A COCKBURN councillor has called for sister city relationships to be scrapped, saying they offer no tangible benefit to the community.
Councillor Tarun Dewan’s comments came after a bruising Cockburn meeting on Tuesday where a proposed $114,000 trip to Croatia by mayor Logan Howlett and three councillors was put on the back burner.
That followed a week of criticism in the media over the cost of the trip during a time many of Cockburn’s residents are struggling to make ends meet because of cost of living pressures.
Cr Dewan told the Herald he was the only councillor who wasn’t on the City’s sister cities reference group – a handy pathway to securing a plane ticket – because he thinks it’s little more than a junket.
• Cr Phoebe Corke: Not the time to be splashing out.
Neighbours
“I mean, if it was Indonesia, you could perhaps say that they were neighbours and there could be some benefit, but Alabama and Croatia, you have to even fly halfway across the world to get there,” Cr Dewan said.
He’d also queried council staff on whether any reports were written about a visit from a Croatian delegation in October last year that cost Cockburn $20,000, or a visit by Mr Howlett to Split in Croatia earlier in May that wasn’t part of the sister cities program but cost just under $14,000.
“The answer was that there were no reports, so how can they be saying that there are benefits,” he said.
During Tuesday’s meeting, Cr Phoebe Corke, who moved to defer the trip, said she’d attended the sister cities reference group meeting when it was discussed and thinks staff may have jumped the gun.
“It wasn’t a decision that we should put it forward to go,” Cr Corke said.
She said staff had made committee members aware of the Croatian visit and suggested bringing forward a return trip, which would normally have to wait its turn in the sister cities’ queue.
“We agreed to ask for info about how much it should cost.”
The proposed trip was planned to coincide with a folkloric festival attended by local musos Zagreb, who got funding from both Cockburn council and neighbouring Fremantle, which is yet to vote on a possible delegation.
Despite that opportunity, Cr Corke said the timing was out.
“A delegation by the mayor and elected members at this time at a cost of $28,500 per delegate, which equates to over $4000 per elected member per day cannot be justified as being in the public interest,” she said.
“We’re in a cost of living crisis; there are many better ways to spend $14,000 that will directly benefit our residents.”
Rival
Deputy mayor Chontelle Stone had some suggestions about where to spend the money, as well as taking a dig at political rival Mr Howlett.
“The mayor could go to Tempest Park in Coolbellup which is in desperate need floodlighting, but that project just got delayed in the budget review,” Cr Stone said.
After having that angle shut down by a procedural motion, she continued.
“We have a lot of other projects around this city that that money could be spent, like the Cockburn Arc where the water slides are still out of action again this summer; where Bakers Square netball courts are now unusable and desperately needing resurfacing.”
Following the debate, there was a tied vote on whether to proceed with the trip, with Mr Howlett using his casting vote to break the deadlock and defer the trip.
by STEVE GRANT