13/04/2026
Rates up. Services down. And now WALGA says some of what you paid for was never essential.
WALGA’s president went on ABC Perth and warned that rates will rise “closer to five and eight per cent”. In the same interview he said councils may “reduce non essential services or maybe some of those nice to haves”.
That single sentence changes everything.
It confirms that ratepayers have already been funding programs and services that can now be removed without affecting core operations.
If they can be cut now, why were they funded with compulsory rates at all.
If they were never essential, why were they in the budget during years of steady rate increases.
This is the moment ratepayers should start asking questions.
For years the message has been predictable.
Costs are rising.
Fuel is rising.
Bitumen is rising.
Wages and overheads are rising.
Therefore rates must rise.
But this is a rare occasion, if not the first time, the sector’s own leadership has admitted that part of what ratepayers have been paying for is optional.
Once that admission is made, the public is entitled to ask what else has been sitting in the budget under the label of non essential.
Ratepayers deserve to know:
• What exactly counts as non essential
• How long they have been paying for it
• How much it has cost
• Who proposed it
• Who approved it
• Who monitored it
• Why ratepayers were funding non essential services when rates rise every single year
• Whether ratepayers were ever asked if they wanted these nice to haves
• Where the decisions to spend on non essential items came from
• Whose ideas they were and what process allowed them through the budget cycle
And there is another question that now sits squarely on the table.
Recent public discussion about WALGA’s influence on council budgets raises a further issue that ratepayers are entitled to examine. Are WALGA’s fees themselves essential, or are councils paying for an additional layer of administration that could in some cases be handled inhouse.
Ratepayers were never asked whether they wanted this extra layer.
They were never asked whether they preferred local capacity building over external fees. They were never shown the cost benefit analysis that justified outsourcing functions to WALGA instead of strengthening internal teams.
If non essential services are now being reviewed, then it is reasonable for the public to expect that external administrative structures will be reviewed with the same scrutiny.
Because when the peak body says rates are going up again and in the same breath says councils may cut non essential services, it raises a simple unavoidable point.
If money is tight, why were ratepayers funding non essentials in the first place.
If the answer is that this is simply how the system works, then the system needs to explain itself.
Ratepayers are being told to brace for higher bills and fewer services.
They deserve to know exactly what they have been paying for and why some of it was never essential.
City of Melville Residents and Ratepayers Association Inc. Save Perth Hills PerthNow Karl Stefanovic Jandakot and Glen Iris Estate @
