Former Port Hedland mayor said City of Karratha breached his constitutional rights

Camillo Blanco says the removal of his signs infringed his constitutional rights (Photo: ABC)

A SPECIAL report by Ngaarda and StreetWise Media. How Karratha council infringed the constitutional rights of Liberal candidate Camilo Blanco in the March State elections. And why the Freedom of Information Commissioner will conduct a review of the City’s handling of a case in which City executives describe Port Hedland’s former mayor as ‘mad’.

By Carmelo Amalfi

FORMER Port Hedland Mayor Camilo Blanco says the City of Karratha breached his constitutional rights when it removed his political posters in the lead up to the March State election.

The Liberal candidate for the Pilbara erected 60 signs in Karratha and surrounding areas including Wickham and Dampier Road in early January. City rangers removed them a week later.

When Mr Blanco put the signs back up, City rangers again removed them, claiming he did not have permission to erect signs on council land before the election was called on February 3.

Mr Blanco believes the City had a conflict of interest when it removed his signs because National Party candidate Scott Bourne was an employee at the City.

Additionally, CEO Chris Adams conducted an internal review of Mr Blanco’s FOI request for correspondence related to his signs yet in separate emails between staff released under FOI states Mr Blanco was letting, “the truth get in the way of a good story!”.

The FOI documents show on February 18, in response to Mr Blanco’s email to planning services manager Jerom Hurley protesting the removal of the signs, Mr Adam writes: “Crazy.”

On March 5, after Mr Blanco paid his initial $300 fine, senior ranger Kim Sparks writes to Mr Hurley: “… one small step for man, one large step for mankind”.

Mr Blanco said the FOI documents show the City’s contempt and bias and complained it was not in the best interest of his FOI application to have Mr Adams conduct the internal review based on his comments, “effectively stating I am mad and lying to get a story”.

Mr Blanco has referred his complaint to the Office of the Information Commissioner for external review.

Mr Blanco said visual signage such as posters and billboards are a critically important tool for keeping voters informed during election campaigns. He said: “As the City of Karratha is a major regional centre and the main shopping and business district to many outer lying remote communities and pastoral people, its actions in removing political signage goes to the heart of restricting political communication with all the voting public.”

Mr Blanco said FOI documents released by the City (and for which he was required to pay $1000 for the officer’s time) show staff had very little idea about which laws applied to his signs.

Mr Sparks wrote to Mr Blanco on January 6: “Placement of advertising signs requires a permit under our Activities in Thoroughfares Local Laws, in particular clause 3.2 states A person shall not without permit erect or place an advertising sign on a thoroughfare (or verge).”

“Local government increasingly is restricting candidates putting up their signs,” he said. “The rules should be the same for everyone but they're not, which means the interpretation of the rules is incorrect. From the FOI information I received, it was clear to me they didn’t know what the rules were and they weren’t aware of what their position should be. They didn't know whether they were allowed to pull them down or not. They told me they had legal advice, but there was no legal advice issued, just the opinion of the officers.”

Mr Blanco engaged a lawyer and asked the City to provide the ‘legal advice’ or put the signs back: “They wouldn’t engage with my lawyer even after I told them what they were doing is unconstitutional. They just ignored it.”

The City has been contacted for a comment.

On January 4, City Manager Governance & Organisational Strategy Henry Eaton, concerned over the appearance of campaign signs “on our roadways”, wrote to WALGA asking for guidelines as the City was, “keen to know what controls we have available to use to manage this”.

WALGA replied the same day: “It is WALGA’s understanding that denial of a request to place election signs on public land under the care, control and management of a Local Government has yet to be challenged in the courts.”

It said the Electoral Act 1907, “imposes no limitations on the size or placement of electoral signage (apart from in respect of the immediate vicinity of a polling location), however it is recommended that candidates make themselves familiar with relevant local government by-laws and ensure the placement of signage near road verges does not impact on traffic safety”.

Additionally, WALGA said: “As a liberal democracy Australians can express their political views. The High Court and Supreme Court of WA has determined that Australia’s Constitution guarantees freedom of political communication as inherent in representative democracy. Past legal decisions indicate that councils may not have the power to remove all election signage, as this conflicts with constitutional freedom.”

WALGA then sent the City its, ‘Political Signage Guideline: Implied Constitutional Freedom of Political Communication’ which states: “The principal point of note that arises from examination of this issue is for Local Government not to single out election signage as a class of sign under a local planning scheme or local planning policies to which specific arbitrary constraints are attached. Such attempt to prohibit election signage in a district is likely to be deemed an infringement on the implied freedom of political communication and will be considered invalid. Local Governments that have local planning schemes and local planning policies that reflect such a prohibition will be required to amend their schemes.”

However, the City appears to have already made up its mind less than an hour before Mr Eaton contacted WALGA when planning services manager Jerome Hurley sent ranger Kim Sparks and executive staff an email stating: “Our collective view is that the upcoming State Election will be called on 3 February 2021. As such, any election campaign advertising prior to that date is not exempt from the requirement to obtain development approval. Camillo has not applied for development approval for the election campaign signs he has installed along Dampier Road in the last 24 hours … Can you please contact Camillo and advise that the City will be removing the election campaign signage today.”

Later the same day, Mr Hurley asked CEO Chris Adams whether he had considered Camilo’s position as, “The WALGA Guideline refers to Implied Constitutional Freedom”.

On January 7, Mr Blanco’s lawyers wrote to the City stating clauses 3.2 and 3.3 of the ‘City of Karratha Activities in Thoroughfares and Public Places and Trading Local Law 2017’ and 61 of the ‘Planning and Development (Local Planning Schemes) Regulations 2015 (WA)’ were unlawful, “as they are inconsistent with the decision of the High Court of Australia regarding the implied freedom of political communication within the Australian Constitution, clause 109”.

They added: “Your bylaws are also inconsistent with State laws, particularly with respect to the waiver of permit requirements for election signage.”

On January 11, Mr Blanco’s lawyers again wrote to the City asking for the urgent return of the signs removed by rangers the previous day: “We do not yet know the circumstances that Ms Babayo became aware that signage was being placed. However, given the signs were being placed on a Sunday the inference is that Ms Babayo is deliberately interfering with a legitimate exercise in political campaigning to the sole detriment of Mr Blanco’s campaign.”

The City replied the same day, a week after receiving WALGA’s advice and guidelines: “It is the City’s position that the requirements of this Local law do not infringe the implied Constitutional freedom of political communication.