Big Don Smoked Meats owner and newly elected City of Bayswater councillor Donovan MacDonald has blasted his own local government as “lazy, wasteful and slow moving” in a scathing and “transparent” social media post.
Cr MacDonald shared a three-minute video on his councillor Facebook page on Tuesday night after what he called a “frustrating” audit, risk and improvement committee meeting which discussed findings an external consultant had made about food inspections across the city’s 535 food businesses.
WATCH HIS RANT IN THE VIDEO PLAYER ABOVE
The video started with a simple warning to people considering opening a food business within Bayswater.
“Don’t,” Cr MacDonald said.
Camera IconDonovan MacDonald’s video has over 500 likes and 50 comments. Credit: Facebook
“Find a better city to open your restaurant in.”
Cr MacDonald said the city had forked out $15,400 for a 20-page report on the issue.
“Let that f****** sit for a second,” he said.
He warned the external consultant had found “serious food safety issues” that inspectors had marked as compliant when they weren’t.
“The document they were using was woefully inadequate, which I tried to address,” he said.
He said he wanted a further report from the city addressing these issues with their recommendations but it was voted down.
“So that means on the improvement committee, I was unable to help improve a document that 535 small businesses live and die by this document multiple times a year,” he said.
“I’m going to raise this again at this month’s council meeting … and you will probably watch it get rejected again.”
“Local government is as wasteful, lazy and slow moving as you probably picture them.
“This is from somebody on the inside.”
Cr MacDonald said local government was “as bad as you think”.
“Nothing f****** gets done,” Cr MacDonald said.
“No one’s getting anything done. That is just the struggle of government.”
Cr MacDonald suggested people run for local government to be a “thorn in their f****** ass”.
“I’m going to be the most transparent person you have ever seen,” he said.
“This video will probably be called ‘bringing the city into disrepute’.”
He said although it was a “crazy thing for a sitting councillor to say”, he was pro-amalgamation and abolishing councils, saying WA had 139 councils compared to 70 in other States.
“But hey, I know it’s not going to happen,” he said.
Cr MacDonald shared his calculations on how much is spent on local governments each year.
“$250 million per year in salaries for 2000 councillors, mayors, CEOs and directors,” he said.
“$5-6 billion a year on local government employees.”
Cr MacDonald wanted residents to “remember this” when they received their rates bills.
“Whatever city you live in, it will be bad,” he said. “Your rates are going to wallop you no matter what city you live in.”
Cr MacDonald has had his own run-ins with local government in the past which triggered him to run for election, in which he was successful for a four-year term.
The city was contacted for comment.