Nationals’ governance plan to counter vote law reform

The National Party will evaluate and assess a plan to split-off Perth from the rest of the state and make the metropolitan area more self-governing.

The move is part of the party’s re-think of how Western Australia should be governed now that Labor and Greens MPs have teamed up to further dilute lower house MP numbers in rural and remote areas, courtesy of the one vote one value legislation.

Nationals leader Max Trenorden told WA Business News this week he had already started an on-going series of reassessment sessions called, ‘Where to from Here’.

And the administrative removal of Perth metropolitan area from the governance of the remainder of the state was on the agenda.

The first session was held by Nationals MPs in parliament last week, following a similar lay party session held a fortnight ago.

The idea of creating as a separate administration for Perth, a Greater Perth Metropolitan Authority (GPMA), along the lines used by Brisbane, with its own legislature and devolved powers, has been suggested by Emeritus Professor Martyn Webb, who has researched city governance in New Zealand, Canada and the US.

Mr Trenorden said he had discussed the idea with Professor Webb over the past year and believed the blueprint held promise for Perth, and rural and remote areas.

According to Professor Webb, Perth has acted like a huge vacuum cleaner, gaining most of the benefits of development from the state’s wealth creating rural and remote regions.

“Within our huge state a dichotomy exists between metropolitan and non-metropolitan WA that’s so stark that one needs only say Perth is the main beneficiary of almost every kind of development that’s occurred, is occurring, or is ever likely to occur, in the agricultural, pastoral, forestry, mining and fishery regions,” Professor Webb told WA Business News last week.

He and Mr Trenorden are publicising the idea of administratively removing Perth from the rest of the state because of the successful passage of Labor’s one vote one value legislation.

“Rural people have got to counter Perth’s centralisation in the same way Canberra’s centralism must be opposed,” Mr Trenorden said.

“Labor will revisit this issue and attempt to relocate more seats into Perth.”

Mr Trenorden said he had spent the past two years encouraging country people to think in terms of gaining greater self-determination.

This has included encouraging the emergence of regional organisations of local shire councils, something that’s already occurred across parts of the Wheatbelt.

Mr Trenorden said if the Gallop Government had lost February’s election a coalition government would have placed WA’s nine country and remote regional development commissions under a single minister to help ensure they gained greater autonomy.

Currently the regions are overseen by four ministers.

“Funding of development commissions would also have been boosted to enable them to broaden their expertise in the key areas of planning, capacity building and leadership and business development,” Mr Trenorden said.

Under the Webb blueprint, a single minister would oversee rural and remote area development and the department would be based outside Perth, in a centre such as Geraldton.

A minister for metropolitan planning and infrastructure would oversee a largely self-government GPMA, which would have control over education, transport, policing, environmental, and town planning, water and similar responsibilities.

Professor Webb said the GPMA would be made up of elected members with its own legislature, which could be based in the present Parliament House.

A new state parliament could be built away from Perth, where state MPs would consider broader state issues, and would not be preoccupied with largely Perth metropolitan matters, as is the case now.

A new post of co-ordinator-general, within Treasury, would be created to disburse funds to the GPMA and the separate rural and remote areas regional development commissions, which would include elected local government representatives.

“Perth has long been large and mature enough to do away with being the plaything of state parliament, which has a huge state to govern,” Professor Webb said.

“We should remember our present arrangement of parliament dominating Perth is based on what was a very tiny pre-1914 capital, which was incapable of funding its services.

“Perth’s growth to now being a 1.5 million-strong city means it’s time to allow its people to manage their own affairs.

“Both Perth and country and remote areas are now basically governed by an overbearing dictatorial system under which ministers have a finger in virtually every pie.”

Both Professor Webb and Mr Trenorden said elected local governments would have a greater say in regional councils.

Mr Trenorden said once the Nationals had further refined their regionalising policy, including the option of casting metropolitan Perth off to an autonomous position, papers would be released for public comment and debate.

The president of the WA Local Government Association (WALGA), Bill Mitchell, said the idea of hiving Perth off from overall state governance hadn’t been considered by his association.

“My concern with the Webb blueprint is the practicality of it ever happening,” he said.

“I can see why it would appeal to the Nationals, since it would help make them relevant.”

Mr Mitchell said he believed the coming reduction in number of rural and remote MPs was likely to result in an even bigger role for local government.

WALGA zone meetings had better local MP attendance in the more sparsely populated areas of the state, he said.

This had led him to believe that there would likely be greater consultation by MPs in regions even closer to Perth in the future.

He said councils had traditionally approached the State Government-created Regional Development Council with considerable suspicion and new voluntary groupings of councils were currently being created across the state.

“What we’ve asked the State Government to do is to give us some idea of what it envisages for local councils over the coming 20 years or so,” Mr Mitchell said.

“We know that we’ll be able to respond accordingly.

“However, I totally agree with Webb’s comment that WA is city-centric and is building-up city infrastructure at the expense of rural and remote areas.”