Perth Residents Speak Out on Duplicate Image Replacement: 'We Just Want Our Story Told Right'

The complaints have been building for months. Residents across Perth's inner suburbs say they are tired of seeing their streets, community projects and local events illustrated with recycled or duplicate images that have little or nothing to do with the actual story being told — and they want institutions, councils and media outlets to do something about it.

The issue surfaced publicly in recent weeks after community members at the Northbridge Piazza noticed that at least three separate council communications, including a flyer distributed in June 2026 about the City of Perth's public activation program, carried what appeared to be the same stock photograph of a generic Australian outdoor market. None of the images showed the Piazza itself, which sits on James Street and is a well-documented, photographed venue. Residents who raised the issue at a City of Perth community forum on 28 June say their concerns were acknowledged but not yet formally acted upon.

What Duplicate Imagery Actually Costs Communities

The problem is not merely aesthetic. When a government agency or media outlet drops an unrelated or recycled image onto a story about a specific suburb, it flattens local identity and, in some cases, creates genuine confusion about planning proposals and service changes. A housing development notice circulated in Cannington earlier this year, referencing a proposed rezoning near Sevenoaks Street, reportedly carried an aerial photograph sourced from a different suburb entirely. Local residents who attended a follow-up information session run by the City of Canning said they initially could not reconcile the image with the site they knew.

The City of Canning, which covers suburbs including Bentley, Riverton and Cannington, has a stated community communications policy that requires localised imagery for major planning notices — but enforcement appears inconsistent based on examples residents have compiled and shared through a local Facebook group with roughly 4,200 members. The Daily Perth is not attributing specific failures to named officials without documentary evidence, but the pattern community members describe is consistent and specific.

Metronet, the WA government's rail expansion program, has drawn similar criticism. Community members in Morley and Ellenbrook — both served by the recently completed Morley-Ellenbrook line — say some promotional materials circulated between late 2025 and early 2026 used platform imagery from interstate rail projects rather than the actual new stations. The WA Department of Transport had not responded to a request for comment by publication time.

What Residents and Advocates Say Needs to Change

People working in community photography and local documentation are increasingly vocal. The Fremantle-based community archive project at the Fremantle Arts Centre, which maintains a publicly accessible image collection of WA social history dating back to the 1970s, has in recent years actively offered local government bodies access to verified, location-specific photography. Community members connected to the project say uptake from councils and state agencies remains low despite the archive holding tens of thousands of catalogued images.

Western Australians are not short of strong, locally specific visual documentation. The State Library of WA on Francis Street in the Perth CBD holds more than 700,000 photographs in its Battye Library collection alone, covering virtually every corner of the metropolitan area. The barrier is not availability — it is process. Procurement and communications teams at councils and agencies default to commercial stock libraries because licensing is simple and fast, typically costing between $15 and $80 per image on standard subscription platforms, while accessing public archival material requires a separate workflow that many teams have not built.

The practical path forward that community advocates are pushing is straightforward: mandatory localisation checklists for public-facing communications, particularly those tied to planning, infrastructure and community programs; formal agreements between councils and bodies like the State Library to streamline archival image access; and a feedback mechanism allowing residents to flag misrepresentative imagery before materials go to print or post. The City of Perth is due to review its visual communications guidelines in the third quarter of 2026, according to its published council work program. Whether that review will address the specific concerns residents have raised is something community members say they intend to track closely.