Port Hedland was once the largest town in the Pilbara, owing to its long history and megaport.
By the turn of the century that had changed as Karratha took advantage of a more diversified major industry base.
With the advent of Royalties for Regions in 2008, and its architect Brendon Grylls’ move to Karratha in 2013, a perception of two towns on different paths gathered steam.
Still, in 2014 Mr Grylls said Port Hedland would be declared a city within one year, as Karratha had become having reached the population threshold of 20,000.
Many of those working in regional development at the time have all told me the same thing.
The City of Karratha came to the state government with costed, shovel-ready plans to attract Royalties for Regions cash.
The Town of Port Hedland did not.
Between 2009 and 2017 the City of Karratha attracted $554m in state government key project investment, or $3,121 per person. Port Hedland attracted about $192m, about $1,602pp.
Mayor at the time – Kelly Howlett – was popular, but the proud port town wasn’t getting anywhere near the same investment as its neighbour to the west.
Port Hedland as a destination to live and invest was in a holding pattern.
Enter car mechanic Camilo Blanco.
He was already a colourful figure, known in town for dressing up as Zorro to mock government decisions on his YouTube channel.
At one point he even crudely impersonated Ms Howlett’s appearance on camera.
Milo, as he is known locally, was elected mayor in a landslide in 2016, following the resignation of Ms Howlett.
His arrival marked a very different approach to the role than that of his predecessor.
Mr Blanco was loud, brash, and unapologetic.
There were results.
Mr Blanco’s lobbying was instrumental in efforts to introduce the cashless welfare card.
His work behind the scenes to expose the shocking rate of booze-fuelled crime in Port Hedland moved the needle on law and order policy for the 2017 state election.
He strong-armed the resources industry into contributing more to Port Hedland – both through rates and other measures.
A fix – of sorts – was found for the big dust problem from the port plaguing West End residents.
And he was a constant thorn in the side of the Labor government.
Between 2017 and 2019 per capita spend between Karratha ($1,303pp) and Port Hedland ($1,081pp) was close to equal.
But Mr Blanco’s ‘my way or the highway’ approach to negotiating fractured the Town’s council and administration.
Several councillors, including camera shop owner Peter Carter, felt they had no input into the Milo show.
Mr Blanco’s approach to the job rubbed the Town’s administration up the wrong way too.
Infighting had become rife within council and with the executive arm.
The troubles begin
Come 2018 and ‘fixer’ Ron Yuryevich was brought in to mentor the council.
He was and remains one of the most accomplished councillors in Western Australia and had an excellent track record of righting wayward ships.
Five months into the job he had seen enough.
He told the state government it should sack the entire council.
It was evidence two diametrically opposed camps had emerged, and could not find a middle ground.
The decision was helped along by Mr Carter resigning in July 2019, which left the council short of a quorum.
Mr Blanco, now a mayor of a suspended council, felt the remaining members could carry on until the elections three months from that time.
Former local government minister David Templeman did not agree.
So into administration Port Hedland went.
The Town operated for about one year with former Labor MP Fred Riebeling as commissioner.
It was largely uneventful as he went about ensuring the machinations behind the scenes were in order.
At the end of his tenure he declared the Town was "back on track". That turned out to be wrong.
The refresh
2020 marked a new chapter for Port Hedland.
Administration was over, Mr Carter put his hand up for mayor at the special election, and won.
Important community infrastructure plans were put forward and happened.
Footpaths and skateparks were built, an important seawall went up, the Spoilbank Marina was started, and plans to move the Town administration were sketched up.
The council appeared to be getting along, and the administration had stabilised.
Mr Blanco was busy running for the Liberal Party at the disastrous 2021 state election.
Mr Carter’s tenure appeared to be promising, albeit his background was questioned repeatedly.
Deals for international airlines, aquaculture, hotels and drinks manufacturing linked to Mr Carter never transpired and were constantly making headlines for all the wrong reasons.
His heritage – Mr Carter was director of an Aboriginal corporation which counted two of his relations as founding members – was also a lightning rod for opponents.
The above factors made him an easy target.
So the white-anting was relentless.
Come the 2021 local government elections, Mr Carter was subjected to attacks by opponents.
His voter base sits with the town’s migrant population. Mr Blanco’s is in the town’s blue collar business scene.
Mr Carter won ahead of six candidates with 43 per cent of the vote.
Mr Blanco was a distant fourth in the mayoral ballot.
But the bad blood between the two men would be a presence in the new council.
Mr Carter did not help his own cause.
After time his communication with councillors and speakers in the public gallery he did not agree with became curt.
In May 2022 he was caught on camera being fed strawberries by a woman in a Vietnamese hotel room while beaming into a school board meeting.
In late June revelations surfaced in The Australian that Mr Carter was travelling to Vietnam to spruik a prefabricated housing venture, allegedly without disclosing it to council.
All of this helped Mr Carter’s opponents paint a picture of a man not fit for the top job in town.
On the sidelines, defamation action between Mr Carter and Mr Blanco began too.
Momentum was turning.
A slippery slide
That momentum intensified in 2023 when Mr Blanco and a bloc of supporters gained seats on council.
Carter supporter David Eckhart quit two months after the election when he left his job in town.
His replacement was Adrian McRae, another Milo ally.
Mr McRae would go on to push a vaccine conspiracy theory which caused all manner of chaos for the nation’s local governments, lent his support to Russian President Vladimir Putin on state-owned TV, and quoted Nazi author Carl Schmitt.
At this time WA Premier Roger Cook urged the Port Hedland council to “stick to its knitting”.
Council meetings dragged on too – sometimes for up to six hours.
Some of the questioning was good. Some of it was spurious and personal.
Mr Carter was hit with a no confidence motion in February last year.
Mr Blanco refused to adhere to an order to apologise for breaching local government standards in September last year.
And councillors started dropping like flies.
Flo Bennett left in November 2024, claiming she could no longer commit herself to the role.
Sven Arentz departed in February 2025 for the same reason as Ms Bennett.
Tim Turner quit in February 2025, citing a “malignant” and “unworkable” council.
In May Ambika Rebello resigned due to challenges which made it “impossible to continue in good conscience”.
And now, this
It was perhaps inevitable that we would end up with the council being dissolved again.
Like he did in 2019, Mr Carter resigned within months of a fresh election to force the state government’s hand.
He felt extremists were lining up to take control of the council at the October elections.
Mr Blanco and his allies argued this was all a government conspiracy whipped into a frenzy by mainstream media to stop mining companies from paying higher rates in town.
Mr Carter was, afterall, a Labor man, they argued.
A failure to pass this year’s budget by the end of August was the final straw.
The remaining councillors wanted to push a populist budget that hit up miners for higher rates and kept them unchanged for residents.
It never made it to the council meeting for a vote due to Mr Carter’s resignation.
The decision by Local Government Minister Hannah Beazley one week later was to appoint three commissioners for six months.
One of those was the man who found the council could not be saved in 2018, Mr Yuryevich.
He likely already knows what to expect.
The other two – former MPs Jessica Shaw and Martin Aldridge – will be in for quite the shock once they wade into the reeds of Port Hedland’s turbulent council history.
Come March next year when the commissioners’ term is up there is no guarantee the two names at the centre of the past decade of dysfunction won’t be on the ballot again.
As for why a far-flung regional local government matters for the state?
Well Port Hedland is only home to the most economically valuable piece of infrastructure in Australia.
Newly appointed commission chair Jessica Shaw rolled out that line repeated by politicians ad nauseum on Tuesday.
"The Pilbara is the economic engine room of the nation," she said.
Port Hedland is the biggest engine in that room.
And that engine is once again running without the bespoke parts (ie local input) it needs to operate effectively.
Oh, and Port Hedland still is not a city.
- Tom Zaunmayr worked as a journalist in the Pilbara for five years, and as an editor in the North West for two years for Seven West Media and the National Indigenous Times.
