If I wanted to build the most dysfunctional governance model I could imagine, I think I would struggle to come up with something more outlandish than a Regional Council model like the one the MRC is based upon.
Just imagine a think tank pulling it together…
Right, what if we had seven different councils run the same enormous environmental liability, but also made them customers of it, incentivising them to run it as cheaply as possible?
Good start, but let’s also give them an unequal say and an unequal share of the liability.
What? So some would have more representatives than others? Now you’re getting it!
Then let’s have some of the local governments with residents living right next to it, while others are so far away they never need to think about it. But then let’s make it stink so badly that it makes it hard for locals to live with.
Even better, let’s have only some of the councils put money aside in a reserve for the inevitable costs they will all have to pay for the capping and remediation works when it comes to the end of its life.
Wait. Wouldn’t that give some an incentive to keep it open longer – if they don’t have the money to close it?
I expect so!
Then next, how about we have some of the councils grant themselves permission to stop using the facility, but they can still remain owners, while the rest have to keep paying gate fees to maintain the operation they all still own.
But what if they all stop using it?
Then how will it ever close? Silly!
Ah! That is actually genius.
So the remaining councils keep paying to use it, but with fewer users, it takes even longer to fill and therefore longer to close, making the nearby residents even angrier.
Naturally!
So how do we choose who governs this thing? Environmental scientists? Engineers? People with expertise in contaminated sites?
Don’t be ridiculous!
Local councillors can do it. And we just get their fellow elected councillors to vote for them.
But not for their expertise, right? And will we pay them extra?
Obviously!
And in fact we’ll pay them even more if they can get themselves elected as Chair or Deputy of the regional council.
Oh I like that! Just imagine the potential for political appointments and horse trading.
Okay, but presumably we still have to have someone independent to watch over the environmental stuff?
I suppose that’s what DWER is for, yes.
But then… hear me out on this… what if, instead of having DWER commission independent environmental monitoring, the system relied heavily on monitoring and reporting done or commissioned by the organisation DWER is regulating? I mean, it’s worked a treat with all the water licencing regulation, hasn’t it?
It’s good, but surely the regulator would independently check that the reporting is fully accurate?
Well yes. Eventually.
How eventually?
Well… how about if that happened when the problems were serious enough to require an Environmental Protection Notice?
…or even, a second EPN?
Two EPNs? Don’t you think you’re overdoing it? I mean, this may only be an imaginary scenario, but you can only stretch credulity so far.
Any resemblance between this completely hypothetical governance model and any Regional Council, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Obviously.
#wakeupjoondalup