NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND

Paul Miles takes over as local government minister

Following the unseemly, not to say bizarre, departure from office of local government minister Tony Simpson last weekend, Premier Colin Barnett has appointed Paul Miles MLA to replace him. 

Mr. Miles, Liberal member for Wanneroo in the lower house of the WA parliament, will not have to exert himself overmuch to improve on his underperforming predecessor.

The new minister was elected to parliament in 2008.  Previously, he had served as councillor for the City of Wanneroo’s North Ward.  He has an impressive record of community involvement, including stints as president, vice-president, treasurer and secretary of the Wanneroo Lions Club.

Since 2013, he has held the position of parliamentary secretary to the attorney general and the minister for commerce.  He has also chaired the parliament’s joint standing committee on delegated legislation.

Hansard records that Mr. Miles in the course of his parliamentary career has made more than 370 speeches covering a wide range of topics.  His inaugural speech (or ‘maiden speech’, as it used to be known before the virus of political correctness congested the lungs of legislative deliberation) focussed on planning and road safety issues in his electorate.

In his life before politics, Mr. Miles worked in information technology as a senior technician.   Last month, he joined the WA Council for the Ageing in hosting a forum in Wanneroo on cyber security attended, according to his website, by ‘over 100 tech-savvy seniors’.

Mr. Miles now faces what I fancy he will come to regard as the challenge of a lifetime—namely, taking control of the multifarious self-replicating shape-changing lifeforms infesting the headquarters of the WA Department of Local Government and Communities in Gordon Stephenson House.

I wish him all the luck he’s going to need.

Hon. Paul Miles, MLA, Minister for Local Government

POSTSCRIPT:  Please note that my mischievous characterisation of DLGC bureaucrats wasn’t intended to apply to everyone employed by the department.  It was aimed solely at the senior staff responsible, among other evils, for the sacking of our council in 2014; for the appointment of James Best as commissioner, with all of its horrible consequences including the shifty purchase for an outrageous price of the Old Convent School; and for the subsequent persecution of Shire President Reid, culminating in his resignation shortly after resuming office.  We know who those people are, and so do they. 

It wasn’t intended to apply to everyone working for the DLGC.  I’m sure many of them at more junior levels were as disgusted as were most people in York by the actions of their superiors. 

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Bowled over?  Yes, but not out

In an article posted at the end of August  (Bowling Club President Pat Hooper Bowls for the Jack but Winds Up Well and Truly Skittled) I responded to a complaint from Mr. Hooper, aired in an open letter addressed to me and in a question he put to Council.

The complaint was that in an earlier article I had said that in 2012 the Shire had taken out a loan for the club but had subsequently waived the club’s obligation to repay the loan in instalments of roughly $30,000 per year.

According to Mr. Hooper, the club ‘had never received or sought’ any such loan.  He demanded an apology.

In my response, I apologised for having mistakenly typed ‘2012’ when I meant ‘2008’.  I then drew attention to the minutes of the special council meeting held on 5 September 2008, which record the offer of a self-supporting contingency loan to the club repayable over 15 years by annual instalments of $29,799.

The club had requested the loan to replace its grass greens with synthetic greens in the event of being unable to get the necessary funds from other sources—hence the ‘contingency’.

I admitted that I had failed in my search of council minutes to find later references to the loan.

Questions

Not long after posting my response, I submitted a series of questions—in writing, not in person—to the September ordinary council meeting.  They were framed as a single composite question.  You’ll find those questions and the Shire’s answers on page 7 of the unconfirmed minutes of that meeting, published on the Shire’s website earlier this week.

As it turned out, only three of my questions required answers (the answers to the first two rendered the others irrelevant).  The only questions of importance here are the first two.  They read as follows:

(a) Did the York Bowling Club in 2008, when Mr. Hooper held the office of Shire President, or at any other time seek a loan from the Shire for the purpose of replacing the grass greens at its former premises with synthetic greens or for any other purpose?

(b) Did the Club accept the Shire’s offer of a loan of $250,000.00 on the terms and conditions indicated above or any variation of them?

Responding to the first question, the Shire confirmed that the York Bowling Club had indeed requested a contingency loan as described above for the purpose of replacing its greens. 

So Mr. Hooper was wrong to suggest that the club had never sought such a loan—but right, of course, to say that the club had not done so in 2012, a fact acknowledged in my article of 30 August.

The answer to the second question was that the Shire had not raised the loan referred to on behalf of the York Bowling Club. 

So I was wrong to suggest that the club had received such a loan, and that repayments had later been waived.

The answer went on to point out that the Shire’s not raising the loan was reported ‘in the financial statements of the 2008/09 Annual Report’.  The 2008/09 Annual Report is my favourite bed-time reading, so goodness knows how I contrived to miss that crucial detail.

I’m happy to stand corrected, and to apologise to the club’s membership, past and present, for my error and for any anger, anxiety or suicidal ideation it may have provoked.

If you see a diminutive figure prowling along Avon Terrace covered in sackcloth and ashes, wailing mea culpa and lashing his back with a nail-studded whip, it will probably be me. 

(Unless it’s Mr. Hooper, belatedly making atonement for his authorship of the infamous ‘Minority Report’.)

An earlier request for money

There was an earlier occasion when the York Bowling Club sought money from the Shire—this time, however, not as a loan, but as a grant of $80,500 to help pay for the replacement of a grass green with a synthetic one.

You can read all about it on pages 72 to 74 of the minutes of the ordinary council meeting held on 15 October 2007, chaired by Shire President Pat Hooper (yes, the very same...).  The transaction is recorded under the heading ‘Late Reports’ as item ‘9.5.1 Application for Community Sport and Recreation Facilities Fund Grant in 2008/2009’.

The grant (or ‘allocation’, as the minutes describe it) is explained as one-third of the cost of replacing a single green, the remaining two-thirds to be funded equally by the club and the Community Sporting and Recreation Facilities Fund, managed I believe by the Department of Sport and Recreation.

Did the York Bowling Club accept this ‘allocation’?  I don’t know, and I won’t risk diminishing the force and value of my apology to the club by taking steps to find out.

One thing puzzles me, though.  In his ‘open letter’, Mr. Hooper ‘reminded’ me of something I hadn’t previously known, namely that ‘the Bowling Club contributed $80,000 to the Forrest Oval reconstruction’.

Would that by any chance be the same money, or most of it, that the club appears to have received as an allocation from the Shire towards the cost of a new synthetic green?
 
Or was Mr. Hooper referring to the club’s agreed contribution to a new green as recorded in the October 2007 minutes?
 

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Kerrie and Farren Wheeler are returning to Esperance.  Does this spell the end of the York Carriage Diner? 

From Facebook:

York Carriage Diner

6 hrs ·

Kellie and Farren are terribly sorry that due to personal reason we have had to close the carriage earlier then expected, we are very very sorry for the inconvenience and would like to thank you all again for your support #york #eat

From Michael Watts and Rob Cameron:

We would like to take this opportunity to thank Kellie and Farren for their time at the Diner.

We wish them every success for the future when they return home to Esperance to start their new venture.

The Diner therefore, will be closed indefinitely from the 1st October 2016, in order to negotiate a replacement team; although we will be open for special functions such as the "Medieval Fayre" on the 2nd October and the "All Ford Day" on the 6th November 2016.

Interested parties in either leasing or buying the business should contact Michael Watts of Elders York - 9641 3000 or Rob Cameron on 0451 944 877.

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