Going through the motions

A MOTION to stop vehicles parking ‘unlawfully’ on historic Wilson Park was defeated tonight while a motion was passed to join a global network of cities battling climate change, including the Chinese city of Wuhan.
Both motions raise serious questions – why Fremantle council is OK for vehicles to use a State-vested reserve, one of the few public green spaces left in the port city designated for recreation, and why Greens Mayor Brad Pettitt voted in support of a climate change initiative he is openly promoting on his blog site.
South Ward Councillor Marija Vujcic moved the Wilson Park motion to save ratepayers more than $40,000 a year in repairs to the reserve caused by ‘ancillary’ activities such as festivals and markets. Wilson Park was vested in the City in 1986 to manage for the purpose of ‘recreation’. Any other purpose is ‘unlawful’, Cr Vuycic argued, her motion a response to residents’ complaints of the damage caused to the park by overflow parking and visitors to the Sunset Markets.
Fellow South Ward Councillor Andrew Sullivan posted two days ago claiming Cr Vuycic’s motion would deny people access to South Beach, which is of course rubbish. In fact, Cr Sullivan’s post says more about the council’s inability to deter the ‘hoons’ using the park during his time on council when he supported residential density codes which reduced the number of parking bays in South Fremantle, forcing people on to the park. Instead of creating a big carpark, he said, “Council started allowing people to park on Wilson Park”, in 2016, contrary to the purpose the park was reserved for – recreation. According to the officer’s comment, the ‘ancillary’ use of Wilson Park is, “allowed under the vesting”.
Cr Vuycic told StreetWise for a decade Cr Sullivan and the council allowed developers to provide inadequate onsite parking: “The waving of onsite parking goes against the R20 building regulations. For example, the development on the corner of Duoro Road and Hulbert Street was required to provide 23 car bays and this was dropped to 18 car bays. The residents paid the price of the discounted five bays. It will not be long before the parking on Wilson Park will not be enough. Do we then start taking the green space of South Beach? This will not be a big leap because if we treat the green reserve of Wilson Park as a parking lot, South Beach will be much easier to do over.”
City Ward Councillor Rachel Pemberton’s C4 motion called on the State and Federal governments to adopt and financially support the C40 principles as part of a COVID-19 ‘recovery plan’. The save-the-world motion states, “We strongly advocate that any COVID-19 stimulus and recovery package should include measures that can both quickly stimulate job creation and economic recovery and align with our commitment to net-zero by 2050”.
Not surprising, Dr Pettitt supported Pemberton’s motion, having posted on his mayoral page on May 25, ahead of the council vote, that he was, “really impressed”, by the post-COVID-19 recovery plan. Of all the countries listed by Dr Pettitt, there is no mention of China except for Hong Kong. The C40 group consists of 96 cities including 12 in Africa, 11 in South America and eight in China including Wuhan.
Given the blatant ideological parallels to the Greens policies, Cr Pemberton’s motion is convenient and self-serving, so watch out for it in future advertising for Dr Pettitt’s campaign run.
Cr Vujcic said Cr Pemberton’s motion is admirable, but it did little for local businesses dealing with the COVID-19 challenge: “Our local issues are much more immediate, such as food, clothing, shelter, jobs, medical and supporting local businesses. We want to go about our business lawfully knowing that we are relatively safe and that we have good services and equality of opportunity in our aspirations without the ‘collective’ telling us how to do it. The amount of time, energy and money spent by the City of Fremantle in the past decade, on bringing about a green, sustainable city has impacted on our financial capacity to function post COVID-19. And yet, we have not met our tree canopy targets, we turn green spaces and side streets into carparks. The actions do not match the words. I voted against the motion.”
This exclusive report courtesy of StreetWise Media at www.streetwisemedia.com.au.