New Minister for Local Government

Published on Wednesday, 5 May 2021 at 8:00:00 AM

The Hon John Carey MLA is the new Minister for Local Government, taking up the portfolio from Minister Templeman after the state government election and subsequent cabinet changes earlier in the year.  In a meeting with the Local Government Professionals Association Chair (Jamie Parry) and CEO (Candy Choo) on 15 April, Minister Carey shared his priorities for the local government sector.  These include:

Workplace Culture and Innovation

  • Encouraging innovative practices within local government.
  • Improving the culture of local governments through strengthening of governance frameworks and enhanced roles and relationships between Elected Members, the Administration, and community.
  • Dealing with bullying and harassment behaviours – recognising that this is not a simple issue to be solved simply through legislation and regulation changes

 Increasing Transparency

  • Encouraging greater use of on-line registers to enable ease of access to information by the public, though recognising that many smaller local governments may not have the resources to undertake this.
  • Improved access to information by Elected Members and the public.
  • Improved consultation and engagement with the public by local governments.
  • Review of My Council to provide the community with greater confidence of key performance measures of local governments.

Red Tape Reduction

  • Examination of red tape reduction particularly in the small business and planning and development areas.

Legislative Reform

  • Delivery of a new Local Government Act remains important.
  • Early intervention aimed at avoiding local government inquiries. 
  • Review of size and scale compliance recognising the diversity of local governments throughout WA.

Many of these priorities were reflected as important to our community during the 2020 consultation undertaken in the development of the Shire’s new Strategic Community Plan and Corporate Business.  We look forward to releasing these and sharing them with you soon.

In the meantime, the My Council website is a great resource available to all members of the community to view and compare information about the Shire.  You can access it here

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