Gosnells Mayor Dave Griffiths and chief executive Ian Cowie head to Dumas House in West Perth to hear merger announcements last week. d428094
Camera IconGosnells Mayor Dave Griffiths and chief executive Ian Cowie head to Dumas House in West Perth to hear merger announcements last week. d428094 Credit: Supplied/Andrew Ritchie

The City of Gosnells expects job losses after merger with City of Canning

Emma Young, Comment NewsComment News

Mr Cowie said Gosnells would work ‘respectfully’ with Canning to ensure the fair transfer of assets and liabilities as well as staff, particularly administrative staff, but said that Gosnells was able to take on more people.

‘The City of Gosnells has always run a lean ship in terms of staff numbers,’ he said.

‘Usually, local governments of similar size have 100 to 150 employees more than we do. We are growing in terms of staff numbers by five to 15 people every year anyway.’

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His ‘best guess’ was that for the time being staff would work out of both civic centres.

Canning’s commissioners will stay on until next July, when Gosnells will take over until October 2015 elections, when the terms of six of Gosnells’ 11 councillors end.

Mr Cowie said the elections would be on the existing no-ward basis, which the new council would consider whether to change.

‘Generally the view is if an electoral district becomes too big you have to break it down. But there’s no cut-off, no right or wrong,’ he said.

Mr Cowie said there was an ‘awful lot of work’ to be done between now and July 1, but it was ‘nice to finally have some certainty’.

‘Not all will be smooth sailing, but we’ll do our best to ensure the community gets a quality local government ‘