Soon after the 2015 election, it was clear the new Councillors wanted things to change in the City. After a thorough search, we hired a new CEO. As part of the bottom-to-top review of the entire organisation, Andrew Brien is now implementing a restructure with approval from Council.

The overall focus was on efficiency and removing unnecessary roadblocks to focusing squarely on improving the experience of our most important stakeholders: our residents and ratepayers.

Over time, this restructure saves hundreds of thousands of ratepayer dollars and lead to faster customer service turnarounds in areas of planning and community development.

In December 2015, with the support of six of my colleagues, I successfully lobbied Council to remove the ability for Councillors to claim an extra $1,000 per year for clothing expenses. 

Thanks and acknowledgment must go to Councillors Coates, Bull, Ehrhardt, Sutherland, and Palmer for their support in discontinuing this antiquated 'entitlement'.

Councillor Travel

It is my unwavering belief that local councillors have no business travelling on the ratepayer dollar. We are charged with overseeing a grassroots community-focused organisation which delivers core services. We should be here in Perth to be available to our constituents. Whatever personal benefits are gained by face-to-face interactions had by Councillors on these trips are not worth the annual bill to ratepayers. Councillors can go if they wish, but they should pay for it and claim it on their individual tax return.

With that in mind, I moved a motion at the 2 February meeting of Council to ban Councillor travel, to allow a smaller budget for the Mayor to represent us in Canberra when needed, and to allow for a smaller budget for Councillor training and conferences based in Perth. Unfortunately this motion was lost by one vote.

Regardless of the defeat, thanks and acknowledgment must go to Councillors Coates, Bull, Ehrhardt, and Kenyon for their support on this.

Click here to listen to my chat with Gary Adshead on 6PR regarding this important issue on 3 February 2016.

In a win for transparency and accountability, at our meeting on 8 March 2016, Council passed my motion which will see all travel details disclosed online for both Staff and Councillors. This is a Western Australian first. Councillors will also have to lodge a written report as to why the travel was taken, and to share lessons learnt. Councillors will also have to give this report verbally at the next available Council meeting. While I will never have to give such a report, or to make a disclosure on travel, I look forward to hearing my colleagues give their rationale for using ratepayer funds on junkets!

During my election campaign in 2015 I was shocked to witness the behaviour of some incumbent Councillors abusing their authority by moving motions which both spent ratepayer funds on pet projects and progressed blatant political agendas to further their careers at a Council meeting just 5 days before polling day. To ensure this never happens again, together with the support of fellow new Councillors Dan Bull and Catherine Ehrhardt, we all worked hard on getting Council to endorse a caretaker policy. This policy, amongst other detail, makes sure that once the official election period begins (as managed by the WA Electoral Commission), no Council meeting can be held and that all decisions/spending measures in this period are severely limited/delegated to the CEO. You can view this policy by clicking here. I am very proud of this policy, and look forward to every single Local Government in Western Australia following this example of good governance.