Last night saw another of the myriad meetings about Minister Castrilli's vision of Council amalgamations. Certainly many of the smaller Councils and rural Councils are not financially sustainable, as shown in the WALGA Sustainability Survey.
However, I think that even if every City Council in the Perth Metro area was shown to be financially viable, the greater municipal area of Perth needs Councils to amalgamate. There are a number of really big issues that we need to address. These issues are too big for small Councils to see and State government is not looking.
When I look over my shoulder I see three tidal waves heading in our direction. We are so busy with small, daily issues that we have not noticed these tidal waves heading our way.
The first of these is population growth. Every time I hear a new figure it just gets larger and faster. We have to find a way to fit all these people into Perth, without having the city become just another conglomeration of suburbs that stretch to the horizon and beyond. As small Councils we just cannot address this issue in a cohesive way.
The second tidal wave is climate change. The Earth has been warming since the last Ice Age ended, about eighteen thousand years ago. Our species has spread across the planet in that time. Whether you believe that we can influence the rate of change or not, the planet is warming and sea levels are rising. Perth is flat and built marginally above water level. They say that wet cement waits for no man. I say that rising sea level doesn't care about property values. Only Councils seeing a big picture can respond meaningfully to such an enormous change.
Tidal wave number three is municipal waste. State Government has put a line at 2020, after which we will not be able to just dump our waste in pits in the sand. Sand, that incidentally, also contains our water supply. As this waste leaks into the groundwater you could say that we are getting our own back. With very many technologies available, limited ability to research appropriate solutions and a disappearing market for our recyclables, we are in bind about what to do with our rubbish.
For Perth to develop in a sustainable way, to still be the most wonderful place to live, we need to have Councils with an eye on the bigger picture, imagination, resources and courage.
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