LOCAL GOVERNMENT —
POLITICAL PARTY MEMBERSHIP
654. Mr R.S. LOVE to the Minister for Local Government:
I have a supplementary question. I thank
the minister for his answer. The minister may be about reform, but the question
is whether he is about instilling party politics into local government. Would
the minister concede that that recommendation, when placed in the context of
other recommendations for a common four-year election cycle and preferential
voting, is clearly a driver to embed party politics in local government?
Mr D.A. TEMPLEMAN
replied:
It
is interesting that members opposite always argue that there is no politics in
local government unless the Labor Party is involved in something. That
is what they do. They say all the time, ''There's no politics in
local government, except you do it and the Labor Party does it!'' Come
on! Look—a recommendation has been made, and we will be considering a whole
raft of recommendations in terms of what a good Local Government Act should
look like, and that includes the suggestions by the panel about fixed four-year
terms, all-in, all-out, and issues around disclosures
of a person's political persuasion or whether they are a member of a political
party. We will consider all those recommendations, but this is about
reform. Members opposite have no gumption in their intestines to pursue reform,
but they know that there are failures in the system. The City of Perth panel
inquiry found that there are issues in local
government that must be fixed! There is only one party that is going to fix it—that
is, the Labor Party—because members opposite will not do
anything!
The SPEAKER: I have to
recover for a minute. I am glad you were facing the other way then, minister!