Perth Voice Interactive

“POORLY led, badly governed, dysfunctional”; inquirer Tony Power says the City of Perth deserved to be dismissed and there are dozens of potential crimes to be investigated by other authorities.

Presenting his closing address on June 30, Mr Power said “the inquiry has referred over 135 matters, many concerning suspected criminal behaviour, in respect of 23 individuals and one organisation, including council members and senior members of the administration, to 17 different Commonwealth and state authorities”. 

Mr Power was originally supposed to make a recommendation on whether the local government minister should dismiss the council, but there are no councillors left – during suspension the majority had their term expire, and the rest were removed as they no longer had the numbers to hold a quorum.

Mr Power said “had it been necessary, the recommendation would have been that the entire council be dismissed”. 

He slammed the council’s fo r mer senior management as “dysfunctional and inefficient”.

He said since the WA government appointed commissioners to replace councillors, “a number of positive steps have been taken to address many of the failings identified in this inquiry’s report”.

None of the senior executives which ran the administration during the period investigated by the inquiry remain.

“Overall, the city was poorly led, badly governed, dysfunctional and as a result failing in its most important duty of all, namely, to properly serve the needs and interests of its community.”

Mr Power said he makes no apology for the length of the inquiry, which was extended because of the depth of the problems and to give the 39 people initially facing “adverse findings” in December 2019 time to respond. 

The report’s 250 findings and 300 recommendations are now with local government minister David Templeman, who says he intends on releasing the report but first wants to read it and take legal advice.

Mr Templeman said Tuesday: “I will need to take appropriate time to consider the report and its findings… there are some issues that raise some deep concerns”. He’d prefer to table it at parliament’s next sitting on August 11. 

Cankerous

INQUIRER Tony Power gave a preview of the problems that have been uncovered in his report:

• Council candidates “interfered with election processes and corrupted the democratic process”.

• Councillors made decisionsto advance their own “personal interests”;

• Councillors interfered withadmin’s day-to-day operations;

• “Cankerous” relationshipsbetween councillors affecting their working relationship. Mr Power said “the lord mayor, Ms Lisa Scaffidi, occupied an important role and had a statutory obligation to provide leadership and guidance to the whole of council. Instead, she too often encouraged division and factionalism”;

• “Misuse by some councilmembers of entitlements”;

• “Council membersreceiving gifts, including tickets to events,” and then sponsoring the gifting organisation;

• A “peculiar partnership”between the City of Perth and a not-for-profit organisation, which didn’t comply with council policies and “involved significant funding”;

• Poor decisions byadministration, including not reporting misconduct, poor project management, poor financial management;

• Problems with procuringgoods and services, with issues including “unauthorised expenditure and undeclared conflicts of interest, to manipulation of tender documents and a failure to properly deal with allegations of serious misconduct by employees”. Last year the inquiry heard across two days the case of council employees manipulating tenders so the company they favoured would get a lucrative contract. A weak internal investigation found no wrongdoing.

• “The termination of anapparently competent CEO and his replacement by one more favoured by the then-majority of council,” referring to the council ousting Gary Stevenson shortly after he advised them he had a duty to report misconduct. 

Mr Power said many of the problems “exist in some form or another in many local governments in this state”. 

Harley urges quick release

FORMER Perth councillor Reece Harley, who’s yet to decide whether he’ll run in October’s local government elections, has written an open letter to local government minister David Templeman imploring him to release the City of Perth inquiry report “as soon as possible” in the interests of transparency.

“There are hundreds of hard-working and dedicated professional staff at the city who do not deserve to have their reputations tarnished with a cloud of suspicion hanging over them.

“Once the report is released residents, ratepayers, business owners and stakeholders of the city will be able to read it for themselves and make up their own minds about what transpired over those years.”

By DAVID BELL

“NOT fair” and “a sneak attack” is how some Bayswater councillors have described the city’s proposed budget.

Councillors Catherine Ehrhardt, Elli Petersen-Pik, Steven Ostaszewskyj and  Michelle Sutherland, voted against the budget at the council’s June 30 meeting, over concerns a Covid assistance measure will see owners of less valuable properties subsidising their fancier neighbours.

Like other councils Bayswater is “freezing” the amount it takes in rates this year because of coronavirus impacts, but while most councils have stuck to basing their bills on the rental value of a property, Bayswater has introduced a “concession” system.

What that means is that while other councils will still have some rates bills going up and some going down depending on how each property’s value has fared since the last valuation, everyone in Bayswater will get the same bill as last year.

Cr Petersen-Pik doesn’t think that’s fair: “I don’t consider it fair to not apply the gross rental value, and have some ratepayers essentially subsidise property owners whose rental values went up.”

Bayswater’s gross rental values have fallen 15 per cent since the last review by WA’s valuer general, which Cr Ehrhardt says should have seen around 58 per cent of ratepayers getting a smaller rates bill, which would have be offset by higher bills going out the rest.

That, she said, made the budget “nothing more than a sneak attack to make the majority of our ratepayers pay more than they ordinarily would this year had we continued rating under normal circumstances”. 

Cr Ostaszewskyj said of the concession system: “I feel it is too risky and I feel it is not fair.

“I do not feel it is the right time to try this experiment, nor do I feel that this rebate or concession is fair to all ratepayers. It distorts the rating system.”

Cr Sutherland said her main concerns were they were still relying too much on rates and draining far too much from reserves to fund projects this year. 

Cr Petersen-Pik was also concerned about the reserves, which would be depleted by a third.

“Those reserves were built very slowly by previous councils for specific purposes to ensure that if there are unexpected failures, or sudden needs for specific infrastructure or services, we will have the money to provide them quickly… how and when are we going to replenish those reserves?

“By taking $14m from the reserves, we are going to lose $1.3m in interest revenue each year. It’s not a one-off loss, but an ongoing one. I don’t think it is financially sustainable.” 

But the majority voted in favour of the budget, with mayor Dan Bull saying it delivers on the promise of a zero per cent rate increase and injects “$31m in works to help stimulate our local economy – this is double that of the previous year”.

By DAVID BELL

WESTERN AUSTRALIA will lose a seat in federal parliament under an Australian Electoral Commission rejig on July 3.

Federal Labor MP Patrick Gorman, whose division Perth is safe from the chop, says it’s a huge shakeup. 

“For the first time since Federation, WA is going to lose a federal seat,” Mr Gorman says.

The numbers of seats each state gets is based on population and Victoria’s set to get a new seat at WA’s expense.

ABC election expert Antony Green says boundary changes will be “enormous” and predicts Burt, Hasluck, or Tangney might go, with Burt a prime candidate as it was only created in 2016.

Mr Gorman says WA needs strong representation to tackle issues like unemployment (his most recent speech in parliament urged the Morrison government not to abruptly cut off JobKeeper in September).

Mr Gorman says one upside is he’ll get  7,000 new voters in his electorate. 

No border proposals are out yet, but Perth might edge northwards to take in some suburbs it used to hold.

“I love the diversity of the electorate,” he says. “Adding 7,000 people, you’re going to add more diversity, which is a good thing.”

The AEC’s formal decision is due July 3 and then consultation starts on potential boundary re-drawings, and renaming electorates is also up for debate.

Mr Gorman says he likes his electorate’s name. “It’s a Federation seat and it’s stood the test of time,” he says, adding other capitals have a seat named for them, and it’d put Perth at a disadvantage advocacy-wise if the name didn’t match. 

Tradition follows that after the death of a former prime minister, a seat is named for them, and Mr Gorman says “I’d love to see a seat named after Bob Hawke here in WA.

“We know it’s where he developed his love for politics. We know that Bob Hawke, without Hazel, probably would never become prime minister, [and] he met Hazel in WA.”

By DAVID BELL

A TRAFFIC apocalypse is predicted after the July school holidays if Perth people don’t return to public transport pronto.

During the height of restrictions at the end of March, freeway use dropped from 1.5 million cars per week to about 1 million.

They’ve now sprung back up to 95 per cent of pre-Covid levels and city car bays are filling up as commuters take advantage of free on-street bays and the cheap $10 all day rates in undercover council carparks.

Department of Transport stats show bus and train use has likewise tumbled from about 430,000 SmartRider boardings per day to below 50,000 per day. 

Despite public transport resuming usual schedules and premier Mark McGowan ensuring people it’s safe, boardings are still down 150,000 from what they should be in a typical wintery June.

Not sustainable

A Perth council report says “the proportion of commuters currently driving to the CBD is not sustainable” and bays are filling up with city workers rather than shoppers. Some retailers have reported shoppers saying they’re having a tough time finding a spot. 

“The city has observed increasing levels of congestion with each announcement by the premier on the lifting of restrictions, with the next announcement to occur after the July school holidays,” the report warns. 

This week chair commissioner Andrew Hammond moved the city incrementally restore the old prices in city carparks buildings, getting them from $10 a day back to pre-Covid levels by the end of the year (averaging a bit under $20). 

“What we need now is the people that were commuting [on public transport] prior to Covid to start commuting again so that’ll free up some of this parking space for our retail customers,” Cmmr Hammond said.

The other commissioners endorsed his plan.

The council’s parking staff say it’s tough to predict whether the higher prices will have an impact on parker behaviour but they’ll keep an eye on levels.

Commissioners also voted to extend the one-hour free street parking trials on Royal Street and Hay Street, and extend the three-hour free parking in some of the city carparks on weekends, both until mid 2021. They’d hoped to use those trials to see if retailers got a boost, but the numbers were skewed by the pandemic. 

By DAVID BELL

CITY of Perth commissioners have confirmed planning will go ahead for the 2021 Australia Day Skyworks.

Planning on the $2.8 million event has to start soon if it’s to get sorted in time, and chair commissioner Andrew Hammond said staff should get the ball rolling so as to not tie the hands of the new council to be elected in October.

He says there’s many varied viewpoints on Skyworks but commissioners shouldn’t be cancelling it, and the new council should have a discussion with the community about whether to fund Skyworks and celebrate Australia Day.

If the new council decides to pull the plug immediately after getting elected, the city would’ve already spent about $556,000 in planning and staff time. 

They’ll keep in regular contact with WA’s chief health officer and police commissioner to check if the event can still go ahead. 

When deciding who to buy their fireworks from, a key part of the tender criteria will be whether the supplier is willing to shoulder some of the financial risk if it’s cancelled, instead 

of leaving them with 45 tonnes of unwanted explosives.

THE big Northbridge (à la Hollywood and Venice) sign has got its $35,000 grant.

The sign by organisation Happy Heart (Adrian Fini and Marcus Canning’s venture to re-launch the Rechabite) will go up on William Street near the horseshoe bridge as part of an overall $1 million improvement program, also redeveloping Hook Lane and Lock Lane. 

A TWENTY-METRE mural has sprung up in one day on the wall of YMCA’s Leederville HQ.

The idea came about when some of the HQ folk went to the June 13 Black Lives Matter rally and loved a snake design worn by rapper Josh ‘Flewnt’ Eggington and organisers from Dumbartung Aboriginal Corporation.

They asked mural artist Kevin Wilson and he got in touch with Robert and Selina Eggington from Dumbartung to bring them in on the design, and renowned Noongar artist Graham ‘Swag’ Taylor swapped his oil paint brushes for spraycans to help paint it.

Mr Eggington says there’s a lot of history to the snake, which was used at the Kyana Corroborees on the Perth Esplanade back in the early 90s. The events were a celebration of struggle and survival following the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. 

Mr and Mrs Eggington put their handprints in paint as a final touch, and Mr Eggington says he’s proud to see the symbols kept current by the next generation: Along with the snake, the mural features the corroboree’s maxim “may our campfires burn forever” 

“This is more than a mural,” Mr Egginton says. “It’s a historical statement… that our cultural identity and spirituality is as strong as it has been since the beginning of time. 

“To see that symbol now in 2020, 30-odd years later, maintaining its prominence, gives me a sense in my twilight years that as Dumbartung and Kyana both merge into the next generation, that it’s in capable hands of people understanding where those symbols of strength came from.”

Like the corroborees, the painting on June 23 wasn’t untouched by racism: “Even when we were finishing it, there was one word of abuse shouted out from the freeway.” Mr Eggington says that was outweighed when he saw “a car of four or five Noongars, smiling, taking a photo”. 

A skater told him “we will look out for this one”.

By DAVID BELL