Perth Voice Interactive

IN the same week that the CCC has blasted lord mayor Lisa Scaffidi for failing to disclose travel information, her CEO has told the Voice to lodge a freedom of information request if we want to know how much ratepayers’ money is being spent on clothes, gifts and travel for elected members.

The FOI process is lengthy and expensive. The last one we lodged took eight weeks and a couple of hundred bucks.

This time we lodged requests with the council’s media team to see elected members’ annual accounts (which should be public documents). Three weeks later, CEO Gary Stevenson has come back to tell us to lodge an FOI.

Last month the Voice locked horns with Mr Stevenson and his media team over the way they handled inquiries about Ms Scaffidi’s part-ownership of a building that houses a notorious backpackers’.

Now, with Ms Scaffidi’s election rival Reece Harley making clothing expenses an election issue — he plans to ban the perks — the FOI stumbling block means the information will not see the light of day till long after election day.

Along with ending clothing reimbursements—a position backed by WA local government minister Tony Simpson this week—Cr Harley wants gift and travel registers put online, as the City of Melbourne does, so ratepayers can peruse them at their leisure.

Across the border at Vincent, councillors recently resolved to put their gift register online, and mayor John Carey says there’s no way he’d require that anyone lodge an FOI just to get expenses information.

“All that information should be available,” he says. “It should just be handed over.”

The Voice took a look at the Vincent gift register recently. There wasn’t much on it except for a couple of free movie tickets for local film festivals, and one time a resident gave the mayor a $10 bottle of red wine.

by DAVID BELL