Port Hedland mayor Carter says council needs to work together or face dissolution

Town of Port Hedland mayor Peter Carter is concerned the council could be dissolved at its next meeting if councillors can’t come together and pass the budget after the Local Government Minister threatened to install a commissioner.

“If we don’t get together … the next council meeting will be the turning point. If the budget doesn’t get passed — that’s the trigger. That’s when it’ll be over,” he said.

“It’ll end up like it did in 2019, when I resigned as a councillor and one more pulled the pin — and the whole lot was dissolved.”

It comes after Local Government Minister Hannah Beazley said she had prepared the “groundwork” to put the council into administration and was keeping a close eye on it.

“Should the remaining councillors not be able to put the best interests of their community first, I have commenced the groundwork to install a commissioner if required,” she told the North West Telegraph in late May.

Mr Carter said he was heeding the Minister’s warning and hoped the council could continue to work together until local government elections in October.

“She’s a smart lady. She understands local government … she’s given the notice now to say ‘Pull your head in, try and do the right thing by your community. Otherwise, it’s going to end up in the same boat’,” he said.

“Hopefully the other councillors will say ‘We need to work together’. I’m happy to work with them … let’s just get the town going and hobble through to October.”

Mr Carter said he feared the council could be put into administration for years if the remaining five councillors could not work together.

“I reckon it’d be a two or four-year stint (under administration) to basically do a complete clean-out to get the town back on track,” he said.

“The same thing happened with Nedlands but they pulled their heads in when they got the same warning. We are right on the edge. If we screw up — it’s done.”

He said the council needed to move away from personal and political agendas and get things done for the broader community.

“Some of these councillors are not there for the heart of the town,” he said.

“People attack people for stupid and ridiculous things … personal attacks and personal agendas. That’s not what we’re there for. We’re there to try and do the right thing by the community — and the community expects better.”

It comes after the resignation of Cr Ambika Rebello in May, who said she did not “believe in good conscience I can continue to serve given the current challenges and circumstances facing the council”, leaving the council with the minimum number of members to make quorum.

Turmoil at the council has been ongoing for some time, with concerns over relations between councillors and staff, and other serious matters relating to council business prompting the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries to “encourage” the town to prioritise the “urgent” creation of an “improvement plan” in April last year.

If Ms Beazley follows through on her threat, it would be the second dissolution of the council in just six years.

Cr Camilo Blanco was Hedland’s mayor in 2019 when the State Government last stepped in to manage issues in the town.