The Forgotten 17,000

The 3000 residents of Subiaco who would be forcibly transferred to the City of Perth under the City of Perth Bill have received scandalously little attention during the parliamentary debate on the City of Perth Bill. The focus has almost entirely been on the University of Western Australia, the QEII Medical Centre and the Perth Children's Hospital. The Subiaco 3000 are, apparently, simply collateral damage.

To the extent they have been mentioned, it has been on the basis that those residents would have their rates reduced by 30% to the City of Perth residential rate level - which conveniently ignores the fact that the City of Perth currently subsidises residential rates and has expressed its intention to reduce or remove this subsidy.

http://www.perth.wa.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/City%20of%20Perth%20Annual%20Budget%202014-2015.pdf

The remaining 17,000 residents of Subiaco have not been scandalously ignored - they have been totally ignored by our elected representatives in Parliament.

Now, the City of Subiaco has exposed the effects on these hitherto invisible people. In an item for discussion at the Subiaco Council Meeting on 19th January (http://www.subiaco.wa.gov.au/getattachment/b4fae429-af3e-4f96-920e-259cd9b986a0/OCM-19-January-2016 - see item at foot of this post), the revenue loss and (to be fair and balanced) the corresponding reductions in costs have been identified. The net result is an increase in rates of 7% over and above what would be necessary for other reasons - or a reduction in services.

All this simply for the aggrandisement of the City of Perth and at the sole instigation of the Premier, Colin Barnett - at a time when he is critical of local governments for rate rises and threatening rate capping.

There is a well-known principle in economics (the 'Pareto principle') that something is worth doing if those who benefit can potentially compensate those who lose and still be better off (in sort, that the benefits exceed the costs) - but this is hotly disputed where the gainers do not actually compensate the losers.

In this case, the State Government could include compensation provisions for Subiaco ratepayers and residents in the City of Perth - but I'm not holding my breath for this to happen. Not only is Colin Barnett's track record on equity issues not encouraging, but there has been absolutely no evidence of benefits produced - and it is therefore likely that the gainers could not, even potentially, compensate the losers.

All makes the City of Perth Bill sound like like very bad public policy - but we already knew that.