SOMETIMES JUSTICE ISN’T BLIND, JUST COCK-EYED

A new Shire law coming our way

Readers of YDCM’s November issue may have seen on page 12 a Shire of York public notice regarding a new local law, to be called the Local Government Property Amendment Local Law 2018.

The proclaimed intention of the law is ‘to restrict and prohibit’—and of course, punish—‘certain activities on local government property’.

The notice doesn’t say what activities the law will restrict and prohibit, only that it will ‘create offences for inappropriate behaviour’.

‘Inappropriate behaviour’ might refer to a multitude of aberrant acts, from thumbing your nose at the shire president, to spraying rude words on walls, or to even more serious forms of misconduct like asking pointed questions about matters that the Shire wants kept hidden from public view.

Note the predictable use of  ‘inappropriate’, a weasel word best avoided if you want to be taken seriously by people who can think for themselves.

The word conveys nothing apart from finger-wagging disapproval shored up by the risky supposition that everybody shares the attitudes and prejudices of the person using it.

Forbidden activities

As every York ratepayer knows, the local law as it currently stands enables the Shire to prohibit a wide range of activities on shire property. 

Forbidden activities include smoking, riding a bicycle, golf, archery, discharging a firearm, playing a ball game, and those ‘involving a projectile’—presumably, such as mounting a siege engine like a trebuchet, or firing off a nuclear warhead without first obtaining written permission from the CEO.

So one might expect the proposed law, in the same spirit, to declare exactly what new activities it will restrict or prohibit, and precisely what penalties it intends to impose on those who carry them out. 

The Shire’s notice invites us to comment by way of submission on the proposed law.  You can inspect the law during office hours at the administration centre aka the Kremlin in Joaquina Street or (so the notice says) on the Shire’s website.  The closing date for submissions is 18 January 2019.

Don’t try searching ‘local laws’ on the website, as the notice directs. That might get you nowhere, as it did me, because on Friday, when I ran the search, the information hadn’t been posted.

Following a hint from a friend, I looked up resolution 041018 and item SY138-1018 in the minutes of the October council meeting. 

Perhaps I’ve missed something, but there seemed to be no precise indication in the minutes of the activities the proposed law is designed to prohibit.

Perhaps the Shire is relying on us, the public, to nominate activities we think shouldn’t be tolerated on shire property and the penalties those activities should attract.

With some diffidence, I would like to nominate concealment, deception, obfuscation, creating unnecessary staff positions and forking out unconscionably large amounts of public money to expensive lawyers and consultants.   As for penalties, I’ll let readers decide.

Charges dropped

A couple of my more cynical friends have suggested—wrongly, in my opinion— that the Shire’s proposed new law is a response to events in Perth’s Central Law Courts on Friday 26 October last.

That was when a former senior executive of the Shire walked away scot-free from eight criminal charges arising from alleged misconduct on Shire property, namely the administration centre in Joaquina Street. 

Seven of those charges, taken together, alleged that the gentleman in question had committed indecent acts in public by exposing his alter ego at various times over a period of months to three of his female colleagues, who subsequently complained to the police.

The eighth charge was of common assault.  I’ve no idea what incident gave rise to that charge, or who was allegedly assaulted.

Public indecency

The offence of public indecency is covered by section 203 of the Criminal Code. This says that anyone who acts indecently in a public place, or in sight of someone who is in a public place, or in a police station or lock-up, is guilty of a crime and liable on summary conviction to 9 months in the slammer and a fine of $9000.

It’s a defence to a charge under this section that the indecent act complained of was carried out ‘for the public benefit’.   I’m still cudgelling my brains over that one—the Code doesn’t seem to define ‘public benefit’— but anyway I doubt the defence would succeed in the case of a common or garden flasher.

Nor does the section clarify what is meant by ‘indecent act’ (or simply ‘indecent’).   It’s probably fair to say that for most people, the label ‘indecent act’ signifies what used to be called ‘lewdness’, i.e. impropriety of a sexual or excretory nature. 

But at common law the word ‘indecent’ has been held to apply to a broader range of objectionable behaviours, including grave robbing, mistreating corpses and brawling in church.

However, I’m sure we can all agree that ‘flashing’ is an indecent and reprehensible act, especially if perpetrated by a senior official in the workplace.

The crime of common assault is covered by section 313 of the Code.  The prescribed penalty is 18 months and a fine of $18,000 (doubled if the crime occurs in ‘circumstances of aggravation’, for example taking a swipe at a person aged 65 or over).

Innocence

At this point, I remind readers that the alleged perpetrator is fully entitled to the presumption of innocence.

He hasn’t been convicted of the charges brought against him.   

By the same token, the women who complained are in my opinion no less entitled to the presumption of honest report.

We all assumed the alleged perpetrator would either plead not guilty and stand trial or plead guilty and take his lumps.  That’s what usually happens in criminal cases.

Instead, the prosecution dropped all charges and the gentleman left court with an unblemished character to pursue his lucrative career in local government.

‘Public place’

So, why were the charges dropped?

From what I’ve been told recently, it seems the answer turns on the legal definition of  ‘a public place’.

Section 1 of the Code defines ‘a public place’ primarily as ‘a place to which the public, or any section of the public, has or is permitted to have access, whether on payment or otherwise’.

I think it would seem to most people that the location where the offences allegedly took place, the Shire of York administration centre, is according to that definition a public place.

It’s where members of the public go to pay their rates, license pet dogs and cats, pay parking fines, plead for mercy with Shire officials and borrow books from the public library.

It might be argued that while the reception area and the library are certainly public places, the offices where Shire staff work are not.

That would be true if the public is expressly forbidden by law to access them, as may indeed be the case.

My impression, though, is that members of the public are from time to time permitted to enter office areas in the administration centre.

If so, wouldn’t that make the centre, including those areas, a public place as defined in the Criminal Code?

An interesting question that, not being a lawyer, I won’t attempt to answer, especially as my tame legal eagle says I’m wrong.

Getting off

It’s my understanding that the police prosecutor, on legal advice, dropped the ‘flashing’ charges because the place where the offences were alleged to have occurred is not considered to be a public place within the meaning of the Code.

I think that’s the kind of thing usually referred to as ‘getting off on a technicality’—or would be, if the alleged perpetrator did in fact misbehave as alleged towards the female complainants, a proposition that hasn’t been tested in a criminal court and most likely never will be.

The prosecution’s decision to drop the charges seems to have come at a rather odd time, many months after they were laid.  Are we to believe that nobody in the prosecutor’s office had spotted the problem until then?   

To my mind, that decision,  justified or not, was not a good outcome either for the alleged perpetrator—who has been denied his chance to contest the charges and clear his name—or for the witnesses, who waited for the best part of a year to give their evidence only to see that opportunity snatched away.

I’m surprised that the common assault charge was dropped along with the others.  So far as I know, if you assault someone it makes no difference if you do it in a public or private place.   Either way, you’ll still be for the chop.

Now, back to the Shire’s proposed new legislation.   It strikes me that one activity on Shire premises that the local law might in future restrict, prohibit and punish is the one discussed above.

I haven’t thought this through, and I’m not sure what punishment would fit the crime (no crude comments, please)  but I think my suggestion merits serious consideration.  

An apology

Finally, I want to apologise to the complainants for rudely making light of their allegations when the matter first came to light.  That wasn’t this blog’s finest hour.  Ladies, I’m truly sorry.

POSTSCRIPT:  A couple of people have pointed out to me that the police could have laid charges under section 204 of the Criminal Code.

That section makes it a crime to do an indecent act in any place, public or private, 'with  intent to insult or offend'.

Penalty on summary conviction is 12 months in the slammer and a fine of $12,000.  If the matter goes to a higher court, the penalty is 3 years but no fine.

Obviously I don't know why the police didn't lay charges under that section, but it may be that proving such an intent might be rather difficult.

No doubt flashers flash from a variety of motives, for example in hope that viewers will be impressed enough to respond agreeably to what they see.  In other words, the intention may not be to insult or offend but to inspire interest or admiration.  (A motive reflected in the old British police euphemism, 'hawking his fruit'.) 

Of course that doesn't make flashing any less offensive and insulting to women who experience it, but section 204 gives the offender scope to deny that he had the intention to insult and offend. The prosecution would have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that he did have that intention, which might not be easy to do.

So accusing the cops of stuffing up might be a bit unfair.  It's possible I suppose to  construe intent on the basis of circumstances (and previous such misconduct,  if any) but I'm no expert on such matters so I shall forthwith shut up.




 

A FAREWELL TO ARMS

As some of you may know, a certain individual whom I shall not name—and as it happens have at all times taken at the very least reasonable care not to name, though he himself has been less careful in concealing his true identity—has commenced defamation proceedings against me in the District Court in Perth.

It goes without saying that I shall contest his action with all the vigour I can muster. 

Meanwhile, I have today deleted from the blog every post and comment that refers to him.  I apologise to the authors of such comments, but as the old saying goes, ‘needs must when the devil drives’.  My having made those deletions should not be construed as an admission of liability.

I have little doubt that I shall have to invest much time and energy in refuting my adversary’s untenable claim that I have defamed him.  That is time and energy I would much rather spend on writing the blog and otherwise enjoying life, but that can’t be helped.

My thanks and good wishes go to everyone who has taken time and trouble to read my posts, even to those readers who disliked them and in various ways, not only in hostile comments—most of which I posted—gave the impression that given the opportunity they would cheerfully have wrung my neck, pulled out my fingernails or hauled me before the Human Rights Commission (said to be the most horrible torture of all).

Cheers, JP

FERVOUR ON MOUNT BROWN

Most of us York residents have at some time driven or puffed our way up to the Mount Brown lookout to enjoy magnificent panoramic views over the town and nearby cemetery. 

Go to Trip Advisor, and you’ll see that the lookout is a favourite destination for visitors to York, ranked first among local attractions just ahead of Penny Farthing Sweets and the Town Hall and well in front of the Motor Museum and the Avon Suspension Bridge. 

(Several reviewers counsel visitors to steer clear of the suspension bridge at this time of year, to avoid the tragic spectacle of suicidal ratepayers tossing themselves despairingly into the turbid waters below.)

Most of the Trip Advisor reviews are highly appreciative of the lookout, and none is dismissive or disparaging.   

‘Lovely in the evening with a blanket in the cooler nights and a bottle of wine with a friend,’ says one.  ‘Marvellous place for meditation, you can feel the cosmos flowing through your veins,’ says another, signing himself Siddhartha.  

A third, MeToo, tells us, ‘It was a leap year, so I took the opportunity to propose marriage to my boyfriend…when he knocked me back, I pushed him over the edge of the Mount Brown lookout in York…a victory for women everywhere, and the most satisfying and exciting leap year of my life so far’.

Yet another visitor, NotMeIMissedOut, unfairly describes going up Mount Brown as ‘one of the few things to see or do in York’, but still gives the view 5 stars.

Myths and legends

York readers will hardly need reminding of the mythological significance of Mount Brown not only to the indigenous Balladong people but also to the descendants of white settlers who persuaded the Balladong to hand over their ancestral lands to farmers so the latter could chop down all the trees.

One indigenous story, possibly apocryphal, relates how a bulyit—a malevolent, hairy creature much like a gnome—tricked a young woman into climbing with him up the slopes of Mount Brown.  I don’t know how the story ends.  Some versions hint at moonjin, others hold that mischievous sprites known as mummari men intervened to put the bulyit off his stroke.

Whitefella residents have a Mount Brown legend of their own, concerning the collapse of a temporary erection for which shire approval had not been sought.

‘Fervor events’

No doubt hoping to capitalise on Mount Brown’s popularity with locals and tourists alike, York Arts & Events have applied for council approval to make Mount Brown the venue for two 'long table dinners’ planned for Friday 1 March and Saturday 2 March next year.   

Their application was included as an appendix to the agenda for July’s council meeting.   It was approved subject to a variety of conditions, including provision of parking areas, rubbish bins and toilet amenities, and undertaking of cultural and community consultation prior to the event.

The dinners, called ‘Fervor events’ after the ‘pop-up restaurant’ that hosts them, are the brainchild of brother and sister Paul and Bree Iskov.  Fervor events have been held in many of WA’s regional beauty spots, including Port Hedland, Karratha, Paraburdoo and of course Mukinbudin, whose name in the local indigenous language, Gubrun, is thought to mean ‘the place where many rodents make their nests’.

I’m sure we can all agree that York’s most popular open-air romantic rendezvous is a rather more appealing venue than any of those just listed.

It’s my fervent hope that the Mount Brown Fervor event will be a great success and become an annual feature of social life in York. 

If you want to take part, contact Jo Bryant of York Arts & Events on 0411 287 944. 

But hurry, only about 80 tickets will be available (40 per night), and I imagine that a good many will be snapped up by tourists and other interlopers from Perth and surrounding shires.

CULTURAL NOTE:  In the Balladong language, a dialect of Nyungar, Mount Brown is known as Wongboral, which means ‘sleeping woman’.  For an explanation—definitely not apocryphal—of how that name came about, see https://www.creativespirits.info/australia/western-australia/york/aboriginal-legend-of-mount-bakewell-and-mount-brown

 

View from Mount Brown lookout (Image: Javin Tham)

BREAKING NEWS 5 August 2018

Porcine Peregrinations—A Crackling Good Tale

A certain elderly lady of this parish recently witnessed an extraordinary event concerning a pig and a goat. 

On Friday afternoon, she was reposing quietly in her lounge room when she heard loud grunting sounds coming from somewhere outside.  Thinking that her neighbour might be having difficulty repairing damage to the dividing fence, she went out to investigate and if needed, offer advice.

Imagine her astonishment on observing from her verandah a giant pig in the yard of the property backing on to her neighbour's, energetically poking its snout under the cyclone fencing of its pen.  The pig began to shake its head violently, which sent the fencing crashing down on its night shelter, thus providing it with a means of escape. 

Seizing its opportunity, the animal fled into the yard backing on to Ms R’s property, presumably with a view to applying for asylum.  Behind it trotted its owner's pet goat.

Ms R reports that at this point the pig began to display an unhealthy interest in her chooks—unhealthy, that is, for the chooks, not the pig.  Luckily for the chooks, the pig decided to postpone lunch and pick a fight with the goat.

Meanwhile, some spoilsport had called the ranger, who prevailed on the pig’s owner to return home and coax it back into its pen.

It appears that the pig was served with an order to find alternative accommodation within seven days, failing which it may be impounded or deported to Manus Island.

No doubt the goat will be glad to see it go.

SHOULD I APPLY? AN OLD FRIEND ASKS FOR ADVICE

In yesterday’s mail, I received a letter from an old friend, long retired, who following an unwelcome change in his personal circumstances is pondering a return to the workforce. 

He wants my advice as to whether or not he should apply for a job with our local government, the Shire of York. 

Frankly, I’m not sure how to advise him, so with his permission I’ve decided to publish his letter.  I do so in the hope that readers will help him with suggestions regarding what he should do if he decides to go ahead and apply for the job he has in mind.

Here is his letter, with his name and address redacted:

Dear James,

The other day I was browsing the Shire of York website and came across an advertisement for a records officer.  It piqued my interest straightaway.  I’ve been looking for work for a while now, but what got my attention is that this job is billed as an exciting opportunity. You know me, I’m always in the market for a bit of excitement.

Naturally, I wanted to know what sort of workplace the Shire is.  Over the years I’ve had the sack many times from some pretty grubby outfits.  So job security matters a lot to me.

People tell me local government is a great employer.  Hardly anyone is shown the door, unless they’ve done something really terrible like making off with a shitload of municipal funds (sometimes, not even then) or worse, dishing out uncensored information to inquisitive members of the public. 

No problem for me. I know how to keep my mouth shut. My lawyer told me ages ago never to talk to the police.

Mind you, Rockingham City Council let the side down by sacking a building surveyor for sending saucy messages and pictures of his you-know-what from his mobile phone to some of the young ladies working with him.  What’s more—get this—they didn’t even try to keep the story under wraps!  I read it in the paper!

Can you believe it?  I reckon all this ‘transparency’ guff must have gone to the CEO’s head.   Didn’t the idiot understand he wasn’t meant to take it seriously?

Still, fair go, the bloke that got the sack wasn’t an old mate of the CEO, so I guess there wasn’t a cast iron reason for keeping things quiet. 

When I clicked open the position description, the first page was about York’s ‘value’.  I think it should say ‘values’, because there was nothing there about house prices, which as you know have gone through the floor.  I’ve been trying to sell my home for years.  Not a nibble.  I’m glad I don’t own it.

The page went on to say the Shire is ‘nimble and dynamic’.  I remember you telling me during one of your boring long-winded monologues that ‘nimble’ comes from an Old English word meaning ‘to take or steal’. 

That would suit me fine.  Believe me, I could show the Shire a thing or two about taking and stealing, though ungrateful ratepayers might say that in that department it already has plenty of form.

For a man of my age (88 in September) I’m amazingly dynamic.  I’ve been keeping company, if you know what I mean, with a very demanding young woman I met on Tinder who is now pregnant with my nineteenth child.  Nineteen kids from nineteen different relationships!  No wonder they call me Roger the Todger.

My eldest boy is touching 60.  I haven’t seen the little sod for donkey’s years.   He’s always been a bit up himself.  He wouldn’t let his kids come near me.  Fact is, he’s never forgiven me for poisoning his mum.   I suppose he was bound to find out eventually that she hadn’t really run off with a chartered accountant back home to Humpty Doo.

My last lady turned out to be a bit of a handful, so I’ve given her the heave ho, but she says that when she drops the kid she’s going to hammer me for something called child support.   What a nerve.   That would make a big dent in my fortnightly Centrelink payments (three under different names), which is why I’m going to need paid employment to supplement the pension. 

I did consider going back to one of my former occupations, but dynamic as I am, at my age I don’t think I’m quite up to climbing through windows and groping my way around strange houses in the dark.

Speaking of age, I thought my advanced years might go against me, but it seems I was wrong.  The law says the Shire can’t refuse me a job on the grounds of age.  The same goes for disability and political convictions. 

That’s very good news.  To begin with, it means I don’t have to worry about my schizoaffective disorder, which as it happens is well under control.  It’s several months since I last chased a copper along Avon Terrace screaming abuse and waving a machete.  

As for political convictions, the Shire won’t be able to reject my application if they get wind that I’m a paid up member of the Australian National Socialist Party and the Aryan Brotherhood, and a firm believer in white supremacy. 

I’m not racist, though.  Some of my best friends are Asians.  That’s why I never run short of crystal meth.

I must admit that when I saw the word ‘records’ my first thought was of vinyl.  I’ve got quite a collection.  My all time favourite is a 78 of Vera Lynn singing ‘The White Cliffs of Dover’.  It’ll come in handy if I ever stand for parliament.  I’ll be able to tell the punters that I have a war record.

My thoughts then turned to criminal records, on which for family reasons I’m a bit of an expert.  My younger brother (he’s 82) has just added to his.  He was done for exposing himself indecently to a lady chaplain at the correctional facility where he’s currently held.  Not his fault.   I’m not religious, but I’m dead against women priests.

I’ve also got a couple of cousins who did time for petty offences like drunk and disorderly, threats to kill, assault with a deadly weapon and lifting ladies’ handbags with a steel hook while riding a Harley at speed.  I believe that used to be called ‘snatch and grab’.

The ad says I’ll need a police clearance. I’m certain to get one.  Mostly, when I was caught and charged, I managed to charm the judges (some were women and the rest were gay) and get off with a spent conviction.  So no worries there, I’d say.

On reading more closely, I realised that what the Shire wants is somebody to keep letters and other documents safe from prying eyes and to deal with something called freedom from information. 

I could do all that standing on my head.  Nearly fifty years ago, after my dad kept his appointment at the crematorium, I discovered that the sentimental old fool had made a will leaving all his worldly goods to children’s charities and nothing to my brother and me. 

He’d left the will tucked behind the S-bend of his toilet. You won’t be surprised to learn that when I got hold of it was the last time it saw the light of day.  The paper was a bit rough, but I had no trouble flushing the pieces down to the septic tank.

Well, old toff, there you go.   That’s my story.  If I apply for the job, how would you rate my chances?

Cheers and nil carborundum,

Your cobber till the crack of doom,

(Signed) RPM

PS A local JP says he’s going to put in a good word for me.  He’s got a wife and kids, so didn’t need much persuading.

IS THIS A SIGN OF THE TIMES?

York identity finds mysterious symbol inscribed in mud on way home from early morning ramble

A prominent local fitness fanatic photographed an extraordinary piece of artwork this morning while walking his dog.  Here it is:

(Click to enlarge)

It is on display at the site of the new caravan park, i.e. on the less salubrious side of the river.  I’m told the area is frequently visited by persons of interest to the police.

Opinion is divided regarding the artwork’s origin and purpose.  Suggestions so far are that it represents:

(a) York’s answer to the Cerne Abbas Giant;

(b) A message of thanks to the people of York, left by a group of extra-terrestrial aliens from Alpha Centauri flown in as tourists to enjoy subsidized grog and grub at the Forrest Bar and Café;

(c)   A design for a statue of a former shire president, to be erected on the slopes of Mount Brown;

(d) A sketch for a portrait of a Facebook jockey and former councillor who is currently exhibiting unmistakable symptoms of relevance deprivation;

(e) The credit card signature of a former CEO;

(f)  An outline of road works meant to have been commenced several months ago but forgotten about in the kerfuffle following the unexpected ‘resignation’ of an executive manager—not so much a fly-by-night as a flash in the pan.

What do you think?  Your reply please in a plain brown envelope addressed to Shire President David Wallace at Shire of York, Joaquina Street, York WA 6302.

The best reply will be rewarded with a scrumptious cooked breakfast for the respondent’s dog prepared by the shire president (the breakfast, not the dog).   Second prize is an evening for two, all expenses paid, of carousing at the famed Gwamby Tavern.

Warning: your entry will be ignored if you fail to show proof that you have lived in York for at least 120 years.

                    

The Cerne Abbas Giant

A couple of ETs snapped on their way to the Forrest Bar and Cafe

 

ANOTHER WHACK AT WALGA

Readers may have seen in a recent issue of the West Australian an article by WALGA president Lynne Craigie headed ‘Rusted-on bias in unjust criticism of Council rates rises’.

The article appeared as an advertisement on 12 June.

Ms Craigie has served as WALGA’s president since 2015.  She is also president of the Shire of East Pilbara, having held that office for 10 years.

Her article is a spirited defence of local government annual rate increases, which she says compare favourably with increases in government charges.

‘Inappropriate yardsticks’ 

Ms Craigie is scornful of those benighted critics who ‘ignorantly’ judge the propriety of rate increases on the basis of what she calls ‘inappropriate yardsticks’ like the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

She points out that while the WA government has walloped households with whopping increases in various charges—averaging 7% for electricity, 5.5% for water, 5.8% for vehicle registration, and 3.7% for motor licences—by contrast, municipal rates this year have averaged a mere 2.5% across the board.

She also mentions the 10% increase in the Emergency Services Levy, every cent of which, though it is collected with council rates, vanishes into the coffers of State Treasury.

And she reminds us that increases in some state government charges, like that for electricity, have a similar impact on local governments as they have on households.

All those facts are true, but the argument they are mustered to support is at best seriously flawed, and at worst disingenuous.  I wouldn’t want to be rude to Ms Craigie, so I’ll stick with seriously flawed, while offering a pre-emptive apology if I have misrepresented her argument in any way.

False comparisons

A relatively trivial objection is that even if the state government is ripping off the public as Ms Craigie seems to suggest, that’s no excuse for local government to go down the same fiscal path. 

More to the point, she is, so to speak, comparing apples with mangos. 

The fiscal circumstances determining state government decisions are rather different, in substance and scale, from those that local governments have to face.

For example, there is the question of government debt.  In 2008, when the Barnett government took office, the state’s debt amounted to around $5 billion, or about 19% of revenue.   It has risen steadily over the past 10 years, and is now pushing $60 billion, or more than 80% of revenue.

As state treasurer Ben Wyatt said last year, the reality of such massive debt will haunt WA taxpayers for years to come, which leads me to wonder if the McGowan government’s declared intention to return the budget to surplus by 2021/22 has the slightest hope of success—spiralling utility charges notwithstanding.

A large proportion of that debt—over 60%—comprises what the pundits call non-financial public sector debt, or NFPS.  This relates to essential services like hospitals, the police, child protection and education.   Skimping on those has serious consequences for a government’s chance of re-election.

I’m no apologist for the present state government, but in fairness I have to say that it can’t be blamed for the state’s mountain of debt and is making a genuine attempt to reduce it—and risking its popularity, i.e. electoral chances, in the process.

Who is to blame?  Your answer to that question will probably depend on your political orientation. 

Supporters of the current government point the finger at what they regard as the profligacy and fiscal incompetence of the Barnett government, particularly in its second term. 

Opposition supporters would dispute that assessment, citing instead the collapse of the mining boom and the unfairness of GST distribution.   As usual, there is truth on both sides.

Getting away with extravagance

Local governments are no less likely, but have less reason, than state governments to bail themselves out of debt by thrusting greedy hands ever more deeply into the pockets and purses of the folk they exist to serve. 

What’s more, they usually get away with it, because paradoxically their communities, while theoretically closer to their elected representatives, on the whole appear to display scant interest in what those representatives are doing—or not doing, as the case may be.

Much of local government borrowing relates to the extravagant provision of services that are far from essential and bear little or no relation to the more modest purposes that local government was originally designed to accomplish.  

Some notable examples of such extravagance are York’s so-called recreation and convention centre, with its subsidised bar and restaurant, and more generally madcap schemes for ‘community development’ which tend to sap initiative and enterprise in the community at large. 

If governments do things for you, there’s not much incentive to do them for yourself.

Differences

Politically, local governments differ from the state government in numerous ways.  To begin with, everybody qualified to vote is required by law to turn up to vote in state government elections, but not in council elections.  

To some degree, this might be seen to undermine the legitimacy of local governments as expressions of the popular will.  According to the WA Electoral Commission, the average voter participation rate in the 2017 council elections was 33% in the metropolitan area and 39.6% in country shires.  

(York scored a dismal turnout rate of 26.85%.)

Some people argue that low voter turnout is an indication of public apathy, others that it signifies general satisfaction with what councils do, and still others that it is symptomatic of quiet desperation bordering on despair.  On balance, I’m inclined to favour the last of those explanations.

In local as distinct from state governments, party politics allegedly play no part, although many state politicians cut their teeth as members of local councils.  The absence of avowed political affiliations at local government level arguably leaves greater scope for nepotism, patronage and other forms of corruption. 

The most effective way to keep the bastards honest is to have another bunch of bastards of a different political stripe watching like hawks for evidence of municipal malfeasance and when they find it, falling over themselves to call it out.

That, broadly speaking, is how democratic governance takes place at the commonwealth and state levels.  It’s not perfect, but it works reasonably well.  When we drag ourselves to the polling stations, we have a reasonably clear idea of what the rival parties are offering and of the values on which their policies depend.

At local elections, we tend to cast our votes for individuals rather than policies and values and simply hope for the best.

I doubt that any reform of local government in WA, however comprehensive and well intentioned, will do much good if it doesn’t make voting at local elections compulsory and foster the introduction of overt party politics into the local government arena. 

The CPI

Now for that ‘inappropriate yardstick’, the CPI.

As every householder knows, the CPI measures the movement over time of retail prices.  It plays an important part in the formation of government economic policy, for example in the determination of Centrelink benefits and the financial conditions attaching to government contracts. 

It is often used, in conjunction with another indicator based on Gross Domestic Product (GDP), as a measure of inflation.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics is responsible for calculating the CPI. It does that  by comparing the cost of a broad range, or ‘basket’, of goods and services that households consume within a defined period—quarterly and yearly—with the cost of the same basket over previous such periods.  The result is expressed as a percentage.

In Australia, separate calculations are made for capital cities in addition to an overall rate for the country as a whole.

For example, at the end of the March quarter 2018, compared with the March quarter 2017, the CPI had increased by 1.9% for Australia as a whole.  The corresponding figure for Perth was 0.9%.  The June figures will become available sometime this month.

You can find out more about the CPI on the ABS and State Treasury websites.

The CPI as a guide for setting rates

Should the CPI have a role in the setting of council rates?

Ms Craigie doesn’t seem to think so, and haughtily dismisses as ignorant those of us who take a contrary view.

In my opinion, what is good enough for commonwealth and state governments, with their far more extensive range of responsibilities, should be good enough for local governments too.

I’m not saying that the CPI should be the sole determinant of rate increases, but it has a part to play, along with other factors, as a guide.

And I’m glad to say that the Shire of York agrees with me.

On page 3 of its draft annual budget for 2018/19, the Shire notes that the cost of providing services has increased by 1.5%.  It continues:

This is reflected by the underlying assumptions used to formulate the budget, such as the CPI, wage increases and utility increases.

Those considerations have resulted in a modest rate increase of 2% for 2018/19, better than what Ms Craigie tells us is the state average.  This compares very favourably with the Shire’s rate increases for 2014 (10.8%) and 2015/16 (9.6%).   It is a tiny bit less than its increase for 2016/17 (2.1%) and a fraction more than for 2017/18 (billed at 1.4%).

In practical terms, this means a current increase in residential rates of less than one cent in the GRV dollar ($0.118490 to $0.120862, i.e. $0.002372). 

I haven’t finished analysing  the budget—I’m waiting for the final version as adopted at yesterday’s Special Council Meeting—so I’ve no idea by what miraculous means the Shire achieved this very reasonable result.  Anyway, well done the Shire of York, and all the other councils that have shown similar restraint.

Which brings me back to Ms Craigie’s article.  She is right to commend councils statewide for keeping this year’s rate increases low.

But there’s a sense in which she (and they) are missing the mark.

In straitened times, sensible householders have to reduce expenditure on inessential goods and services.  They have to dispense with such luxuries as late model cars and overseas holidays and in other aspects of life are forced to apply the time-honoured principle of ‘make do and mend’.

I see no reason why at such times local governments—and governments generally—shouldn’t follow the same principle by exercising restraint and commonsense in spending their money—which is actually our money, not theirs.

Shock horror, Councils might even search for ways to reduce rates rather than increase them further with every passing year.

One thing they might do to save money is collectively give WALGA conferences a miss until they amount to something more beneficial to ratepayers than a gabfest, a bunfight and a comedy show.

Ah well, dream on…

THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

The object of government in peace and in war is not the glory of rulers or of races, but the happiness of the common man.

  

W H Beveridge, Social Insurance and Allied Services, 1942

Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.

G B Shaw, Man and Superman, 1903

KNOW YOUR ENEMY: WALGA

As most readers will know, WALGA is an acronym denoting the Western Australian Local Government Association. 

If you are a ratepayer concerned about incessant annual rate hikes resulting from increasing local government expenditure in your neck of the woods, you may opine, with good reason, that WALGA is emphatically not your friend.

According to its website, WALGA is an organisation ‘working for Local Government’ and which ‘advocates on behalf of 138 WA Local Governments and negotiates service agreements’ for them.

I think the term ‘service agreements’ may relate in part to WALGA’s  ‘preferred suppliers program’, which among other touted advantages relieves local governments of the need to call for tenders when procuring goods and services. 

WALGA offers assistance to local governments in making CEO, Acting CEO and other senior executive appointments.  

The organisation’s involvement in that exercise appears designed to ensure that senior ranks are often recruited from an assortment of avaricious hacks—some having no formal qualifications of any kind and/or of dubious reputation—who without regard to probity or efficiency are recycled interminably at great expense most notably through WA’s rural shires.

Transparency

The draft of a WALGA submission dated December 2015 to a parliamentary select committee describes the organisation as ‘the united voice of local government in WA’.

A cynic might see that as indicating there is little or no room in WALGA’s deliberations for a significant diversity of opinion, especially where the extra-contractual compensations of office are concerned.  

At WALGA’s annual conference in 2015, then mayor of Vincent John Carey moved proposals to improve transparency and accountability in local government affairs and procedures. 

One of his proposals would have compelled local governments to maintain an online register of gifts, travel expenditure and hospitality.

Predictably, secrecy won the day.  Mr Carey’s proposals were voted down.

Mr Carey expressed his consternation "that the sector would not even consider an open discussion and debate about future reforms for transparency”. 

He added:  “Local government leaders may think they can hide and run from transparency reform, but ratepayers deserve this information, they have a right to it and we should make it as accessible as possible."

Amen to that, but the majority of WALGA’s members—including, I believe, the deputation from our very own Shire of York—seems to have considered being open and honest with the people they are elected or appointed to serve an unwelcome, probably dangerous, intrusion on their privacy.

À propos of Mr Carey’s remarks, WALGA’s president Lynne Craigie said:  “I think you'll find local governments are extremely good financial managers”.

Obviously, she had had very little if anything to do with financial and asset management as practised in the chaotic Shire of York.

Best practice?

 In 2016, Mr Carey hotly disputed WALGA's claim that it had ‘best practice’ policies on transparency and governance, saying that WALGA’s values and aspirations were out of touch with those of ratepayers.

He described the local government sector as having “a long way to go in terms of transparency and accountability”.

Mr Carey—once characterised by senior WA journalist Paul Murray as a ‘metrosexual lefty’—is now MLA for Perth and a minister and parliamentary secretary in the McGowan Labor government.   As such, he will no doubt take part in framing the government’s forthcoming revision of the Local Government Act—paying special attention, we should hope, to transparency and accountability issues.

Let’s hope Minister Carey and his colleagues give WALGA’s membership something to think hard about in the years to come—or ‘going forward’, as our political and bureaucratic overlords these days prefer to say in order, so it seems, to foster an illusion of progress. 

Attitude

The draft submission mentioned above was the work of Paul Schollum, WALGA’s economic policy manager.  It deals with issues of infrastructure financing.

The submission accurately reflects WALGA’s attitude to the funding of local government projects and services.   

That attitude may be summed up as ‘Don’t worry if you run short of money—just rip more cash from the pockets of ratepayers.  Squeeze them until the pips squeak, they’re too stupid to care and much too lazy to vote’.

Such an attitude leaves little space for unfashionable ideas like restraint in spending, ‘user pays’ and cutting your coat according to your cloth. 

Instead, it encourages the belief that ratepayers are like Norman Lindsay’s Magic Pudding, an endlessly self-renewing resource for local governments to tap copiously and at will.

‘User pays’

This, as an example, is what Mr Schollum wrote on the topic of ‘user pays’:

While charges are used for community infrastructure such as swimming pools and recreation centres, the charges are typically set well below cost recovery levels.  This is because Local Governments choose to subsidise these facilities due to their spillover benefits such as improved social cohesion and better health outcomes for the community.

To avoid misunderstanding, let me declare plainly that I’m not one of those self-centred individuals who believe that taxation of any kind is theft.   There are services and facilities provided by governments at all levels from which everybody benefits and for which everybody ought to pay. 

There’s no need in making that argument to fall back on fashionable idiocies like ‘social cohesion’ that—unlike ‘better health outcomes’—have no readily demonstrable existence and are therefore virtually impossible to measure except perhaps at the extremes (for example, by the absence of sectarian outrages, which is what most people would think of when the phrase comes up in casual conversation). 

Mr Schollum goes on to say that even with regard to such facilities as car parks, regional airports and waste management, where local governments rely increasingly on customer charges,

…there should not necessarily be the expectation that these services should be fully funded by users.  Local Governments should retain the capability to use rates revenue to subsidise certain services to achieve certain economic development, affordability and equity of access issues according to the preferences of the community.

Here, Mr Schollum, speaking for WALGA, has unwittingly put his finger on the main reason why local government in WA is essentially a gigantic empire-building, social-engineering rort with its tentacles reaching out to embrace a bewildering spectrum of human activity.

Time was when a local government’s legislated function was to deliver specific services to people living in the district for which it was responsible.  In popular parlance, those services were usually summarized by the admirably concrete phrase ‘roads, rates and rubbish’.

Of course, there’s always been more to local government than that.   From early days, the sector’s other responsibilities have included town planning, public health, libraries, and caring for parks and open spaces. 

In our climate, it made sense to add swimming pools to the list and to subsidise entry charges.  This is one area where ‘equity of access’ actually matters.   Another is the provision of libraries and support for community resource centres.

The focus was as it should be on services available to everybody from which everybody—young or old, able-bodied or disabled, straight, gay or optionally gendered— can benefit in a tangible way.

‘Economic development’ is the job of industry and commerce working with state and federal authorities.  It is not something local government is likely to do responsibly and well or with proper regard to the interests of ratepayers. 

Nor is ‘community development’, which whatever it means is best left to members of the community acting on their own initiative rather than to local governments, which tend on the whole to spend too much on it or stuff it up altogether.

Recreation centres

Mr Schollum mentions recreation centres.  In York, we have a recreation centre that has cost many irrecoverable millions of dollars and gobbles up a hefty slice of the ratepayer dollar every year. 

The centre houses a bar and restaurant that offer subsidised grog and grub—subsidised, that is, by ratepayers most of whom don’t eat or drink there—and runs at a considerable loss, with ratepayers picking up the tab.

It forms part of a sports complex with artificially turfed tennis courts and bowling greens that cost ratepayers a fortune to replace and maintain.

The Shire has invited the sporting clubs to take over the management and operation of the centre.  That was supposed to have happened several years ago.  However, the clubs have declined to accept that invitation with the feeble excuse that they can’t drum up the requisite volunteer labour—an objection that does them very little credit.   

In consequence, the Shire has decided to add to the ratepayers’ financial burden by employing a batch of new staff to do the jobs that sporting club volunteers ought to be doing but can’t or don’t care to do. 

In effect, the Shire is running the centre as if it were a business in competition with local private enterprise, except that it will never make a profit and will have to be bailed out year after year by the hapless York ratepayer.  This is most obviously true of the bar and café, which if privately owned would have long ago slid into liquidation.

Expectations

Most of us don’t expect the community at large to fund our hobbies and pastimes.   The sporting clubs used to manage their own premises and activities, with an occasional leg-up from the Shire.  My impression is that many club members look back nostalgically on those days.

These days the clubs have well-founded expectations that the Shire will foot the bill for their recreational activities and expect little or nothing in return.

‘User pays’ was once the default position, subject when necessary and justifiable to degrees of variation.  Not any more, thanks in no small measure to the backstairs lobbying of organisations like WALGA that see extorting money from taxpayers and ratepayers as the answer to all the world’s ills.  

And now, on a lighter note…

Every year, WALGA holds a conference or gabfest where councillors and senior executives from local governments meet to exchange inspiring thoughts and discuss challenges and opportunities confronting the local government sector.

This year’s conference will be held from Wednesday 1 August to Friday 3 August at the Perth Convention Centre. 

Conferences usually have a theme, and this one is no exception.  This year’s theme is ‘Ready and Relevant’, though at present ready for what and relevant to what is not entirely clear.

However, the list of keynote speakers may give us a clue. 

The list comprises a comedian (of course); a former ambassador to China; a ‘research based futurist’ (figure that out if you can); a woman from New Zealand who founded a hip-hop group consisting of persons of very much riper years (ages 73-90), some of whom may soon find themselves hip-hopping down Cemetery Road; and a speaker from Canada who will wrap up proceedings with an ‘insightful and hilarious outsider’s take’ on what participants experienced (in other words, another comedian).

None the wiser?  Well, the proceedings will include a panel session.    The panel will comprise a former Tasmanian senator who resigned her seat on discovering she had dual nationality; a former NSW premier and foreign minister in the closing days of the ill-fated Gillard/Rudd government; another former senator, recently named as ‘one of the Top 100 Global Influences on Gender Policy’ (from ‘Safe Schools’ to ‘Safe Town Halls’?); and a prominent WA journalist and media personality who allegedly declined when invited to assist the York community in its drawn-out battle against a multinational landfill corporation. 

A cricketer  who specialises in left arm wrist spinners, otherwise known as ‘chinamen’, will host the conference breakfast.  (I suppose it may have been confusion resulting from that which prompted the invitation to His Excellency the former ambassador.)

Still puzzled?  #MeToo.  We’ll just have to wait and see.

Meanwhile, I’m told that the conference will open with the WA Symphony Orchestra playing a selection of works by the contemporary Italian composer Giuseppe Masturbani.

*******

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.

Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776), Ch.X Part 2