Two important issues facing residents in Fremantle and its surrounds are the proposed Roe 8 highway extension and new container facility at Kwinana Outer Harbour. Green Left Weekly’s Janet Parker spoke to four progressive candidates contesting council elections on October 19 about them.
Western Australian councils and local government
Green Left Weekly’s Janet Parker spoke to four progressive candidates running for City of Fremantle and nearby City of Cockburn councils about their views on local government and campaign priorities.
Fremantle City Council agreed on May 23 to support a rise in the federal government’s Newstart Allowance paid to unemployed jobseekers, becoming the first local government in Western Australia to adopt this position.
The Fremantle local council elections on October 21 pitted largely conservative challengers against progressive incumbents, including Socialist Alliance member Sam Wainwright and Greens Mayor Brad Pettitt, both of whom had come under fire for the council’s decision to not celebrate Australia Day on January 26.
Both were returned with 55% of the vote, with progressive candidates defeating conservative opponents in all wards. Green Left Weekly spoke to Wainwright about the outcome
The decision by the City of Fremantle to drop its annual Australia Day fireworks has inevitably shaped the contours of the looming council elections, even though no candidate has made it the centrepiece of their campaign.
The election is largely pitting a generally socially progressive group of incumbents of different political stripes (Labor, Greens, socialist and independents) against an alliance of conservative challengers headed by mayoral candidate Caroline “Ra” Stewart.
Earlier this year Fremantle City Council decided to cancel its Australia Day fireworks next month, describing them as “culturally insensitive”. Instead, the council announced plans to hold a free concert in Fremantle’s Esplanade Park on January 28.
The event, titled “One Day in Fremantle”, features a concert headlined by John Butler, Dan Sultan and Mama Kin and will celebrate diversity and multiculturalism in Australia today.
Hobart City Council has joined eight other Australian councils in pledging to end its involvement with any company profiting from abusive practices towards people seeking asylum.
The pledge states that the council will no longer do business with companies, such as Wilson Security and Ferrovial’s Broadspectrum, that take up contracts in Australia’s immigration detention camps.
Cottesloe Council in WA has prohibited the use of air or helium filled balloons at events approved or run by the council.
Once released into the air, balloons can drift for hundreds of kilometres, or rise into the stratosphere where they burst and return to earth in a spaghetti-like shape. As “airborne litter”, balloons then end up in waterways and the ocean.
Terrestrial and marine animals mistake balloons for food and swallow them or get entangled in the string attached. This can lead to the loss of a limb or even to the death of turtles, whales, dolphins, dugongs or seabirds.
2015’s most pressing issues in 2015
GLTV team, Anna and Andry, asked participants at the Socialist Alliance National Conference held Sydney in June what they see as the most pressing issues of the day. They captured their thoughts in this video.
Perth Freight Link: Fremantle council tells premier where to go!
Perth activist Kamala Emanuel won a resounding victory on May 28 in an important court case addressing the right to protest.
Emanuel was charged with failing to comply with a police move-on notice that was issued during a protest rally against fracking in April last year. Emanuel did not dispute that she refused to comply with the move-on order but argued in court that the move-on notice was invalid.