It may be four months out from the nomination period for the City of Perth elections, but lord mayoral hopeful Neil McKinnon is already treading the terrace pavement to drum up support.
It may be four months out from the nomination period for the City of Perth elections, but lord mayoral hopeful Neil McKinnon is already treading the terrace pavement to drum up support.
The 66-year-old retired stockbroker is the fifth candidate to put his hat in the ring, alongside current councillors Michael Sutherland, Max Kay and Lisa Scaffidi and East Perth pensioner Bill Bradbury.
Mr McKinnon said he had been considering a tilt at the top job for some time and felt he had the right credentials given his financial services background, previous involvement in council committees and burning ambition to help make Perth a city of distinction.
“I’ll take a different approach if I get the chance,” he said.
“Forget ad-hoc developments, Perth needs a planning strategy for the long-term. Do we want to be dullsville or the capital city of Western Australia?”
Now that he has some spare time on his hands, Mr McKinnon said he wanted to give back to the city in which he has lived and worked for most of his life.
The businessman has experienced the city’s highs and lows, having bought in to one of Perth’s oldest broking houses, Saw Cambridge Brannelly, in 1980.
In later years, he was part of the Perth City Council’s SouthWest railway committee which produced a plan entitled ‘Realising a New Vision’ in 2005, calling for the sinking of the railway lines from the Horseshoe Bridge to the freeway.
Mr McKinnon said he was disappointed the state government had not listened to the chorus of voices to rid the city of its greatest divide, and remained so, given its recent decision to shelve the project.
“Love them or hate them, I think council must have a good rapport with the state government if it wants to get things done,” he said.
Without revealing too much of his campaign platform, Mr McKinnon said he had some strategies to tackle Perth’s woeful traffic congestion, as well as a sensible approach to developing the city foreshore land.
Among several ideas pitched to WA Business News, he suggested car parks should be built in fringe suburbs such as Leederville, Subiaco and South Perth, with shuttle buses working to ferry would-be CBD day parkers into the city.
Peak hour vehicle traffic could also be tackled using a fleet of low-wash ferries on the Swan River, he said, stopping at North Fremantle, Bicton, Como, South Perth, Burswood and Barrack Square.
In addition, the candidate wanted Perth to be the first local council in Australia to be carbon neutral through a greater suburban tree-planting program, which could later be used to generate carbon credits and income for the city.
When asked to comment on a recent proposal to introduce tram services to the Perth foreshore, Mr McKinnon said he considered the foreshore sacrosanct and would be opposed to any such plan.
“Any development there must be done judiciously with various tentacles of development stretching between the river and city,” he said.
“The land is a wonderful legacy of our forebears and must not be overwhelmed.”
The week-long nomination period for council and lord mayoral elections begins September 7, followed by election day on October 20.
