The debate about rates pressures on residents isn’t going away anytime soon.
At last week’s council meeting, Shire of Serpentine Jarrahdale councillor Shaye Mack said he was not willing to endorse extra amendments to the Shire’s Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan, questioning the future impact on ratepayers.
Council recently voted to endorse the revised Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan following a public comment period of six weeks.
Some 50 responses were received to the online survey and three written submissions.
The community prioritised impacts on vegetation and the environment, tree retention and planting to provide shade, and community education and empowerment.
Some $150,000 was allocated to the Climate Resilience Action Fund before a business case is to be prepared to seek budget allocation.
Councillor Courtney Mazzini offered alternative recommendations, which included extra trees and employing a sustainability officer to report on progress.
Councillor Mazzini said when drafting up her alternate motions, she thought about the impact of the Keysbrook fires.
“Point 10 is the most important to me. I was thinking of the after effects of the Keysbrook fires. Yes, the plan is going to cost money to implement but doing the right thing costs money to sometimes,” she said.
While Cr Duggin commended councillor Mazzini for her strong stand on the climate change strategy, Cr Mack rose to question the costs of the recommendations, speaking against, instead wanting to stick with the officer’s recommendations.
“I too would like to commend councillor Mazzini for what she has put forward and I certainly want to make it clear I am not against any of the climate change strategies,” he said.
“The reason I want to speak against the alternate motion comes down to one factor and that is rates.
“We have many residents doing it tough and we have recently stated that we had one of the lowest rate increases at 2.9 per cent when compared with our neighbouring councils.
“When we actually converted that back into actual dollars vs our average rates it was the third highest.
“Our shire has a net income from rates of $30m and we are comparing ourselves with our neighbouring shires who have an income of $90. We are not at that level just yet, we cannot continue to increase our rates on our residents, this may be something we need to do in the future but it is not for right now,” he said.
“In our recent debate on rates, actions of councillors all through the year have a consequence on how our rate increase will be,” he said.
Cr Mack then pointed out that next year’s rates already going up a lot with increased Emergency Services Levy, which will be another tax from the State government.
“So, before we even start, rates are going to go up dramatically, we need to think about that and whether it is the right time to consider these actions” he said.
Shire President Rob Coales also spoke against the alternate motion, saying it isn’t a debate about climate change or being ambitious.
“This is about one thing and one thing only, the almighty dollar,” President Coales said.
“This is a motion that is going to cost a significant amount of money.
“$100,000 a year to plant trees, $120,000 to employ another member of staff. The only way we pay for that, ladies and gentlemen, is to increase rates.
“I am not going to now go back into debate what we discussed in September or August even when we adopted the rates, but I don’t want to be part of a council that keeps putting up rates for what can be seen as ambition.
“The officer’s recommendation is strong enough to allow us as a Shire to address climate change,” he said.
President Coales said he was concerned about 0.6 of the alternate recommendations which wanted to align the Shire with state and federal climate change policy.
“There may well be a change of government federally, what does that mean?” he said.
“There’s now a look at nuclear power as a form of power, is it something we are ignoring? Is it something we are not going to look at with this alternate motion?
“I think for us as a local government that we are going to adopt whatever the state and federal government does is a risk and a danger and perhaps it is irresponsible in terms of wasting ratepayers’ money. I commend the councillor and the motion, but again I cannot support a motion where we are using the ratepayers as a cash cow to fund something that is objectively going to cost $200,000 a year.
“That is probably to a half to a 0.7 per cent increase for something that is going to make us feel good for staff to drive electric vehicles,” he said.
Councillor Mazzini closed by reiterating that the council needs to be ambitious with the plan to save ourselves in the future.
“We know that with less rainfall, the bushfire season is going to get worse and worse and if I remember correctly, we are a 97 per cent bushfire prone Shire,” she said.
“I cannot put a price on the damage bushfires cause and to people’s livelihoods.
“Try and tell a volunteer bushfire fighter that we are doing everything we can to prevent these issues in the future. I don’t think this is something that is going to simply make us ‘feel good’ Mr President, I think we need to be ambitious with this plan.”
The alternate motioned was voted down four votes to three with the officer’s recommendation being adopted.
