Perth Voice Interactive

A PRIDE flag will soon fly outside Bayswater council HQ in a reversal of the council’s decision earlier this year not to erect a fifth flagpole.

Councillor Nat Latter first put up a proposal in January to install the extra pole outside the Broun Avenue civic centre to fly the Pride flag and other optional banners alongside the existing four: The Australian flag, WA state flag, Aboriginal flag, and Torres Strait Islander flag.

The first attempt was voted down 5/5 with mayor Filomena Piffaretti using her casting vote against.

While one resident last week commented that “there’s a sense of de ja vu about this notice,” the balance of power has shifted at Bayswater following the re-election of Sally Palmer in March (“Pride flag revisited”, Voice, November 16, 2024), and this week councillors voted 6/5 to install the extra pole at an estimated cost of $11,500. 

Speaking in favour of their revived motion this week, Cr Latter said “whilst I accepted that January council decision it made me really sad to hear the lack of understanding of the issues being faced by marginalised members of our community, and I received many emails from residents who felt dismayed by the decision.”

Cr Latter referenced the events in Albany in August when a group called “Keeping Children Safe Albany,” backed by the Australian Christian Lobby, urged the council to ban books which they claimed were “sexualising” children. Two of the titles at the focus of the furore were sex education books that depicted same-sex relationships.

Cr Latter said: “I want to give you a little bit of context for me bringing this back: I spent some time in Albany during the recent special electors’ meeting down there and saw firsthand the impact on the LGBTIQA+ community of groups using public institutions to further their bigotry, discrimination, and hate speech, where local councillors have been using their platform to sow that division. And this is the context that we work in now: An imported politics of division. 

“It’s important, really important, to demonstrate that the City of Baywater is a welcoming and inclusive place, to fly the flag, and show that hate has no home here…”

Cr Latter said: “The arguments made in January were largely about cost: It was too costly to do this. 

“And then some months later council unanimously voted to install a flag pole in Halliday Park to fly the New Zealand flag one day a year, and I supported that because I believe it’s important that people see themselves represented in the ways that are important to them on the occasions that matter to them… no one tut-tutted about the cost for one day, and it’s the same cost that you see before you today.”

Those in favour of the new pole were councillors Latter, Palmer, Elli Petersen-Pik, Dan Bull, Lorna Clarke, and Giorgia Johnson. Those opposed were Assunta Melecca, Steven Ostaszewskyj, Josh Eveson, Michelle Sutherland, and Ms Piffaretti. The mayor has been a firm supporter of Pride, voted in favour of funding Pride events in Bayswater, and stood up for Drag Queen Storytime at local libraries, but did not speak on the flagpole issue at this week’s meeting.

by DAVID BELL