Perth Metropolitan LGA reform – demographic data towards 1 July 2015

In October, the State Government of Western Australia announced final reformed boundaries for metropolitan Perth (with a couple of exceptions), and Perth councils are now working towards implementing these boundaries and working with a much larger area per council, for implementation on July 1st. .id is assisting with a lot of demographic data on the new boundaries, including our new Perth Metropolitan Reform profile.

The new council boundaries bring the number of LGAs in metropolitan Perth down from the current 30, to 16 councils. The idea of this is to increase the long-term sustainability of councils, and increase the average population size to close to 100,000 people. Many (though not all) of the new boundaries run along more logical features, for example, major roads, rather than cutting through communities.

14 new council boundaries have now been confirmed, with Governor’s orders released on Christmas Eve. Two of those, the new cities of South Park and Jervoise Bay, are subject to a poll of voters which is happening at the end of January. The rest are going ahead to start on July 1st. More information about all the changes can be found here.

Some the major changes are:

• A new city of “South Park” will be formed from the City of South Perth and Town of Victoria Park, plus a large chunk of Canning. With the same name as a well known TV show, this promises to be a significant tourist attraction! (in addition to the fact that it’s already got some of Perth’s biggest tourist attractions in the area – eg. the Casino, Perth Zoo).
• A new city of “Jervoise Bay” formed from Kwinana and most of the City of Cockburn. Unlike South Park, this is not a well known name, but is apparently named after a small inlet in the area.
• The City of Fremantle will amalgamate with East Fremantle expand to cover part of Cockburn
• The City of Melville will expand to cover part of Canning but lose part to Fremantle.
• The City of Swan will expand to take in the Shire of Mundaring, plus tidy up some boundaries.
• The City of Belmont will expand to take in the Shire of Kalamunda, plus some of Canning.
• The City of Gosnells will expand to take in the rest of Canning.
• The City of Armadale will expand to take in the northern half (and most of the population) of the Shire of Serpentine-Jarrahdale.
• The City of Bayswater will expand to cover the Town of Bassendean and part of Stirling.
• The City of Stirling will be reduced in size, losing parts to Bayswater and Subiaco.
• Somewhat confusingly, the Town of Cambridge will expand to take in the City of Subiaco (and small parts of Stirling and Nedlands), but will be called the City of Subiaco.
• The Cities of Wanneroo, Joondalup and Rockingham will remain unchanged.

Two changes are yet to be confirmed – the proposed City of Riversea, made up of 5 councils in the western suburbs (mostly the current WESROC councils), and the City of Perth, which is proposed to take in the City of Vincent. These weren’t confirmed due to the minister’s preference that the City of Perth include the University of Western Australia and QEII hospital, though they sit clearly with the Western Suburbs from a geographical perspective.

Local Government boundary reform is nothing new in this country. Victoria went through major reforms in the 1990s, reducing the number of councils from 210 to 78. Various amalgamations have happened in South Australia, New South Wales and Tasmania over the last decade. Queensland went through major amalgamations in 2008, and then some areas have “de-amalgamated” just this year.

One thing which councils typically struggle with after amalgamations, is good demographic and economic information based on the new boundary. As the main source of demographic information is Census, and the last Census was 2011, this was done on the previous boundaries. So until the 2016 Census release in 2017 these new councils won’t be represented by the ABS.

Fortunately, .id can take a lot of the pain out of this for our council clients. As a resource for all our Perth clients, we have now made available our Perth Metropolitan Reform Community Profile. This contains 2011 and 2006 Census data based on our familiar profile.id format for all the new LGAs in metro Perth – so you can start planning for your new communities right now.

Additionally, we are working with all our Perth clients to make the transition a smooth one, at least from a demographic perspective! We are consulting with all our current clients how to transition their .id tools onto the new boundaries, and clients also have the option of adding a new set of areas onto their existing site, to have access to the new data for planning purposes right away. Many clients are also requesting immediate forecast reviews, to get a detailed view of future population outcomes based on the new boundary.

Most datasets in our industry and workforce profile, economy.id can also be adjusted to the new boundaries, giving you a fantastic resource for understanding the workforce and promoting economic development for the new council.

Our aim is to ensure that all our Perth clients are well supported through this process, and have a full suite of demographic and economic information tools on the new boundary come July 1, 2015.

If you would like to learn more about the population of Perth and how it is changing, download our new eBook, Western Australia: Is it all doom and gloom after the boom?