Perth Voice Interactive

IAN KER of Vincent Street, Mt Lawley was an inaugural councillor for the-then Town of Vincent, elected in 1995, and served 14 years on council until 2009, including a stint as deputy mayor. If Vincent disappears, he will hold, for all time, the record for length of service on council to the Vincent community.

It was great to see so many people taking an active interest in the future of Vincent on Saturday, but I was left with a distinct feeling of “those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it”.

When Vincent was created in 1994, cast adrift by a City of Perth that did not want it, we very soon discovered the extent of the neglect we had suffered. Infrastructure was run-down and community services did not meet the needs of the Vincent community.

And I remember very clearly the pathetic sight of a huge digger stranded in the western lake of Hyde Park because the City of Perth had “run out of money” for the project—it couldn’t even complete a simple dredging of one lake, never mind the comprehensive renewal project now nearing completion by the City of Vincent.

Now, after nearly two decades of rectifying that and creating a genuine Vincent community, we are being told it is in our best interests to again be swallowed up by the City of Perth.

Speaker after speaker on Saturday spoke passionately of Vincent being unique, of the vitality and diversity of Vincent.

Speaker after speaker spoke passionately about Vincent being different from the largely suburban City of Stirling.

Then they destroyed their credibility by saying Vincent had so much in common with the City of Perth, although I got the distinct impression some didn’t quite believe this.

But where is the diversity in the City of Perth? Where is the vitality? Where are the people a lot of the time? To the extent there is diversity, it is segregated—offices, shops, restaurants and residential largely occupy separate places. In Vincent we value the mixing of these uses.

Yes, Vincent should not be split between Perth and Stirling.

No, Vincent should not be reabsorbed into WA’s business capital.

And to those who say they are only being realistic, I say, in the words of the winner of the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in Philosophy: “It may well be that the impossible can become possible only by being stated at a time when it is impossible.”

More simply, if you don’t ask you won’t get!