Four of Western Australia’s Mid West shires have become the first to agree to a voluntary amalgamation. Mingenew, Three Springs, Morawa and Perenjori Shires have agreed to merge and form one Council.
The decision follows Western Australian Local Government Minister John Castrilli’s announcement in February of a package of wide ranging Local Government reform strategies.
He gave Western Australia’s 139 shires until the end of September to put forward reform proposals to reduce the number of shires and elected members across the State.
The strategies are aimed at achieving greater capacity for councils to better plan, manage and deliver services to their communities with a focus on social, environmental and economic sustainability.
Following the Minister’s announcement, the Shire of Morowa received an external consultant’s report investigating possible alignment options with neighbouring shires.
The report outlined four possible options:
- do nothing
- implement a resource
sharing model - endure possible forced
amalgamation - implement a voluntary
sustainable amalgamation
model.
The report recommended the voluntary sustainable amalgamation model as the ‘best fit’ for the four shires.
Minister Castrilli said the name and location of the new council is yet to be determined.
“That’s what the transition team, based on those four councils, will decide and they’ll be looking at those transition steps along the way,” he said.
“I think it’s a great achievement, I want to congratulate them because they’ve taken that very positive step of securing the long term future of their community.”
The Western Australian Local Government Association and the overwhelming majority of the Western Australian Local Government sector support the need for reform, but are adamant that participation needs to be voluntary to ensure community support and help enhance the prospect of any changes being sustainable in the long term.
For further information on the voluntary reform process and what councils across Western Australia are already doing to make improvements, visit WALGA’s voluntary reform website at www.voluntaryreform.com.au
