![\"Donovan](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/8b3cfd7353ff60bc3f03b318fd3dd0357a4c2aab.jpg\")
Camera IconDonovan MacDonald’s video has over 500 likes and 50 comments. Credit: Facebook<\/p>\nBig Don Smoked Meats owner and newly elected City of Bayswater councillor Donovan MacDonald has blasted his own local government as \u201clazy, wasteful and slow moving\u201d in a scathing and \u201ctransparent\u201d social media post.<\/p>\n
Cr MacDonald shared a three-minute video on his councillor Facebook page on Tuesday night after what he called a \u201cfrustrating\u201d audit, risk and improvement committee meeting which discussed findings an external consultant had made about food inspections across the city\u2019s 535 food businesses.<\/p>\n
WATCH HIS RANT IN THE VIDEO PLAYER ABOVE<\/p>\n
The video started with a simple warning to people considering opening a food business within Bayswater.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t,\u201d Cr MacDonald said.<\/p>\n
Camera IconDonovan MacDonald’s video has over 500 likes and 50 comments. Credit: Facebook<\/p>\n
\u201cFind a better city to open your restaurant in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cr MacDonald said the city had forked out $15,400 for a 20-page report on the issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet that f****** sit for a second,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He warned the external consultant had found \u201cserious food safety issues\u201d that inspectors had marked as compliant when they weren\u2019t.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe document they were using was woefully inadequate, which I tried to address,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said he wanted a further report from the city addressing these issues with their recommendations but it was voted down.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to raise this again at this month\u2019s council meeting … and you will probably watch it get rejected again.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLocal government is as wasteful, lazy and slow moving as you probably picture them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is from somebody on the inside.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cr MacDonald said local government was \u201cas bad as you think\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing f****** gets done,\u201d Cr MacDonald said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one\u2019s getting anything done. That is just the struggle of government.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cr MacDonald suggested people run for local government to be a \u201cthorn in their f****** ass\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to be the most transparent person you have ever seen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis video will probably be called \u2018bringing the city into disrepute\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said although it was a \u201ccrazy thing for a sitting councillor to say\u201d, he was pro-amalgamation and abolishing councils, saying WA had 139 councils compared to 70 in other States.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut hey, I know it\u2019s not going to happen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Cr MacDonald shared his calculations on how much is spent on local governments each year.<\/p>\n
\u201c$250 million per year in salaries for 2000 councillors, mayors, CEOs and directors,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201c$5-6 billion a year on local government employees.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cr MacDonald wanted residents to \u201cremember this\u201d when they received their rates bills.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhatever city you live in, it will be bad,\u201d he said. \u201cYour rates are going to wallop you no matter what city you live in.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The city was contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Big Don Smoked Meats owner and newly elected City of Bayswater councillor Donovan MacDonald has blasted his own…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[917,1774,152,335,149,464],"class_list":{"0":"post-4867","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-perth","8":"tag-central","9":"tag-local-government","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-perth","12":"tag-politics","13":"tag-wa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}