Democracy for sale?

For as long as the absent investors/second home owners can vote here residents in this shire will continue to have a struggle keeping the values they want.

The shire has continued to allow property development without commensurate employment opportunities thereby guaranteeing that a high proportion of new properties are investment or holiday homes.

Extract from the WP1CapesRegionalEconomicProfile 31^st March 2009 Page 28 last para

“The Shires of Augusta Margaret River Busselton are amongst the areas of regional Western Australia in which unoccupied dwellings grew more between the 1996 and 2006 Censuses. Unoccupied dwellings grew 32 per cent in the State, 39 per cent in regional Western Australia and 26per cent in Perth. For Augusta Margaret River unoccupied dwellings jumped 128 per cent and for Busselton 61 per cent.”(bold added)

The community have long recognised the social problems of investment properties, whether they are rented to a tenant or left empty as a capital investment, which can manipulate property prices. But there has been less emphasis on the financial implications. The owners of investment properties are not troubled by the rate rises because the rates are a deductible business expense. The opinions of tenants are unlikely to feed into the community satisfaction survey as this survey is not sent to anyone renting because they don’t appear on the shire rate records. Even rate paying residents owning just one property in the shire have less chance of being chosen for a survey than corporations owning multiple properties.

There was a recommendation from the CSIRO Sustainable Futures Project 2004-5 that voting in local elections should be restricted to a person’s place of primary residence only. Meaning that nobody, however wealthy, could have more than one vote in a local election.

“Prepare a case and lobby govt to change election system – 1 vote for 1 property. i.e. people living elsewhere cannot vote in both places”

The CEO made a decision not to action any of the recommendations in the CSIRO project, despite the $500,000 price tag. The shire has never referred to these reports until this year when the CSIRO research was cited in the Community Strategic Plan 2033. I have been unable to ascertain why the reports were cited after a lapse of 8 years. But I will.

Whenever there are plans for our community the Karridale Progress Association ask the shire to communicate with all residents through a letter drop, which ensures that every residence receives a letter. This has been agreed, and recorded within the shire Council Minutes, but in the six years that I have been serving the KPA no letter drop has ever been undertaken.

This is so important because many agricultural/tourism workers cannot afford to buy, and tenants who do not receive any shire communications are being excluded from participation in the development plans for the community.

The following is an extract from a letter sent recently to the CEO and councillors by the KPA in response to the CEO’s letter acknowledging that the administration had failed in many ways, but claiming that all their mistakes were “unintentional”;

“Subsequent to the EBD meeting your own planning officers noted the following against various submissions made by residents;

“... the Shire recognise that some local landowners did not receive a letter of invitation to the initial EBD, and unreservedly apologise for this oversight”

At the time I discussed this matter with all of the planning officers involved, explaining that an apology after the event is not a remedy. Community members did not have an opportunity to participate in the planning at all. The consultation process specifically recorded an objective thus;

“The major objective of the consultation is to provide for active participation in settlement planning and allow for community involvement in implementation beyond initial planning. This will also aim to achieve a sense of community, community pride and ownership of the plan and implementation process.”

Under your stewardship the Augusta-Margaret River Shire failed to achieve this objective on every occasion, at every stage the opportunity to involve the community failed and the process was flawed. All these failures may have been unintentional but they denied the community their rights.

All the planning officers involved in the EBD process assured me that when the planning for Karridale moved to the stage defined as Information Feedback Session, there would be an open meeting for all residents and that a letter drop would certainly be arranged in order to ensure that residents currently renting properties would be invited to participate in the consultation process.

To date the AMRSC has not initiated a letter drop in Karridale, despite the evidence that the need for such a method was acknowledged;

“Letter drops will be done within the locality to ensure residents renting are invited.”

are we to assume this was yet another unintentional officer oversight?

Was there actually a public meeting for final feedback prior to finalising the report to Council?

If there was such a meeting I have not met anyone who attended, or anyone who knew about such a meeting. If there was can we please have details of the date/time/venue and a list of attendees, together with any printed material and presentation notes, etc. If no such meeting occurred can we be advised why?

As the community waited for the promised Information Feedback Session a plan was being finalised and sent to the WAPC for endorsement; in May 2011.”

I have since received a detailed timeline from the planning officer indicating that there were no public meetings. They just forgot.

Just another unintentional oversight. Karridale residents lost their democratic right to participate in the planning process but they received an apology from the CEO. A fair exchange, I think not.