The Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV) held its annual forum in March to discuss current issues facing member Councils. These reflected the diverse role of Local Government in the modern era, including planning matters, governance issues, and rating for timber plantations and Vicgrains solos.
During the Forum a member of the Save Our Suburbs Group, which has been active in the controversy surrounding Victoria’s new planning laws, and a developer lent insight into this critical issue.
Kenneth Davidson, economics writer for ‘The Age’, gave an overview of the distribution of funding between State and Local Government. He pointed out, using ABS statistics, that State Government taxes and charges had risen by some 48 percent while Local Government charges have gone down by 5.5 percent.
He suggested that Local Government funding might have been manipulated by State Government to disguise the effect of their own spending on CPI levels. MAV President, Councillor Brad Matheson, commented that while the State Government had put a good deal of effort into reforming Local Government in Victoria he believes less thought had gone into the financial implications of the reform and Local Government is now bearing the brunt of that.
On a positive note, he said the MAV is now moving forward after settling into the new era of Local Government in Victoria.
“We adopted a new business plan in response to the membership and have begun a major restructuring of the organisation,” he said.
The organisational structure now has a greater percentage of staff working on policy including a senior economic analyst and a general policy analyst.
“The aim is to have a strategy team rather than a directorate, making the MAV a much less bureaucratic organisation,” Brad Matheson said.
