well as the obvious losers. The National Party will welcome the decision as it will help them avoid further humiliations like the 2016 Orange by-election, where the Nationals lost to the Shooters and Fishers Party after having held the seat for 69 years (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-21/orange-by-election-won-by-shooters,-fishers-and-farmers-party/8043658),

The 'split-decision' (even, one might opine, schizophrenic decision) appears unlikely to help the NSW Government in Sydney electorates, where there is strong opposition to forced amalgamations, but there is one group that will be overjoyed by the continuation of previous decisions in the city.

Across Australia, the property development industry has been actively calling for and supporting forced local government amalgamations - it has also been substantially contributing to political party funds. Their interests, though, are not those of the communities within which they operate and upon which they have the greatest impacts. Larger councils, the property interests consider, are more likely to approve ultra-high-density developments that give them the greatest profits - partly because they will be more party-political but more because they are less able to give community-based scrutiny to complex development proposals.

http://www.governmentnews.com.au/2017/02/regional-council-mergers-halted-sydney-mergers-stand/?platform=hootsuite

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

Beware, Bill Marmion (and others) - Lessons from NSW

For some months now there has been relative peace and quiet on the WA local government front, but who knows what might happen after the March 2017 State election.

In NSW, however, the Baird Liberal Government continues to make waves with its forced local government amalgamations, some of which are still working their way through the courts. One of these is the forced amalgamation of Orange, Cabonne and Blayney Councils - the area that just happened to be the subject of a by-election last weekend.

The NSW State seat of Orange had been held by the Nationals since 1947, but no more. In what reports attribute to widespread discontent at the forced local government amalgamations and the stuffed-up ban (then non-ban) of greyhound racing, a right wing independent from the Shooters and Fishers Party has taken the seat.

Local Government NSW President Keith Rhoades said: "This massive repudiation of forced amalgamations comes hot on the heels of the September 10 local government elections, where voters of stand-alone councils sent an equally clear ‘back off’ message to the Liberal/National government".

The Nationals are a partner with the Liberals in the NSW Government and the basis of the voter discontent is said to be that the Nationals "had stood by and said nothing as Premier Mike Baird made 'arbitrary and arrogant decisions' without explaining these decisions to the community or consulting them" (http://www.governmentnews.com.au/2016/11/25625).

Does this sound familiar? I'm sure it does to many of those who were part of the community groundswell that eventually overcame Barnett's ideological push for larger councils in WA. Many local members were at best silent or even supported forced amalgamations in opposition to the voices of their communities.

More recently, Subiaco residents were appalled by the lack of support for their community by their local MLA, Bill Marmion, when faced by the dismembering of the City of Subiaco, without consultation, under the City of Perth Act.

These silent MPs, and Bill Marmion in particular, would do well to ponder their perfidy between now and March 2017. Whilst it is probably too much to hope that they might fall on their swords, it would be nice to hear the occasional 'mea culpa' and sincere promise (as distinct from disposable 'election commitment') to consult and listen to their communities in future.

Democracy Must Be Seen But Not Heard - Let's think outside the box

According to the ABC (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-10/new-local-government-minister-backs-media-gag-on-councillors/7919614), new Local Government Minister Paul Miles has backed the City of Perth's controversial ban on councillors speaking to the media, describing the policy as "democratic".

I guess we shouldn't be surprised coming from the same party (and presumably with the same Departmental advice) as his predecessor's description of the right of local communities to have a binding poll on local government amalgamations as "UNdemocratic" (http://ianrker-vincent.blogspot.com.au/2014/09/a-peculiar-view-of-democracy.html).

Miles also reportedly said that councillors "had nothing to complain about because they knew, or should have known, the council's position when they sought election". 

The only possible interpretation of this baffling statement is that councillors cannot lobby for change from within and residents or ratepayers can only do so from without - and somehow have to get a majority of Council to see the light (definitely problematic with most of current City of Perth Council) and change policy without councillors themselves being able to say anything to gain awareness or support through the media.

How can it be democratic, Mr Miles, to place such a Catch-22 in the way of reform?

Thinking outside the box, though, the City of Perth policy doesn't prevent councillors from discussing matters with private individuals - and we all know how adept the media are at eavesdropping on and reporting private conversations. I suggest it would be very difficult (and politically counter-productive) to prove that a councillor knew the media were going to eavesdrop on a particular 'private' conversation.

And, yet again, WALGA appears to be conspicuous by its absence - despite the very real implicit threat that a similar ban could be imposed on all local governments in the name of democracy.

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.

$108 Million - But NO Disability Access!

Twenty-four years after the passage of the Disability Discrimination Act - and people with disabilities still have to put up with crap like this.

For more detail have a look at  http://gimpled.blogspot.com.au/2016/04/petition-108-million-dollar.html.

"The City of Perth, who approved the reburbishment that was carried out by luxury hotel chain the COMO group, disbanded their Access Advisory Committee two years ago. A disability advocate says that it just ‘fell apart’ after a change of staff and through ‘lack of interest’, despite opposition from the disability community."

City of Vincent also no longer has a Disability Access (later Universal Access) Advisory Group.

Now it's true that the ultimate aim should be for such groups no longer to be necessary, but they should only cease to be when the whole organisation has internalised the concept of universal access.

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.

David Slays Goliath - Again

South Perth residents have succeeded in blocking a 29-storey tower approved by the Development Assessment Panel.

Alannah MacTiernan, former WA Minister for Planning and Infrastructure, supports the DAP system, as a means of balancing strategic and local interests, but she acknowledges that the DAPs have severe problems

Time for the DAPs to be reigned in. They have become a law unto themselves, ignoring local town planning schemes and local communities in favour of development interests.

The West Australian, 25 February 2016

Responsibility Of Ownership Lost On Lisa, It Seems

In yet another apparent demonstration of the need for mandatory elected member education,Perth Lord Mayor, Lisa Scaffidi, apparently doesn't see any link between property ownership and responsibility to the community.

 

Perth Voice, 23rd January 2016

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?

Voters Don't Like Broken Promises

I've written a number of times about the way in which the New South Wales government is repeating the mistakes of the WA government in trying to force amalgamations, but now there's a lesson that the WA government should heed from NSW.

http://www.governmentnews.com.au/2015/12/council-mergers-blamed-for-13-by-election-backlash-in-nsw-coalition-heartland/

Lies and Fallacies - In NSW This Time

I often don't agree with the reported views of NSW radio presenter Alan Jones, but on local government forced amalgamations he is spot on. 

I've just watched the video of his address to the rally in Sydney with a total sense of deja vu (not to mention vindication) as he was saying all the same things we said here in WA in our successful community-based campaign against forced local government amalgamations - including lies ('no forced amalgamations' before the election) and fallacious arguments ('economies of scale'). 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soxRTTFPgDM&feature=youtu.be

Another one bites the dust - but will Simpson keep him on?

I don't know whether Mel Congerton was a good councillor for City of Swan, but he certainly compromised the independence of the Local Government Advisory Board in the local government so-called reform process.

The question is whether Local Government Minister, Tony Simpson, will keep him as Chair of the LGAB now that he has been defeated by the now-youngest councillor in the Metropolitan area. Under the Local Government Act, the Minister's nomination to the LGAB, who is required to be the Chair of the board, is not required to be an elected member of a local government.

And will WALGA have a view on this?

https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/wa/a/29853911/younger-faces-take-places-on-councils