COMMENT: THE financial health of any council in WA, including Fremantle, can be scrutinised at mycouncil.wa.gov.au/Council/ViewCouncil/51. The Department of Local Government page includes information about population, rates of growth, revenue, staff numbers, assets and a financial health indicator (out of…
COMMENT: FREO’S ‘sustainability journey’ is over. The 10-year experiment in socially engineered ‘terraforming’ and feelgood politics has left ratepayers with a debt-ridden council unable to maintain precious assets and provide basic local services. With a 2020 financial loss of nearly…
A CITY without a mayor or CEO. Increased rates, deteriorating assets and a $32 million loss the City of Fremantle wants to conceal after nearly 10 years of financial mismanagement under a Greens-led council. Freo is not shipshape. The latest…
FARMERS, labourers, camel drivers, horsemen and one of the few indigenous members of WA’s 2/28th Battalion in WW2. Lit by the goldfields sun, their names are honoured on the war memorial at Menzies where the bust of ‘Rat of Tobruk’…
GREAT or small, the future of Australia’s iconic wildlife appears uncertain in the face of climate change and human impacts such as habitat loss and environmental degradation. A new paper on Australia’s megafauna (extinct animals 45kg-plus), shows contrary to expectations,…
COMMENT: Beaconsfield Ward Cr Hannah Fitzhardinge last year told council there had been plenty of community consultation on renaming Kings Square as part of its Walyalup reconciliation action plan. After having spoken to local Indigenous people the day before elected…
FOSSIL hunters are thunderstruck by the latest discoveries of a ‘demon duck’ that went extinct in Australia about 50,000 years ago. Weighing up to 600kg with a head and powerful beak up to half a metre long, the flightless bird…
FREMANTLE councillors have deferred for dubious reasons a City officer’s recommendation to approve a new 15-year lease agreement with tenants of the Old Fire Station Backpackers on Phillimore Street. The item presented at full council last week appeared straightforward, the…
By Carmelo Amalfi WHEN did you last change your computer password? At the City of Fremantle, it was November 1998. According to a damning report by the Auditor General’s Office, the council’s IT and information systems (not to mention ratepayers)…
HERE we go again - just six months after Freo StreetWise exposed the lack of proper council process in the tender for the Kings Square hospitality space. The City’s finance committee will tomorrow revisit old ground when it considers entering…
