Toodyay Herald

The Shire of Toodyay says it has begun talking to applicants who wish to re-open the medical centre and work locally after it advertised tenders for new contracts last month.

Shire CEO Suzie Haslehurst said she could not say when local GP and other services might resume.

This would depend on the outcome of negiotiations which were due to start in the final week of last month.

Re-opening the medical centre was discussed at a councillor workshop on November 18 and debated behind closed doors at a council meeting a week later.

Councillors voted 8-0 for Ms Haslehurst to “open negotiations with proponents regarding the terms of an agreement”.

They directed her to report back on the “outcomes of negotiations” by no later than January 31 next year.

The talks would include what business model the shire should adopt for the centre to reopen.
Ms Haslehurst said the shire owned some of the medical centre’s equipment, including patient beds, computers and furniture.

The centre would not be left bare when the Wheatbelt Health Network moved out.
The service provider had not been charged rent to use the shire-owned medical centre building.

Negotiations with replacement GPs would include whether the shire should continue to offer rent-free premises under any new contract.

Other considerations might include free housing, a car or other incentives.

No federal or State funding was available to help pay these additional costs, which the shire said were falling increasingly on regional local government councils such as Toodyay.

Ms Haslehurst said the shire had told the WA Government that it was unfair to expect regional ratepayers to subsidise local doctor services that city people took for granted.

“For instance, you don’t get the Town of Claremont subsiding local GPs,” she said.

Mr Haslehurst said the shire wanted to keep as many local medical services as possible.

This year’s races were scratched and the running of the Toodyay Cup moved to Belmont after the local betting and public bar area was deemed unsafe for public use.

The facilities are owned by the shire and leased to the Toodyay Race Club.

Cancellation of this year’s September races prompted the shire to order a structural engineer’s report which highlighted a number of electrical, plumbing and structural defects.

Repairs would require “significant cost”, Ms Haslehurst said.

The club said in May that it planned to resume local racing next year, but this may now be in doubt.

It said at the time that it had spent thousands of dollars on maintenance over several years but had no money to pay for major repairs.

The main roof was beyond repair, gutters were rusted and new electrical equipment had been wrecked by heavy rain in April.

A Herald inspection of the damage revealed that the clubrooms, members’ bar and jockey changerooms also needed repairs.

Ms Haslehurst said the shire had written to the race club about “a number of issues of concern in relation to risk”.

“We will also get our own insurers to inspect the building,” she said.

The track is used for racing only once a year for the running of the Toodyay Cup.

Ms Haslehurst said there had been no shire contact with Racing and Wagering WA about the future of the historic race track.

She said the shire met Toodyay Race Club representatives at the end of last month and presented them with a list of the “more urgent repairs” that needed to be done before racing could safely resume.

The club had agreed to respond with a presentation to a February meeting of the Toodyay Shire Council.

One option was to give ownership of the land to the race club.

However, the club has said previously that the shire – as owner of the buildings – was responsible for repairs, which the club said should be completed before any handover.

Toodyay Race Club Chair and former shire deputy president John Prater said the club would consider its options before making a presentation to the council in February.

The Toodyay Race Club was founded in 1865 and celebrated its 150th year in 2015.

The popular country racecourse is one of the oldest in WA.

A ‘fourth wave’ of the virus is expected to peak across Australia this month but be shorter and less severe than previously.

There were 75 new WA hospital admissions – including one directly into intensive care – during the seven-day period, and 14 people aged 75-99 died.

The Wheatbelt infection rate for same period was 193 per 100,000 people, compared with 381 in the city.

Re-infections accounted for 16 per cent of all new cases overall, compared with 13 per cent the previous week.

State health officials said only a third of all West Australians had received a recommended fourth dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Passenger rail services were not affected.

Local residents with gophers, wheelchairs and prams have complained that the bitumen pathway across the town’s busy east-west rail link is dangerous.

They feared tumbling off the crumbling edges onto the track and being unable to get out of the way of approaching trains.

The crossing is also used by children.

The PTA said a year ago that a controlled crossing with gates and an audible warning signal would cost about $1 million.

There was “no solid timeframe” for the upgrade to be done, a spokesperson said.

Agriculture Minister Alannah MacTiernan said grain handler CBH had bought a 105ha site at Northam to boost WA export capacity to three million tonnes a month over the next decade.

The State had contributed $200,000 for road and rail design, Ms MacTiernan said.

The new site is 20km east of Northam at Avon Industrial Park on the Great Eastern Highway and WA’s east-west rail link.

CBH says it is using four temporary sites there to receive grain, and was building five more to handle this year’s harvest.

These would be converted to permanent storage under a $4 billion plan to expand WA grain handling over the next decade.

The new ‘Meenar’ facility would include new rail sidings and grain loaders.

The State says it wants to give all shire voters the choice to number their preference for as many or few candidates as they wish.

Toodyay councillors say optional preferential voting could encourage party politics and “other alliances” to form.

WA councils currently use first-past-the-post voting which critics say allows candidates with the most votes to win even if they lack a majority of all votes cast.

The State says optional preferential voting is fairer, more representative and offers more choice.

Toodyay councillors backed WA Local Government Minister John Carey’s push for smaller councils but oppose his call for shires the size of Toodyay to elect only five councillors instead of the current nine.

They said it could cause “ongoing disruption” in agricultural areas where seasonal demands could limit participation.

Toodyay will instead seek seven councillors, which the Minister says is acceptable.
The shire has operated most of this year with only eight councillors after Cr Ben Bell’s resignation last January.

A seven-member council would save Toodyay ratepayers $23,000 a year after councillors voted 8-0 last July to give themselves a 17.4 per cent pay rise.

Toodyay also backed the Minister’s plan to give shire presidents new powers to expel councillors from the chamber if they “unreasonably and repeatedly interrupt meetings”.

Similar rules apply in Federal and State Parliament.

Proposed new standing orders would enable shire presidents to issue a formal “first warning”.

A president could “red card” councillors who continued to be disruptive which meant they could still vote but be banned from speaking or moving items of business for the rest of the meeting.

The shire has asked that red cards also bar councillors from seconding motions, which may cause items of business to lapse without debate.

Tougher proposed penalties for breaches of local government law include up to three months’ suspension for repeat offenders.

Suspended councillors would not be paid sitting fees or allowances or allowed to attend council meetings.

They would also be banned from using their official shire title or council email addresses while suspended.

Repeat offenders could be disqualified from office.

The shire warned that “political influence” should not be allowed to interfere with suspensions.

The reforms include a new Chief Inspector of Local Government with the powers of a standing inquiry to investigate shire councils, intervene in administrative affairs and monitor councillor behaviour.

The role is intended to replace an authorised inquiry, such as in Toodyay three years ago, which was seen to be too costly and slow to address “significant issues”.

The reforms also seek to remove the WA Local Government Association from legislation to clarify that it is not a State Government entity.

The reforms are expected to be introduced to the WA Parliament – where the McGowan Government has a record Labor majority in both Houses – early next year.