Perth Voice Interactive

OUTSPOKEN Stirling councillor Elizabeth Re has announced she’ll take on incumbent mayor Mark Irwin in a re-run of their 2019 rivalry.

Cr Re previously ran for mayor against Mr Irwin in 2019, and has often found herself at odds with the majority of fellow councillors. She has sometimes extensively argued her corner to the audible frustration of Mr Irwin who chairs the council meetings. 

In the past term they’ve been at loggerheads over the oft-debated trackless tram project, which won federal funding to start a trial along Scarborough Beach Road in October. Mr Irwin’s been a key supporter of the idea – and this week he pointed out that Cr Re had previously supported trackless trams. But Cr Re says her main objection with the project is that local government can’t afford to be taking the lead on public transport infrastructure and it should be paid for by higher levels of government.

Cr Re says another main driver for her run is to get more support for local clubs. She was the only councillor to vote against this year’s budget, mainly on the grounds that it slashed maintenance funds for the council’s ageing community buildings which host sports teams and social clubs.

“We don’t seem to be putting the community first,” Cr Re said.

She says in the past month four clubs have hit serious maintenance issues in their council-owned facilities and faced delays when reporting them to Stirling, from drains at Wembley Downs failing during storms to a Balcatta sports team finding their toilets were broken on game day. 

“Celebration Park, which hosts the women’s soccer team the Redbacks, haven’t had their hot water system working since June,” Cr Re said. She put up a motion this week to try to get more timely responses to emergency maintenance issues, with a review due by November.

The incumbent Mr Irwin had a comfortable win in the 2019 mayoral election where he got a hefty 39 per cent of the vote in a six-way race, and Cr Re held second place with 23 per cent.

This time round optional preferential voting will be in play, but that’ll only be relevant if more than two candidates run, and so far only Mr Irwin and Cr Re have announced a tilt.

by DAVID BELL