Almost a year on from our last elections in 2012, local government in Victoria is undertaking the most significant review of local democracy since the 1990s amalgamations. Chaired by respected former federal MP Petro Georgiou OAM, the Victorian Local Government Electoral Review will examine the electoral process, participation, integrity and issues around electoral representation.
Councillors and community members have welcomed this opportunity to improve local democracy.
The VLGA has a long history of advocacy on improving local democracy. Indeed, our organisation emerged out of the movement to re-introduce democracy to local government during the 1990s. Ensuring local democracy is strong and inclusive continues as a core concern of the VLGA.
We believe the local government sector should be empowered to work with their communities to identify improvements to local democracy. Since the 2012 local elections, we have undertaken two research projects.
Firstly, the VLGA has worked with researchers from the Australian Centre of Excellence for Local Government (ACELG) on a study of representation frameworks for local governments across Australia. The purpose of this research is to strengthen local government’s capacity to take a more considered view of local representation and to determine whether current arrangements are the most appropriate. This research is based on 18 in-depth interviews with councillors and CEOs and will be published in late 2013.
Secondly, we have recently completed our ‘Strengthening democracy: Improving local government elections’ project, which provided councillors, officers and community members an opportunity to identify issues and improvements to local government elections. The VLGA ran focus groups with councillors, candidates, local government officers and community members. We received more than 120 responses to an Issues Paper we published in June 2013. In October we published a report which detailed the aspirations, concerns and ideas for improvement identified by local governments and communities.
Several conclusions have emerged from this research.
Firstly, we have discovered a willingness in local government to improve and to address those issues which may diminish the legitimacy of local government as a democratic sphere of governance. We look forward to working with the Review Panel, the Victorian Government and the local government sector to improving local elections.
Secondly, the perception of declining standards of conduct in local elections needs to be seen in context – the vast majority of more than 2000 candidates at the last elections acted with integrity and decency. Only a small number of candidates have been found to have engaged in misconduct.
Finally, many of the issues in local elections have their basis in broader social and cultural issues. The VLGA does not believe governments can simply regulate and legislate their way to a good, robust local democracy.
To achieve this, we have a shared responsibility to undertake appropriate policy changes, local government capacity – building and community development to ensure strong democratic cultures develop within all local governments.
Addressing these issues is central to the future success of local government. Ensuring our local elections are robust and inclusive is crucial to ensuring local government is the level of government closest to the community.
