Perth Voice Interactive

PERTH city council will no longer accept the free tickets it has long been showered with for providing sponsorship.

The Voice has been reporting for years about lord mayors and councillors being provided VIP tickets — some worth hundreds of dollars each — which were essentially bought using ratepayers’ money.

The excuse has always been the elected members needed to make sure the event was worthy of public funding, and they were really martyrs who’d much rather be home watching Downton Abbey than enduring the tedium of box seats at the opera.

The situation came to a head last August when councillor Reece Harley queried the 114 tickets WA Ballet gave the PCC in return for a $55,000 sponsorship package. It was a condition of the sponsorship that WA Ballet hand over 54 tickets for elected members to use, 60 for the CEO and senior executives, and a 15 per cent discount to all Perth city council staff.

“I just have a sense that it’s a bit over the top, it’s more than we’d usually have in an item like this and I think it’s unnecessary,” Cr Harley said at the time.

It earned him a swift rebuke from lord mayor Lisa Scaffidi who said it would be sad if he had been, “spooked by all the current need to talk about putting fear into those who might attend shows or accept invitations”.

Perth city council has now announced it will, “no longer accept tickets or hospitality provided as part of sponsorship, partnership and grant arrangements”.

The move is part of tidying up the books following changes to the local government act.

The PCC will also publish gift and travel registers online, one of Cr Harley’s election pledges during his unsuccessful campaign to unseat Ms Scaffidi at the last election.

All items above $200 must now be declared.

Gifts above $300 are prohibited if the donor’s likely to have any decisions going to council.

At the time of going to print, the only items on the register are a few $275 tickets to the 40under40 Awards for Crs Harley, Jemma Green and Jim Adamos, while Cr Janet Davidson got $550 worth for the same event.

Keith Yong declared a gift from the US department of state for USD$3740 for an international visitor leadership program, along with USD$4550 from them for accommodation and travel.

by DAVID BELL