THE CEO of Melville city council has denied claims his senior staff tried to get a disaffected former volunteer blackballed from running a workshop at a wetlands conference in Cockburn.

“The only information given to the [conference] organiser was to confirm Mr Gavin Waugh was no longer a current volunteer at the City of Melville and this had not been voluntary on his part,” CEO Shayne Silcox told the Herald.

There had been no attempt to put “restrictions on Mr Waugh’s participation” he said.

But Dr Silcox did not elaborate on why it took three staff to convey this information. One of them, according to Mr Waugh, is a senior council lawyer.

No effect

Whatever the approach was meant to achieve, it had no effect on the Cockburn Wetlands Education Centre’s Denise Crosby, with Mr Waugh’s workshop going ahead as planned.

Until last year Mr Waugh had been a long-time active volunteer at Melville, helping rehabilitate its wetlands. But he was “sacked” after publicly criticising the council’s management of Bull Creek, a bush forever site largely strangled by weeds.

• Gavin Waugh says there’s not much more than weeds in much of this ‘bush forever’ site. Photo by Steve Grant

With the council stripping him of his volunteer status, he signed an undertaking not to do any weeding or planting at the creek, which runs along Karel Avenue before doing a dog-leg and disappearing under Leach Highway.

He’s not even allowed to pick up rubbish or step off walking trails without council staff being informed first.

Mr Waugh describes Melville’s calls to Ms Crosby as an infringement of his civil liberties. He says it’s a statement of fact that the council is breaching its own management plan for Bull Creek with its current weed control method.

While the plan recommends the Bradley method—concentrating on preserving the best areas of bush, minimising disturbance and using remaining plants as a basis for recovery, he says the council’s contractors instead completely clear an area with indiscriminate spraying and then come in later with new plantings.

Mr Waugh says many of the plantings are dying because they were planted in summer. Others were doomed from the start: “You see those black caps?” he asks the Herald as we tour the site.

““They’re swamp kangaroo paws—they’re miles away from the flood plain and in completely dry soil,” he says, shaking his head. He acknowledges there’s been some improvement in areas managed by the contractor, but much of the work is being undone because of a lack of follow-up weeding.

In contrast, he points to a very large area of former blackberry and pampas grass he’d personally cleared, which remains relatively free of weeds and showing good signs of recovery.

Mr Waugh says despite the brouhaha over the conference there has been a slight thawing of relations between him and Melville, with the council recently approving his request to do some plantings within the reserve.

Ms Crosby didn’t return the Herald’s call before deadline.

by STEVE GRANT