Scaffidi's inclusive agenda

Just 100 days into her term as the City of Perth’s lord mayor, Lisa Scaffidi knows that her newly refurbished office does not contain all the answers.

From the 11th floor of Council House, Ms Scaffidi might oversee much of the city’s 8.5 square kilometre domain, but she can’t change much of it on her own, with or without council backing.

Big projects such as the Mounts Bay foreshore and the Northbridge Link require the support and funding of the state.

Adding vitality to the city requires changes that would irk unions, and solving the problem of graffiti requires the involvement of Western Australia’s teachers.

Ms Scaffidi captured the lord mayoral robes on a platform of less talk, more action.

In her view, that means working with whoever it takes to make the changes many in the city want.

“I can’t do that on my own,” she said.

In many ways, Ms Scaffidi sees her role as a high-profile change agent, bringing together the people and organisations that have the wherewithal to make good on all that Perth has promised to be.

“I really see a lot of this job is public relations.”

Her first big decision is to alter the process for the city’s next strategic review, making it far more consultative than earlier versions.

“Previously for the strategic plan we had a weekend workshop as a group of councillors and talked amongst ourselves,” Ms Scaffidi said.

The landscape has altered substantially since the last review was held to produce the city’s strategic plan for 2004 to 2008.

The voices demanding more for and from the city have multiplied and grown loud.

The creative capital push from design group FORM, the formation of the Committee for Perth, and the increasingly vocal business community, have helped focus attention of what is needed for the central business district to reflect the economy it commands.

To include the views of these and other players, Ms Scaffidi plans a series of roundtable discussions as part of the first stage of her council’s new strategic review.

“These people can help us make this city what it should be,” she said.

Some of major items on the lord mayor’s immediate agenda are the obvious.

The Northbridge Link and the Mounts Bay foreshore development are both really state government matters, with the city helping shape them but the real decisions coming from the office of Planning and Infrastructure Minister Alannah MacTiernan.

The expectation is that both will have the green light before June 30.

But some of the more esoteric issues on Ms Scaffidi’s priority list will require new thinking.

For instance, she rues the penalty rates for staff that lead small retailers to close their doors to Sunday trading because the additional cost is not worth the bother of being open for business.

“We have to find a way around that,” she said.

“If you get rid of those restrictions, you open the employment opportunities and increase the city vitality.”

Similarly, when Ms Scaffidi considers the issue of anti-social behaviour, she believes the issue goes well beyond calling for more police and improving the amenity of the city.

Rather, respect for public property needs to be taught in schools, otherwise the city, as a magnet for a wide cross-section of the community, will always be a target of vandalism, graffiti and violence.

On a recent trip to Shanghai she noted the cleanliness of the city and modern amenities, such as public internet kiosks.

“Because the Chinese revere their public infrastructure, they get more,” Ms Scaffidi told WA Business News.

“We can’t fix what we have.

“Obviously something is not working, given all this graffiti and anti-social behaviour we have.”