Tag: City of Melville

As I noted in a column in January last year, the program’s stated purpose was “for interested WA Labor members who are committed to working through local government to see the ideals, platform and policies of WA Labor applied and realised at a local community level”. When Templeman announced in a fanfare of publicity a departmental inquiry into Melville on November 29, 2017 — citing some 300-odd complaints against the council over three years — O’Malley was standing at his side. Templeman said he expected the inquiry would take “months, if not a year”. The inquiry concluded taking evidence in May last year and a draft report was sent out to interested parties in mid-December, with responses closing on January 3. On Wednesday morning, I put in the following questions to the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries: How many local government authorities have been subject to an official inquiry in any form since the election of the McGowan Government? How many of those inquiries are still under way? When will the report into the City of Melville be released? “Currently the department has five authorised inquiries that are yet to be finalised. “The report relating to the authorised inquiry into matters at the City of Melville will be finalised following consideration of feedback on the draft report from persons named or referred to in the report.” The first question was completely avoided, as was the third, and the fourth was just obfuscated. Last May, he confirmed that three months earlier he had hired as his senior policy adviser Julian Hilton, a former member of the Melville Community Association.