I noticed one of the recently elected councillors in my area had some concerning points in there BIO about climate change denialism. Checked their social media and it’s filled with people crying about 15 minute cities.
The depth of their ignorance knows no bounds, as we already can be classed as a 15 minute city.
I have not researched them at all. I heard a guy on the bus the other day chatting. Saying that in them, you should have everything you need within 15 minutes (good), but if you want to use a resource outside of your zone, you’re going to have to pay a tax or similar (bad).
Sounded too extreme to be true. Shrugged and moved on.
What you overheard about leaving the zone and paying a tax is a bit of an exaggeration.
The intent is to discourage car usage within the zones, and one possible method is a levy on vehicles entering them. A better method is improved street design.
There hasn’t been a proposal I’m aware of that actually prevents people moving around by any means of transport other than private motor vehicles.
Hmmm interesting. I believe reward is a better training tool from experience.
If they tax people to move about in the end, I’ll become a right winger, I guess, in people’s eyes.
I can’t imagine it going through if it does get proposed, but you never know.
We are already taxed to move about though. Roads cost a lot to build and maintain and are paid for with proceeds from taxes. (And no, fuel excise does not cover all of it)
We also subsidise health care. Cars cost us a lot there too in terms of health outcomes from their emissions, crashes etc.
True that taxes exist, but we’re also free to move about the country. It’s a fallacy to consider a new tax is of course ok, as we already have taxes.
As I say, I’m against it. If it comes to play, I’ll use the democracy thing and vote against it, if we have the option to vote against it.
But, we are specifically not free to move about the country. There is a lot of locked land we technically need permission to be on, sometimes even national parks, the most public of public land, costs us to get into. I think what you’re really thinking about is road access, which can/is already subject to taxes and tolls. All these taxes are in our lives without ‘15 minute cities’.
Taxes need to be redesigned from time to time to reflect the changing nature of our country. The GST’s introduction was a good State wealth booster, much like the recent tax cuts have a solid argument, regarding re-indexing, even if the design of the policy itself has problems.
The 15 minute city is a long term restructure of the built environment, it won’t be a single bill, or a politicians election platform. So you’ll have the chance to vote against the parts you dislike, and vote for the parts you like, but most of all we won’t notice the changes, until we one day realise we walked to the gym instead of driving.
Its a long term redesign or our built environment back towards the human scale distances and sizes. This is because there have been far reaching negative consequences to leaning into the car scale built environment we have now.
If riding on the bus for an hour to get to work/school/hospital annoys you, then 15 minute cities is probably worth a deeper look.
Solid and interesting response. Thank you for the effort.
If this continues WA will not be a good place to be in the next pandemic.
One of the new councillors who won in Joondalup I caught on security camera dropping anti-vaxxer propaganda in our letterbox.
It’s a major concern when stupid wins.
A bit worrisome. Hopefully contact with real governance will shake a few of these people out of their attitudes.
The concealment of political affiliation at this level sits uncomfortably with the sense of openness and accountability democracy is supposed to instill. A clear way to decrease the threat of what is an attempted hostile takeover of Local Councils is to start requiring the political affiliations of candidates be publicly disclosed.
I mean, my local couciller won on a platform of wanting to arrange after school care for kids at the local primary school. It doesn’t take a lot at the local level. Nor can anyone at that level do all that much harm.
Best case, these people get genuinely into their roles and find out what issues face local governments (Hint: It isn’t vaccines).
Worst case, they are completely nuts and vote against everything because it isn’t about vaccines. But there are usually 8 councillers on the council and they can reign that sort of thing in.You should read the article.
You say this like I haven’t. I have.
I basically said three things:
- The bar to getting elected as a local councillor in WA is not high. But you probably didn’t know that given that you aren’t in Australia, let alone WA.
- I hoped that these people would have their eyes opened to what issues exist at local council and get into their new roles. I won’t apologise for hoping the best in people.
- If they are crazy, there are existing checks and balances against a rogue councillor. Something I know, because I’ve actually briefly worked at a local council in Perth.
You say this like I haven’t. I have.
Yeah, because you seem to ignore the part where they explain they don’t really care about school stuff, they seek legitimacy. ( your point 1 )
From the article :
to use councils as a springboard to state and federal politics.
Guess who did this ? US republicans. They started low, gaining a seat here, or there. Then they gained a seat as a more important council, rinse and repeat, and they reached the highest council of their area.
About your point 2. If they are smart and not rushed, they will be very effective. And at the next elections, they will support others people. Hey those dudes are good, and they support X, X must be good too, and we reach your point 3
A rogue element, can be shunted. But what if the majority goes rogue ? It can’t.
They are dangerous and need to be watched.
I appreciate that you are worried on our behalf, and even agree that there is precedent of local councillors moving to higher party politics - David Michael was a councillor of Stirling when I worked there, so I know this first-hand.
What you likely won’t know though is the galaxy of differences between Local and State politics in WA:
- The parties don’t exist at the local level. Councillors certainly have platforms that may be compatible with ALP/LNP/Green policies, but the parties themselves are not represented.
- Local Elections in WA are not compulsory. You can get elected to a ward with 2,000 votes. Once you get to the state level, everyone votes, and your 2,000 votes are a drop in the ocean.
- It is extremely difficult to get elected to the Legislative Assembly or Federal Parliament without the support of a party. As awful as that fact is, the vetting process to get preselection will weed out the nutters. You can get a senate seat on a fringe platform, usually with some hilarious preference deals. That’s how Family First became a thing in the first place. A senate seat isn’t going to introduce legislature, though.
- The article doesn’t mention schools or education, because in Australia this is not handled at the local level. You’re correct in that they have a specific agenda - but neither education nor health is not handled by LGAs. I don’t want to entirely dismiss these people as being unable to do anything too nefarious, but well, I honestly can’t see what real harm they can do.
- If the majority of a council goes rogue, the minister will step again in as David Templeman did to City of Perth a few years back. Coincidentally, the present LGA minister happens to be David Michael - who knows all about how an LGA should perform.
