City of Gosnells councillor says multi-wards would help voters

The City of Gosnells has a one-ward system but a petition was submitted last year asking the council to go back to a multi-wards system.

Although Cr Goode does |believe it would be easier to get elected, he said he couldn’t see any point in changing the system right now as the same circumstances still apply.

“Voters also would know who their local councillor was and what they stood for,” he said.

“Voters would have a far smaller list of candidates to choose from.

“Having just the one ward means it will be a lot harder for the person to become |elected.

“They need more money or need to team up with other candidates in order to share the costs. I cannot see any point in changing the current system right now as the same circumstances still apply.”

Cr Goode also said he did not want to see the City waste money on handling the ward issue.

“I just hope a lot of money is not spent on this exercise as this is where we can waste money in handling the administration of such matters,” he said.

City of Gosnells chief |executive Ian Cowie said |costs associated with changing the City’s electoral arrangements would be |negligible as the bulk of the work required to determine appropriate ward boundaries would be undertaken by City staff.

“If Council was to resolve to change its electoral arrangements, the change would be implemented in line with ordinary election dates and therefore no additional elections would be required,” he said.