perthnow.com.au has published this view on council amalgamations from WA Premier Colin Barnett.
Like the the NSW Government, WA Government had a promise of no forced amalgamations. The policy recently changed.
http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/wa-premier-colin-barnett-why-im-right-on-council-amalgamations/story-fnhocxo3-1226690712710
HISTORY will prove he is right on controversial council mergers, Premier Colin Barnett has declared.
The Premier is prepared to wear heavy flak from opponents of the plan, but said people would look back in five years time and wonder what all the fuss was about.
"I realise it's not necessarily going to make the Government or myself popular but it is the right thing to do," he said.
The Premier said the moves to reduce the number of Perth councils from 30 to 14 made sense on so many levels that councillors privately admit the changes had to occur.
"Privately, as I travel around WA, councillors say to me, 'We know it's got to be fixed', 'You've got to fix it up'. They won't say it publicly, they'll say it privately," he said.
Mr Barnett said much of the heat this week came from "vested interests".
He said it was ludicrous that there were 320 councillors in Perth, with 69 looking after the western suburbs alone.
"You've got more people managing the western suburbs than you do managing Western Australia in the State Parliament Lower House," Mr Barnett said.
The system was unable to deal with the problems of a growing city and was deeply flawed.
He said many people would be surprised to learn that 13 council chief executives were paid more than himself and 23 earned more than a state minister.
"It really does beg the question: Is running a local authority more significant than being the Premier or a senior minister," Mr Barnett said.
His changes would also address the unbalanced level of amenities in many local government areas.
Ratepayers in some council areas were subsidising facilities for residents in neighbouring areas, he said.
"You might find one council builds a recreational sporting facility and you might find that half of all people using it might come from outside that local government area," he said. "I don't think that that's fair."
Though there was no guarantee mergers would reduce rates, Mr Barnett pointed to several bigger councils that had lower rates and equivalent services to their smaller neighbours. East Fremantle had rates of about $1681 last year and bigger Melville had rates of just $1233, he said.
"That's about $450 and I would have thought Melville and East Fremantle were much the same," the Premier said.
Though vested interests were generating some noise, Mr Barnett said he had not detected any public backlash.
"I don't see any great groundswell (of opposition) from the population," he said. "The only people who have come up to me in the street so far have supported it.
"That's not a general sample, but I think what it's showing is that if people aren't directly involved in local government, most people don't really care all that much."
