🌙 Last month, Joondalup Council adopted a midnight closing time for the Councillors’ Lounge following meetings. But surprisingly, agreeing on bedtime took the Mayor’s casting vote.

Deputy Mayor Raftis proposed the cut-off to avoid security callout costs and in anticipation of State Government changes requiring council meetings to close or adjourn by 11 pm.

The acting CEO said councillors remaining in the building past midnight had triggered the security alarm, meaning that security had been called out to investigate on a couple of occasions. No dollar figure of the cost of these call-outs was provided during the debate.

Mayor Kingston supported the cut-off, suggesting that after midnight councillors should think about heading home to their families.

The vote split 6/6 and the Mayor’s casting vote carried it.

Lights out, councillors.

#wakeupjoondalup

Apparently, Joondalup ratepayers need to dig a little deeper to support the impoverished State Government.

The Department of Education wants the City to waive venue-hire fees for its VacSwim and in-term swimming programs. Education Minister Sabine Winton has criticised Joondalup for charging the State to use the City’s facilities, including Craigie Leisure Centre and our beaches.

Venue hire charges also apply to businesses, private hirers, and community organisations, with different rates and concessions depending on their category. The Department is being charged under established arrangements.

Our facilities cost money to operate and maintain. Hire income contributes towards those costs. Waiving the State’s bill means losing that contribution.

As a ratepayer, I think the State should pay for the facilities it hires to deliver its programs.

The dispute covers venue hire for swimming programs at Craigie Leisure Centre and the City’s beaches. The Council report identifies more than $22,500 in fees in 2026.

To be clear, these are charges to the Department of Education. For context, the State funded free VacSwim lessons and pool entry previously. In more recent years they changed this and now charge enrolment fees to parents for the program.

And also, waiving the Department’s hire bill would not automatically remove those family expenses. There appears to be no commitment to pass the savings on to families if Joondalup waives the fees. Certainly families still face these charges in other local governments that waive the Department’s venue-hire fees.

What happened at last month’s Council meeting?

Mayor Daniel Kingston brought forward a motion to allow government departments, agencies, and educational providers to request fee waivers.

He used the debate to challenge the State’s request, arguing that the Department should fund its programs’ venue costs. He ultimately voted against the waiver provision, which Council rejected 11–1.

Council unanimously agreed to seek a fuller report specifically examining the swimming-program charges at Sorrento and Mullaloo beaches, including their calculation, community benefits, and options for concessions or exemptions. That review is sensible. The City should be able to explain and justify what they charge.

But the underlying question remains: why should Joondalup ratepayers subsidise a State Government department’s venue hire?

Teaching children to swim is important. So is funding it properly.

We pay either way, of course. Joondalup ratepayers are taxpayers too. But waiving the fees shifts the funding burden from the State’s broad revenue base onto our much smaller local budget, leaving less money available for local services.

Other councils choosing to provide that subsidy doesn’t mean Joondalup must follow suit.

Free venue hire still comes at a cost. The argument is over whose budget carries it.

#wakeupjoondalup

🎉 Some good news about the City’s approach to weed management.

For those following the push to reduce chemical weed control, here's the update on my post from last month. Council made several positive decisions at its 22 September meeting.

🌱 More non-chemical weed control

Council unanimously supported a five-year approach targeting a 25–50% reduction in glyphosate and other pesticides within parks and streetscapes.

☁️ Bringing steam weed control in-house
The supported approach includes bringing steam and hot-water weed control for the CBD, play spaces, and areas within 50 metres of schools in-house. City equipment and trained staff would provide greater flexibility and reduce reliance on contractors, who would continue to cover other locations.

💀 No new Schedule 5 chemicals voted through

The proposed use of pre-emergent herbicides on arterial and distributor roads, and in selected park areas, was voted down, nine votes to three.

🖋️ There Less paperwork for residents
With 9/3 support, Council also agreed to keep residents on the Pesticide Exclusion and Pesticide Use Notification registers for three years without annual re-registration, along with sending renewal reminders.

It will also investigate allowing residents to receive spraying notifications for more than five parks or reserves.

🔎 Better accountability
Annual glyphosate use by both the City and its contractors is to be included in the State of the Environment Report. Council also requested measures to track non-chemical treatment coverage, maintenance standards, and pesticide use, with progress reported throughout the five-year period.

🪙 Funding for our volunteer Friends Groups will be reviewed at the mid-year budget review, with the aim of providing a CPI adjustment.

🙏 And it's all thanks to you!
This all follows the community’s call for reduced pesticide use at the March 2024 Electors’ Meeting and Council’s subsequent request for a feasibility report.

There is still implementation ahead, but these are positive steps towards reducing reliance on herbicides, making the registers easier to use, and giving residents a clearer view of progress.

#wakeupjoondalup

Metrix Consulting is running a survey on behalf of the City to find out what people think about Joondalup. It asks about the City and your experiences of living, working, or spending time here.

One question asks for the first three words or phrases that come to mind when you think of the City as an organisation.

The survey link is in the comments if you’d like to respond. Or leave your three words here, and I’ll be sure to pass them on.

#wakeupjoondalup

A beach enclosure only makes people safer if it works.

The recent tragedy has understandably left people worried and wondering what more can be done to keep us safe in the ocean. It’s no surprise that thoughts turn towards shark barriers.

But a rushed decision risks making swimmers less safe, by creating confidence in protection measures that may not actually work.

The previous enclosure at Sorrento Beach is the cautionary tale.

If you’re wondering why it was taken out, I encourage you to watch the Channel 9 News footage from the time (link in comments below).

Typical of the City of Joondalup of that vintage: everything had to be the biggest and the newest thing (in this case meaning not properly tested) and, of course, the most expensive. In May 2016, Council awarded Eco Shark Barrier a $910,000 contract for the 430x270m enclosure, its installation, and three years of maintenance.

Never mind that comparable open-coast projects in New South Wales had already failed. The City knew about those failures, but decided Sorrento’s conditions would be less challenging.

Council made the decision, but it was the community that ultimately carried the safety risk and picked up the bill when inadequately proven equipment failed.

The enclosure opened in December 2016. There appear to have been challenges with the barrier from that outset.

Then, less than two years into this experiment, sections broke free from their steel cable tethers and washed ashore following storms.

In my view, once substantial pieces of infrastructure intended to keep sharks out are washing up on the beach, it is probably time to accept that the experiment has failed.

Instead, the enclosure remained until 2020. By then, an independent assessment had identified significant damage and structural faults. Its integrity could no longer be guaranteed, and it was removed before more of it washed ashore.

The City subsequently pursued a claim against the provider and successfully recovered $500,000 through a confidential commercial settlement reached through mediation. Of course, that does not constitute a court finding or an admission of liability. But it does rather lend weight to concerns that the enclosure did not perform as expected.

At the very least, it is impossible to be sure that the enclosure ever worked as intended. On balance, we can count ourselves lucky its failure revealed itself through broken sections, debris, and wasted public money, rather than during an encounter with a shark.

Of course, that history should not be used to rule out a future enclosure entirely.

But what Sorrento does not need is another race to a reassuring-looking solution before its reliability has been established. Any future proposal must be proven, independently assessed, reliable in Sorrento’s specific conditions, and supported by evidence.

It must also involve proper funding and participation from the State and Federal Governments, particularly the State agencies responsible for shark mitigation.

Let’s not dive headlong into another debacle.

#wakeupjoondalup

The Churches of Christ Sport and Recreation Association (CCSRA), which operates Warwick Stadium, emailed its mailing list this week.

Subject line: “We operate the facility. You help us shape what it needs to be.”

The email invites feedback on the stadium’s future. One link goes to CCSRA. The other directs matters involving capital investment, infrastructure, upgrades and major works straight to the City’s complaints page.

Warwick Stadium does need attention. But the request lays bare the fundamental problem with its leasing arrangement.

CCSRA operates the facility and keeps the operating revenue from the snack-bar to the sponsorships (and any approved sub-leasing income).

The City owns the building, but receives only heavily subsidised rent, while retaining responsibility for the expensive long-term needs of the public asset.

Income and investment responsibility are split.

How did we get here?

In 2013 the City contributed $2.3 million toward the stadium’s expansion. CCSRA says it invested over $8 million. In return it secured a heavily subsidised lease over the whole facility, with tenure that can stretch to 30 years.

The original Council report implied annual rent of roughly $11,665 once the expansion was finished, on a building then valued at $23.33 million replacement cost.

That figure is historical, not today’s invoice, but it shows the scale of the subsidy. The approved formula is just 0.05% of the applicable replacement value.

And that's all the income the City receives from Warwick Stadium. The City receives none of the operating income that could help fund modernisation. CCSRA receives that income yet points to the City as the owner responsible for upgrades and major capital works.

Now the community is being asked for 'feedback' that looks like an effort to strengthen the case for further public spending.

Where does that leave ratepayers?

If the City does not invest, the public building grows more outdated and users lose out.

If the City does invest, ratepayers improve CCSRA’s revenue-generating platform without receiving any share of the operating return.

We own the asset either way. We remain exposed to its long-term costs either way. The peppercorn-style rent gives the City almost nothing with which to meet those costs.

That is an untenable setup.

It also means many ratepayers pay twice: once through the charges to use the facility, and again through the public funding of the building and without the subsidised community rates available at City-run venues.

I would rather the City had funded the full expansion and retained operational control and the revenue. That would have meant carrying the operating risks, as they do with Craigie LC, but at least income, expenditure and investment decisions would have sat together.

Instead we have a public asset whose commercial income flows to a separate operator while the major investment decisions come back to the City.

Warwick Stadium needs a sustainable future. Pouring more ratepayer money into the same structure simply leaves the same problem waiting at the next upgrade.

The City should identify the earliest lawful and financially responsible path to unwind this arrangement without disrupting the clubs, programs and people who rely on the stadium. It should not extend it, and it should not repeat it elsewhere.

Public investment must secure lasting public benefit, affordable community access, and a credible plan to fund the asset’s future.

In my view, this arrangement does not adequately serve ratepayers. We need a way out, not another round of funding that makes the problem more entrenched.

#wakeupjoondalup