Perth Voice Interactive

BAYSWATER council has delayed signing off the minutes of its October 31 meeting after a resident fact-checked a claim by an unsuccessful candidate in that month’s council elections.

Nirmal Singh had spoken out at the meeting against the council flying the Aboriginal flag at half mast following the failed Voice to Parliament referendum, claiming “all the polling booths in the City voted no – 51 per cent”. 

Along with being quoted in the Voice, Mr Singh had requested his words be printed in full in the official minutes of the meeting.

They were due to be ratified at Bayswater’s November 21 meeting, but resident Georgina Ker stepped up at public question time last week to fact-check the claim. 

Ms Ker, who’d had an unsuccessful run for the mayor’s spot in the same election, said there was a “factual error” in Mr Singh’s preferred wording.

“I was wondering if the minutes can reflect that it’s not actually true that all of the polling booths in the City of Bayswater voted No to the referendum, as five of them actually voted Yes,” Ms Ker said.

Cr Lorna Clarke agreed the minutes should include an annotation to Mr Singh’s assertion. 

“These minutes go into the history books,” Cr Clarke said. “I was in a meeting the other day in another context where there was literally a set of minute books from 100 years ago. Fascinating reading. 

“We actually want it to reflect historical facts and what the Australian Electoral Commission data is, to the extent that we can.”

Councillors agreed to hold off on ratifying the minutes until staff could confirm Yes-voting booths.

The Chook’s perusal of the booths aligned with Ms Ker’s finding of five where Yes votes prevailed: Bayswater (65.45 per cent yes), Bayswater North (58.6), Bedford (53.38), Maylands (62.45) and Maylands East (64.13).

by DAVID BELL