PLANNING AFFECTS ALL OF US
Thank you to everyone who has signed and shared this petition, PLEASE KEEP SHARING!!!
What began with concerns about protecting the Swan River, Swan Valley and our rural and rural-residential areas has become part of a much bigger conversation about planning in Western Australia.
The message we keep hearing from communities is remarkably similar:
Planning decisions don't only affect the person living next door. They affect whole communities.
Flooding and drainage don't stop at a property boundary. Neither do waste, dumping, truck movements, noise, clearing, environmental impacts or changes to the character and amenity of an area.
That is why zoning exists.
Yet too often residents feel they are left fighting these issues property by property and application by application, rather than anyone looking at what is happening to the community as a whole.
The Vines has shown why communities need to work together
The experience of The Vines Residents and Ratepayers Association is important. That community has spent years gathering information, using Freedom of Information processes and challenging planning decisions through the planning and legal system.
Here in the City of Swan, community concern has now resulted in something significant.
A motion passed by electors at the City's 2 February 2026 Annual Meeting of Electors led Council to resolve to review its planning processes, and a Planning Process Review Committee has now been established to oversee that review.
That demonstrates what can happen when communities stop treating planning problems as isolated battles and start joining the dots.
But this is not just a City of Swan issue.
The WA Government itself is now talking about reform
On 17 June 2026, the WA Government announced the next phase of reforms to Western Australia's planning system.
Importantly, the Government specifically identified the need to encourage:
“more community participation through improved processes and greater access to information”
and to explore reforms that:
“improve transparency and support better decision making across all levels of government.”
That is exactly the conversation communities need to be having.
At the same time, the WA Parliament has a Select Committee inquiry into Land Development and Planning in Western Australia examining the efficiency, integrity and probity of planning decisions and whether decisions align with established planning schemes, strategies, policies and frameworks.
“Have Your Say” must mean something
Local and State governments regularly ask us to Have Your Say.
Residents respond.
We complete surveys. We make submissions. We sign and present petitions. We attend meetings. We obtain documents through FOI. We provide professional reports, photographs, videos and other evidence.
Increasingly, residents also have dated CCTV and other verifiable records of what is actually happening on the ground.
That information is valuable.
The people living in a community see things that cannot always be understood from a planning application, an aerial photograph or a desk in an office.
We see what is happening at street level.
We know where water goes when it floods.
We see the trucks coming and going.
We see dumping, clearing and changes in land use.
We know how the roads, waterways, drainage systems, bridle trails, neighbourhoods and rural areas actually function.
Community knowledge doesn't mean residents should automatically determine every planning decision.
But if government asks us for information, that information must genuinely inform the decision.
And when substantial evidence is provided but a different decision is ultimately made, the community should be able to understand how its evidence was considered and why the decision was reached.
We need to stop fighting these battles alone
The Vines should not have to fight alone.
Brigadoon should not have to fight alone.
The Swan Valley should not have to fight alone.
And communities elsewhere in Western Australia facing similar planning issues should not have to start from scratch each time.
There is an enormous resource already sitting within our communities — residents' associations, environmental groups, landholders and individuals holding years of FOI documents, photographs, CCTV, submissions, surveys, correspondence, technical reports and local knowledge.
We need to bring that knowledge together.
This petition started with protecting an extraordinarily important part of Western Australia — the Swan River and Swan Valley.
But the principle is much bigger:
Planning is about communities, not just individual development applications.
With a City of Swan planning review underway, a Parliamentary inquiry examining planning across WA, and the State Government itself calling for greater community participation, transparency and better decision-making, now is the time for communities to be heard together.
Please keep signing and sharing the petition.
And please keep the evidence — photographs, CCTV, dates, submissions, survey responses, correspondence, planning documents and FOI material.
We have the community knowledge.
We have the evidence.
And when government asks us to Have Our Say, having our say needs to count.