Perth Voice Interactive

Axing the Swan River Trust could jeopardise funding for projects along the Maylands foreshore says Bayswater mayor Terry Kenyon and local Labor MP Lisa Baker.

The mayor fears the cash-strapped state government will attempt to get councils to pick up the tab.

Last week the Barnett government announced the SRT—formed in 1989 to protect the Swan and Canning Rivers—would be folded into a new parks and wildlife department.

“The state government has a history of cost-shifting and given the pressures the state’s finances are under it is a real concern for us,” Cr Kenyon says.

“Local governments do not have the resources to take on the cost of looking after the Swan River and I am totally opposed to any attempt by the state government to shift their responsibility.

“We are currently undertaking a lot of work in partnership with the SRT, including the rehabilitation of the Eric Singleton Bird Sanctuary to improve water quality. We also have a number of funding applications pending for future environmental projects and we are keen that these should go ahead, so there is a real concern that these may not happen.”

Ms Baker says the government’s proposed new council boundaries are in the middle of the Swan, not along the foreshore, supporting concerns that management responsibility will shift to councils.

“This is a serious policy shift: The fate of future local riverbank restoration and water quality improvement projects in Maylands and Bayswater are in doubt following the Barnett government’s decision,” she says.

“Why wasn’t it revealed before the March 9 state election?

“The Bath Street jetty foreshore stabilisation in Maylands is an example of a project that we were counting on the continuation of SRT funding to complete.

“The foreshore around the Clarkson and Maylands reserves is also in desperate need of restoration, but we don’t know whether local councils can continue to apply for grants for such projects under the new model.”

The Voice contacted WA environment minister Albert Jacob for comment, but he didn’t get back to us.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK