Albany council hits out at WA Electoral Commission, writing to WALGA for “disappointment” in election process

The City of Albany has criticised at the WA Electoral Commission with councillors claiming the most recent local government election was riddled with “bad behaviour, bad management or bad policy”. At its October 22 meeting, councillors voted to write to the WA Local Government Association to voice their dissatisfaction with “declining service levels and cost increases” for local government elections, which WAEC runs. The council has taken particular issue with the three days it took to declare the 2023 election results. Deputy mayor Paul Terry said the delay and rising costs were concerning, with the City of Albany seeing a $115,698 cost increase from 2015 to 2023 and a 39 per cent increase from 2021 to 2023 alone. “There was a lot of comments from councillors in the sector in relation to the level of service,” he said. “It was no critical comment against the electoral officer here . . . who does a fantastic job, she was just as frustrated as we were in the whole process.” Cr Robert Sutton said local government “can’t keep forking out” for the “crazy” cost increases. “It’s bad behaviour and bad behaviour has got to be called out,” he said. “I don’t think this reflects at all on the local staff, this is to the hierarchy. “Any other organisation put those prices up, or in small business, it wouldn’t be in business the next day. “This is bad behaviour, bad management, or bad policy. “Whatever it is, the hierarchy have to get it better, and they have to justify those cost increases.” The motion to write to WALGA was carried 8:2 with Crs Malcolm Traill and Lynn McLaren against. On Wednesday, WA Electoral commissioner Robert Kennedy said the WAEC had “decades of experience” in managing government elections and the 2023 delay was due to legislative changes in the voting process, namely the move to optional preferential voting, which complicated the vote counting. Mr Kennedy said WAEC warned local governments and candidates about the potential delays “well ahead of election day” and that it was the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries which asked WAEC to delay the declarations until the Monday after election day to give candidates more time to consider the results. “This more conservative approach was appropriate to best manage the new count processes,” he said, noting that WAEC will employ a more “streamlined approach” at future elections and will no longer defer declarations until Monday. Mr Kennedy said cost pressures remained a “key concern” for all election participants and that inflation had influenced postage and other supplier costs. “The Commission will continue to work closely with local governments in the lead-up to the 2025 local government elections to ensure all costings are understood,” he said. At its September meeting, WALGA’s State council passed a motion to conduct a local government election audit, looking into service delivery and cost allocation.