Category: Law and Politics

The big thing in WA politics at the moment is local council amalgamations. The State Government – in its wisdom – has decided that there are too many councils these days, and intends to force a bunch of them to amalgamate for reasons of ‘efficiency’. This despite the fact that it’s only twenty years since a couple of large councils were broken up, also for reasons of ‘efficiency’.

The local councils themselves are having none of this, presumably because it means they’d have to share, and have whipped their rate payers up into a state of open rebellion with claims that fees will go up, and services go down.

I have no idea who’s right or wrong in this debate – my interest in the affair is limited to the fact that the mooted amalgamation of South Perth and Victoria Park is to be named “South Park” after the Government were dumb enough to listen to a number of thoroughly trolled online polls, and in the rather interesting anomaly revealed when the official maps of the new council boundaries were revealed the other week.

The plan as laid out is that the City of Perth will be expanded to encompass (among other things) all of Kings Park and the University of Western Australia – presumably so the PCC can have easy access to kangaroos and sweet, sweet student cash. To the west of this expansion the swanky suburbs of Mosman Park, Peppermint Grove, Nedlands, et al. will be forced together into the newly created and rather poorly named City of Riversea. Where the fun lies is that the east border of Riversea doesn’t quite meet the west border of Perth, resulting in a strip of land along Hampden Road with no council at all.

The Government insists that it’s going to fix this in the next version of the proposal, but as someone who happens to work in the disputed zone, I say nay and hereby seize the territory in the name of the People’s Republic of Hampden Road! No more Local Council tyranny! We shall have Truth! Justice! Reasonably priced love! A lack of parking fines and (if we have time) a boiled egg!

As Benevolent Dictator I hereby seize the assets of Spices Supermarket, Jester’s Pies, Baskin Robins, and the Burgermeister. Citizens are directed to assemble upstairs at the Byrneleigh for the first meeting of the Revolutionary Council, where we shall use materials collected from Educational Art Supplies to construct a flag and suitability official uniforms. Then it’s to the barricades brothers and sisters! For Liberty! Fraternity! And a certain measure of strictly controlled Equality!

(Please note that anyone singing songs from Les Miserables will be shot, and I need to get home in time for Lost Girl, so we’ll aim to have the Revolution done and dusted by 8:30 at the latest, OK?)

Later: Hmmm, It looks as if I may have been a bit too eager with my territorial ambitions, as the Zone of Alienation apparently only covers the east side of Hampden Road. As such, seizing the supermarket, pie shop and Educational Art Supplies would constitute an act of war against Riversea. I must therefore reluctantly relinquish my claim to these businesses, and we’ll have to make our uniforms and flag with what we can get from the newsagents opposite instead.

On the plus side it looks as if UWA and the new children’s hospital fall within our borders. As does the Yacht club, so I’ll have somewhere to keep the Presidential Schooner.