Special Report - Council courts business

The City of Perth is targeting businesses in the lead-up to May’s council elections as voter apathy again threatens to deny business an effective role in the city’s affairs.

A restructuring of the city’s electorate in 1995 was designed to lift the involvement of business in the running of council, but latest figures indicate the move has proved largely unsuccessful.

With four councillors’ positions up for grabs on May 7 residential voters in the City of Perth now outnumber business voters. And in an electorate with total revenue of more than $84 million, a few hundred votes can make a critical difference.

There are about 4,700 residents on the roll and 4,500 non-residential owner and occupier voters (business) in the City of Perth.

It is estimated that more than 50 per cent of those enrolled to vote actually cast a ballot, but that there remains a largely untapped supply of votes within the business community.

Businesses cite a combination of apathy and a complicated enrolment process for the lack of votes, something which clearly frustrates the City of Perth.

Councillor Michael Sutherland said a total apathy on the part of business was disheartening and that the city made a huge effort to try and recruit more business voters.

“The response from business has been absolutely abysmal. We have gone through the Property Council and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the results have been absolutely disappointing,” he said.

“Occupiers are taken off the roll every two years and we fill in the forms for people all the time, which we send off and never get back.”

Lord Mayor Dr Peter Natrass said there was a real problem with a discrepancy between residents and commercial voters.

A combination of apathy and complexity of enrolment were cited by Dr Natrass as the reason for the discrepancy.

“A company can have two nominees each, and they can be anyone they like. If they have four companies, they can put eight people on, and people forget and staff change, and it can be a total mess,” Dr Natrass said.

“It is a complex issue, and should be simplified.

“As Michael [Sutherland] pointed out, the old disease of residential dominating business is coming back with the boost in inner-city residential including East and West Perth.

“Residents are automatically enrolled to vote and stay on the rolls.  Business is taken off every two years, and needs to re-enrol; it just makes it harder.”

Pro Property principal Brett Wilkins suggested the process to enrol to vote was too complicated.

“It would be easier to go and do a physics exam than it is to enrol,” Mr Wilkins said.

“You can rent a $125 a week flat and be automatically enrolled to vote, but you can be the owner of Central Park and have to go through all this effort to get enrolled. Then you are only on for two elections and then you are off.”

State president of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, Terry Budge, said he agreed that business should be involved more but that it was not a sufficiently urgent priority for many businesses.

“I think business, and particularly large business, tends to be fairly pragmatic in that it will operate in an environment and, if it is too hard to change it, why bother spending time there,” Mr Budge said.

“Instead [business will] go on to something where it has a bit of influence and can actually change something, which is far more important.

“Going back to my time at BankWest … when there was an election on the guys who managed the tower would come up to me and we would have a bit of a discussion, and then we would go off and that was about the extend of it.

“I never got anyone really knocking on my door to ask me about it.”

Best Western Emerald Hotel owner Laurie O’Meara agreed there was a lack of interest on behalf of business, and said the actions of the City of Perth had little impact on most business people.

“A lot of these CEOs have been moved in from other states and are here for the short term and don’t get themselves involved in specific issues and don’t take an interest,” Mr O’Meara said.  “When we think about what the issues are that confront council and the things we read about that council does, how many of these things really, really rule and impinge on a person who operates a business on the fifth floor of a multiple storey building in the middle of Perth?

“When you move out of the provinces and away from the issues that have a lot more impact on people, such as planning, rubbish disposal and stray dogs, I’m not sure the decisions made by the City of Perth have the same impact on the individual.”

Ian Cowie from the Department of Local Government and Regional Development said there was an argument in favour of the city reforming its voting system, but that many local governments could put forward similar arguments for their localities.

“In terms of a separate act or separate provisions for the City of Perth, I think there is an argument for it, but equally for a lot of other local governments who put forward arguments that they have differences between a metropolitan part of their area and a rural part,” Mr Cowie said.

“In relation to the enrolment forms for business, I’m cautious to endorse that you need a phD to use them. I’m not saying they aren’t complicated, and we are working with the city to ensure we get a form which is as suitable as possible, but it is the information we are required by law to obtain.”