The full text of the Letter to the Editor of the Armadale Examiner, sent on 07 August 2007, is below.
............................................. It is interesting how briefly council policies last, or how it is that a mayor does not speak for a council, or how misleading are statements made on behalf of the council, and how short people's memories are, regarding elections and politics. I refer to recent statements by the mayor of the Armadale City Council, opposing the imposition of preferential voting in local government elections, due to the prospect of factional or party politics in local government elections, to which the council, as supposedly represented by the mayor, purportedly objects. Obviously, his statements are not supported by either the deputy mayor, or by the members of the city council. I refer to a flyer that was distributed by the Examiner, in the issue dated 2 August, that was an electioneering document by the deputy mayor for this year's local government elections, endorsed by the two sitting councillors for the Lake Ward, which is the ward that the deputy mayor intends to take, using factional politics to shut out any candidates who might not agree with actions or policies of the existing council, and to keep the ward under the control of the existing faction that perhaps controls the council. Clearly, the intent is that the interests of the sitting councillors, are to be represented, in factional, or party, electioneering, rather than the interests of the electors of the ward. This previously happened, when the current system of local government elections was implemented, when the "first past the post" voting system was implemented, supposedly to prevent ticket voting, but in that election, ticket voting was used to manipulate the polls, to apply party politics to the election. Electors of the previous Forrest Ward, may (or, may not) remember the first election under the current voting system, when one of the existing Lake Ward Councillors, and a previous mayor of Armadale, stood on a party ticket, with how to vote cards showing the two candidates on a combined ticket, to use the standing of the previous mayor, to shut out candidates other than him and his campaign partner. Now, we have similar electioneering, with the deputy mayor switching to the Lake Ward, endorsed by the two sitting councillors for the ward, to shut out anyone who seeks to represent the interests of the ward, rather than the interests of the members of the current city council. So, party politics is alive and well in the Armadale City Council, and has so been for at least the last ten years, with city councillors closing ranks to shut out anyone who wants to represent the interests of the ward, rather than the interests of city councillors, despite statements reportedly having been made by the mayor, as spokesman for the council, objecting to the possibility of factional or party politics in local government, through the imposition of preferential voting in local government elections.
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