Looks like democracy is under full attack in WA. Kalamunda forced to amalgamate with Belmont, Mundaring duped and will come under Swan. Now York has had 'a smilie face' parachuted in as OUR voice BECAUSE some bloody public servant needed to wield some power to feed their ego.
Minister Simpson has not woken up to the fact he is doing the Premiers dirty work. Once the job is done Minister Simpson will be of no use and will be sent to the back bench in a re-shuffle.
It is interesting that the WA Local Government Association has not made any mention or support for the York Council, after all its role is to support member councils.
Its silence is deafening. How can it support the Kangaroo court process conducted by the Minister and the DLG as a fair and reasonable process to deal with an elected council?
There is something very smelly about what is taking place, and the stench is getting worse. Just got be some hidden linkages that we have to dig up.
It seems that we are dealing with powerful forces.
Yes, Kim, they did nothing except the one time they censured Tony Boyle. They never monitored Pat Hooper for e.g. yelling at people (particularly women, and including Cr. Walters) in Shire and related meetings. They never took notice of the other administrative complaints and the blacklisting and bullying by letter (except in the Boyle case) and by false accusations such as about animal noise, or by ignoring the need for e.g. drain overflows from nearby causing disease in a couple of cases to be fixed — not till someone got a notifiable disease in the case of years of the drain problem.
And yes, Kim is right on the matter of the current (suspended) Shire President's popularity. 900 plus citizens voted Matthew Reid in as Councillor, and the Councillors then voting to make him President.
And yes, we voted for Mr. Reid because we needed a new dawn as Kim says, and we wanted him to clean up the ethos of the Council and to thus make the way clearer for the town to recover from the destruction and diminution which had occurred (in trees, in streetscapes, in morale, in impetus to keep businesses going instead of closing down, in reputation as a town to be admired and visited as a popular choice, in well-run and popular events giving pleasure and pride to the people of York and drawing in the people of Perth and around, in availability and choices of food venues, etc....).
We citizens trusted Cr. Reid, but elements reported in the FitzGerald Report (which included only items which were backed up by documented evidence, though these were not circulated to the people — not even to those who reported the sorts of things referred to in the first paragraph of this comment for them to check that they had been accurately quoted) acted swiftly and viciously to have that Report blocked.
And no, the Minister has not given [I will use the word 'justifiable'] explanations for the Show Cause Notice and the suspension of the Council as a whole. Some reasons were given, but they were refuted by the remaining Council of Four — in as much as airy fairy accusations can be. This left the only identifiable 'reasons' for the suspension: the jargon or beaurocratic-speak terms relating to indefinite or airy fairy concepts such as 'inability to provide good governance' and a host of 'cover terms' for supposed derelictions of duty, without specifying the detail in which acts of omission or commission occurred.
I know of someone in another context who was accused of 'being defensive'. Well, if you defend an accusation of 'being defensive' you are, ergo, being defensive. You cannot win. Neither can you win when details are not spelt out and you do not know what the accusers think they know and which is their basis for their accusation! It is all generalities. You cannot respond adequately to generalities and know that you are covering all that the accusers have in their own heads.
As to possible governmental 'hidden agendas' such as dumps and amalgamations: without knowing what they have not told you, you (i.e. in this case 'we') are, by definition, disempowered. The problem is always what crucial bit of information is being kept from you/us.
As for 'democracay', not only did we vote Cr. Reid in by an unprecedented number of votes, and not only did the Council vote him in as President, but at the Public Meetings following the Show Cause Notice, an estimated 90% of Ratepayers present (a full Town Hall at the second of the two meetings) showed support for Cr. Reid and the other 3 remaining Councillors). Further, various concerned citizens wrote to the Minister, and at that Public Meeting certain points were Minuted for the Minister's information, but he did not consider the majority opinion of York citizens who spoke up sufficient to make him think again. It certainly does not appear that York citizens' democratically-expressed will matters to the Minister and his servants at all!
I don't Kim, but bloody good on him for doing it.
ReplyDeleteKim is not on my Christmas card list, but hey that is a really good letter.
ReplyDeleteLooks like democracy is under full attack in WA.
ReplyDeleteKalamunda forced to amalgamate with Belmont, Mundaring duped and will come under Swan.
Now York has had 'a smilie face' parachuted in as OUR voice BECAUSE some bloody public servant needed to wield some power to feed their ego.
Minister Simpson has not woken up to the fact he is doing the Premiers dirty work. Once the job is done Minister Simpson will be of no use and will be sent to the back bench in a re-shuffle.
It is interesting that the WA Local Government Association has not made any mention or support for the York Council, after all its role is to support member councils.
ReplyDeleteIts silence is deafening. How can it support the Kangaroo court process conducted by the Minister and the DLG as a fair and reasonable process to deal with an elected council?
There is something very smelly about what is taking place, and the stench is getting worse. Just got be some hidden linkages that we have to dig up.
It seems that we are dealing with powerful forces.
WALGA a union for Local Government!
ReplyDeleteWell done, Kim. I enjoyed reading your succinct and forceful letter.
ReplyDeleteWe need to keep what's been going on here in the public eye.
And we don't have to take it lying down.
Yes, Kim, they did nothing except the one time they censured Tony Boyle. They never monitored Pat Hooper for e.g. yelling at people (particularly women, and including Cr. Walters) in Shire and related meetings. They never took notice of the other administrative complaints and the blacklisting and bullying by letter (except in the Boyle case) and by false accusations such as about animal noise, or by ignoring the need for e.g. drain overflows from nearby causing disease in a couple of cases to be fixed — not till someone got a notifiable disease in the case of years of the drain problem.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, Kim is right on the matter of the current (suspended) Shire President's popularity. 900 plus citizens voted Matthew Reid in as Councillor, and the Councillors then voting to make him President.
And yes, we voted for Mr. Reid because we needed a new dawn as Kim says, and we wanted him to clean up the ethos of the Council and to thus make the way clearer for the town to recover from the destruction and diminution which had occurred (in trees, in streetscapes, in morale, in impetus to keep businesses going instead of closing down, in reputation as a town to be admired and visited as a popular choice, in well-run and popular events giving pleasure and pride to the people of York and drawing in the people of Perth and around, in availability and choices of food venues, etc....).
We citizens trusted Cr. Reid, but elements reported in the FitzGerald Report (which included only items which were backed up by documented evidence, though these were not circulated to the people — not even to those who reported the sorts of things referred to in the first paragraph of this comment for them to check that they had been accurately quoted) acted swiftly and viciously to have that Report blocked.
And no, the Minister has not given [I will use the word 'justifiable'] explanations for the Show Cause Notice and the suspension of the Council as a whole. Some reasons were given, but they were refuted by the remaining Council of Four — in as much as airy fairy accusations can be. This left the only identifiable 'reasons' for the suspension: the jargon or beaurocratic-speak terms relating to indefinite or airy fairy concepts such as 'inability to provide good governance' and a host of 'cover terms' for supposed derelictions of duty, without specifying the detail in which acts of omission or commission occurred.
I know of someone in another context who was accused of 'being defensive'. Well, if you defend an accusation of 'being defensive' you are, ergo, being defensive. You cannot win. Neither can you win when details are not spelt out and you do not know what the accusers think they know and which is their basis for their accusation! It is all generalities. You cannot respond adequately to generalities and know that you are covering all that the accusers have in their own heads.
As to possible governmental 'hidden agendas' such as dumps and amalgamations: without knowing what they have not told you, you (i.e. in this case 'we') are, by definition, disempowered. The problem is always what crucial bit of information is being kept from you/us.
As for 'democracay', not only did we vote Cr. Reid in by an unprecedented number of votes, and not only did the Council vote him in as President, but at the Public Meetings following the Show Cause Notice, an estimated 90% of Ratepayers present (a full Town Hall at the second of the two meetings) showed support for Cr. Reid and the other 3 remaining Councillors). Further, various concerned citizens wrote to the Minister, and at that Public Meeting certain points were Minuted for the Minister's information, but he did not consider the majority opinion of York citizens who spoke up sufficient to make him think again. It certainly does not appear that York citizens' democratically-expressed will matters to the Minister and his servants at all!