Heroic ratepayers shiver on basketball court to give council a piece of their minds

OPINION

Sharon Webb

As Meander Valley mayor Wayne Johnston straddles the hurdle of the proposed northern prison, he must be feeling mighty uncomfortable.

Fronting ratepayers at the August public meeting, he admitted, ‘In hindsight [not consulting the community] is probably a failure of council’.

A weak comment, but safe. Weak because it was tokenistic. He knew the majority of those attending were anti-prison. Safe because, as Cllr Johnston often points out, he wasn’t on Meander Valley Council when former general manager Martin Gill asked two Westbury landowners if they were interested in selling their land to the state government for a prison.

Gill’s story is that the landowners owed the council for utilities the council had placed on their industrial estate land. 

He approached them because drumming up business was part of his job description, he told the Gazette.

But guess what? Gill’s activities weren’t a secret. Not to outgoing councillors or mayor Craig Perkins, who resigned before the October 2018 council elections without giving a reason publicly. Nor to the new councillors coming in after that election.

No, they all knew or had the opportunity of knowing, according to Martin Gill, who emailed them updates. But for months they didn’t own up to the ratepayers that the information was before them all along. 

So why did they all sit on the sidelines at the August 17 public meeting, having absolutely no input? 

The simple fact is that when the State Government gets around to submitting the prison planning application, councillors must deal with the application with ‘open minds’.

So they were told to shut up and the mayor would deal with the public meeting on their behalf, as the legislation allows.

What puzzles many ratepayers is why councillors can’t voice their views when the mayor has made his opinion on the prison perfectly clear.

In June 2020, when the State Government kicked the can along the Birralee Road to announce the prison would be on the Brushy Creek Reserve site rather than Glen Avon Farms, Cllr Johnston gave the game away. 

‘“It is a good thing the Northern Regional Prison development will stay in the municipality,” says Meander Valley mayor, Wayne Johnston,’ reported the Mercury.

Also key is the comment Cllr Johnston made to the ABC after the change of location.

‘This is a big investment. This is probably a once in a lifetime opportunity for our council so therefore it will be debated to the nth degree,’ he said.

‘We need to make sure that what we approve is something that the municipality in the first instance and the northern area in the second instance need or want and is suitable.’

Debate to the nth degree?

With council’s general manager John Jordan knocking back WRAP’s first petition for a public meeting on a technicality?

With the council holding the public meeting on a week night at 6pm when many residents would be driving home from work or getting dinner for their kids?

With organising a line up of speakers which included no government spokesperson except prison project director Colin Shepherd, a public servant visibly thrown off balance by being asked political questions?

Elise Archer would have had little appetite for attending another public meeting on the prison after her defensive, snappy performance at the December 2019 public meeting.

Maybe one of the Liberal Party boys? Infrastructure minister Michael Ferguson?

Meander Valley Council has proven inept when community consultation is needed.

With the prison, as with the future use of the former Meander School site, consultation is too little, too late, evidenced by Cllr Johnston’s comment that not consulting the community was ‘probably a failure of council.’

Even on the rare occasions when they do consult, the council subsequently stumbles.

It took almost two weeks to post the video of the public meeting on the Meander Valley Council website, and it will only be there until 14 September. 

Why? 

The best that Meander Valley residents can hope for is that the councillors and staff learn it’s not good enough to foist major change on the community without effective consultation.

Other councils can consult effectively but Meander Valley is just learning. A painful experience for the whole municipality.