Perth Voice Interactive

A ONE-WARD approach could spell the end of the ordinary citizen running for council.

If Perth and Vincent merge it could lead to just having one city-wide ward where elections are a free-for-all.

Mayor John Carey says having only one ward would require spending $40,000 to $50,000 to letterbox every house in the newly merged council: “The only people who can afford that are developers,” he says.

Vincent also opposes any ward system that doesn’t offer “one vote, one value”—meaning it opposes having four councillors from the old Perth and four from the old Vincent, which would in effect be a gerrymander for voters in the current Perth.

Vincent councillors voted to form a working committee to nut out the ward problem and to push for a multi-ward, one-vote one-value system.

CORRECTION: We published some dodgy figures in last week’s story comparing the size of Vincent and Perth. Vincent has 31,549 residents and Perth has 18,988.