Old Swanbourne Hospital Petition tabled in the WA Parliament

Thank you to each of the 785 people who signed the petition requesting that the Legislative Council of the WA Parliament ask that the WA Minster for Heritage not proceed with the proposal by the Heritage Council of WA to transfer planning control over the Old Swanbourne Hospital to the WA Planning Commission.  I have attached a copy of the WA Parliament Website showing that the petition was the third presented to the Legislative Council this year.

I gave more detail about the content of the petition in an earlier post.

The petition was tabled by Hon Giz Watson on the 17 March 2011 and is now before the Legislative Council's Environment and Public Affairs Committee, which is chaired by Hon Brian Charles Ellis MLC.  The other members of the Committee are shown below.

As I understand it, the WA Parliament is unique in Australian parliaments in having a standing committee whose purpose includes the consideration of petitions.  Sometimes the standing committee will hold hearings into the petitions presented to it if there is a matter of sufficient public interest. 

So now we watch with interest to see if the Minister for Heritage takes note of the petition to the Legislative Council in his consideration of recommendations to him from the Heritage Council of WA on this matter.

We are also waiting for two other outcomes:

1. The decision of the Minister for Heritage after he has received advice from the Heritage Council of WA on the public submissions made in response to the rushed proposal to remove the City of Nedlands from planning control over the Old Swanbourne Hospital.

2.  The City of Nedlands to consider the public submissions made in response to the advertising period for the revised Outline Development plan released a few weeks ago for public comment.

Once again thank you to all who signed the petition - and it is very good to see it tabled in our Parliament.  




 

PLEASE HELP COLLECT SIGNATURES FOR A PETITION

Mt Claremont Residents Association members collecting petition signatures at the Mt Claremont Growers Market

I had a lot of fun today talking to residents and visitors to the Mount Claremont Growers Market . We collected dozens of signatures from people concerned at the Christmas Eve announcement by the WA Government that all planning control over the Old Swanbourne Hospital would be transferred to the WA Planning Commission, removing our elected local government from the approval process.

Our petition is to the WA Parliament Upper House - called the Legislative Council - calling on the Members of the Legislative Council to recommend to the Minister for Heritage that he does not proceed with the proposed Order removing the City of Nedlands from planning control over the Old Swanbourne Hospital.

The Residents Association petition is full of legal language, but is drawn from the language used in the Notice published in the Western Australian Government Gazette just before Christmas.  You can download a PDF file copy of the Notice from here.

You can help us collect more signatures for the petition by downloading the petition from here   in Word format, printing off some copies, collecting signatures on the form and then delivering or mailing them to the address at the foot of the petition.  Please - this is important:

- don't change any of the words - because the Legislative Council is very particular about how petitions need to be worded.
- send in the ORIGINAL document - not a copy.

You don't have to be a Mount Claremont resident to sign the petition, you just need to be a resident of the State of Western Australia.

You can also send an email to the Mount Claremont Residents Association at president@mountclaremont.org offering your support if you would like to help the Association collect petition signatures or distribute flyers.

Thanks for your support.

David Thomas