FAQ

The Local Government Advisory Board has been informed of Council's decision and will make a recommendation to the Minister for Local Government; Heritage; Culture and the Arts, who will then make a final decision about the proposed changes. 

If these ward boundary alignment changes are endorsed by the Minister, they must be gazetted by 30 June 2019 in order to then allow implementation by the WA Electoral Commission.  Prior to gazetting, the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries is required to undertake 10 steps as follows to ensure changes come into effect before the next local government election of 19 October 2019:

1. Board’s consideration of proposal and recommendation to Minister

2. Submission of recommendation briefing to Minister

3. Consideration of recommendation by Minister and subsequent advice to Board

4. Advice of outcome to each LG, Landgate and WAEC

5. Preparation of Governor’s Orders in conjunction with Parliamentary Counsels Office

6. Preparation of deposited plans in conjunction with Landgate

7. Submission of formal paperwork to Governor in Executive Council for final approval

8. Consideration and approval of recommendation by Executive Council

9. Preparation of paperwork for publication in the Gazette

10. Final publication in Gazette

No, the suburb names will not change. For some properties the ward name may change, but not suburb names.

Under Schedule 2.2 of the Local Government Act 1995 , local governments are required to carry out reviews of their ward boundaries and number of councillors for each ward, so that no more than eight years elapse between successive reviews.  Reviews can also be instigated when a valid submission from 250 or 10% (whichever is the lesser) of the total number of affected electors who petition for changes to a ward system.

A recent examination of the electors for each ward has revealed that the Mill Point Ward is under represented compared to the other wards in the City following recent population growth in this area.  This creates a percentage ratio deviation of councillors to electors greater than recommended (with a balanced ratio representation being plus or minus 10%).  

In accordance with the advice provided by the Local Government Advisory Board, the ratio deviation of -10.73% in the Mill Point ward creates an unbalanced representation and a ward boundary review should be initiated. 

As part of the review, five factors are considered:

1.  Community of interest;

2.  Physical and topographic features;

3.  Demographic trends;

4.  Economic factors; and

5.  Ratio of councillors to electors in the various wards.

No, as part of the review process other aspects of wards and representation can be considered.  These are:

1.  Creating new wards in a district already divided into wards;

2.  Abolishing any or all of the wards into which a district is divided;

3.  Changing the name of a district or a ward;

4.  Changing the number of offices of councillor on a council; and

5.  Specifying or changing the number of offices of councillor for a ward.

The last Review was carried out in 2011 and changes came into effect at the October 2014 local government election. The outcome of this review was that the number of councillors was reduced from 13 to nine. You can view the 2011 documents in the Document Library.