Perth Voice Interactive

A NEW position for a deputy deputy lord mayor might be created to smooth the transition at Perth council in case lord mayor Basil Zempilas wins his bid for state politics.

Mr Zempilas is running for the Liberal party in the seat of Churchlands in the March 2025 election.

Normally the deputy lord mayor – currently Cr Bruce Reynolds – would act in lieu of a lord mayor who’s otherwise engaged.

But with the election coming up a policy drafted by council staff proposes appointing “a councillor to perform the functions of the lord mayor” in the event that both the lord and deputy are unavailable.

“This, I believe, is prudent and good administration,” Perth city CEO Michelle Reynolds told councillors at the November 12 briefing.

“There are times where circumstances present… needing a timely response,” she said, and having a spare backup “would enable continuity of our business operations should the circumstances arise”. 

Staff have proposed that deputy deputy role be filled by councillor Catherine Lezer, who got the second-most votes when councillors picked Cr Reynolds as their new deputy lord mayor last month. Ms Reynolds said that was following the template of allowances for preference-based backfilling in local government laws. 

The policy would cover the three months starting from January. That’s when Mr Zempilas intends to take a break from the lord mayoral role and focus on campaigning for the Churchlands seat.

Mr Zempilas spoke largely in third person when telling colleagues at Tuesday’s council briefing: “The lord mayor – that’s me, I can speak on his behalf – has said publicly lots of times that he intends to take a leave of absence over roughly this period.” 

Mr Zempilas noted “he may or may not be successful. If he is successful, off he goes,” and council would then have to figure out what to do about replacing him until a new council election. 

Any local government member who wins a seat in parliament is automatically disqualified from being on council.

That could trigger a by-election, but councillors can also request the electoral commissioner to postpone a vote until the next ordinary election scheduled in October 2025. 

Labor premier Roger Cook has previously called for Mr Zempilas to resign from the lord mayoral role if he wants to run for state parliament. If Mr Zempilas had resigned in October 2024 – within one year of his most recent victory at the October 2023 election – new state government rules would’ve allowed the runner-up to replace him. That would’ve been second-place candidate Sandy Anghie, a former councillor who’s had more than a few critiques of Mr Zempilas’ mayoralty. 

The state election is scheduled for March 8. Churchlands was narrowly won by Labor’s Christine Tonkin in 2021 but it’s in a traditionally Liberal-leaning area. It was previously held by Liberal Sean L’Estrange, and conservative independent Liz Constable before him.

by DAVID BELL