Perth questions new sister city

by Kevin Clare

April 7, 2008

PERTH cannot sustain a sister city relationship with Seocho in South Korea according to a city councillor.

 “Perth simply does not have the resources available to sustain a ninth sister city,” Sandra Liu said. “There are already three sister cities in the region - Nanjing [China], Taipei [Taiwan] and Kagoshima [Japan], and these need to be developed and utilised further.”

Cr Liu’s colleague Judy McEvoy said there were already enough sister cities that needed to be sustained, used and worked on to make them viable.

“Sister cities are not cheap to sustain and are very labour intensive to keep running,” said Cr McEvoy, highlighting the need to limit the amount of sister cities to a manageable level.

Cr Liu suggested the city review its various sister cities, and charters of mutual friendship, to work out which ones were active, and possibly terminate the inactive relationships.

However, Cr McEvoy warned, “termination of a sister city is a difficult thing to do”.

Perth signs charters of mutual friendship with some cities, with a view to expanding the relationship to sister city status if the relationship flourishes. Councillors agreed on April 1 that Seocho would become the third city with a charter of mutual friendship agreement with Perth.

However, the local pollies were divided on the issue.

 “The council needs to focus on building relationships with other cities before forging new relationships,” Cr Eleni Evangel said.