It is May and the official start to The Dry season in the Northern Territory’s Top End.
This means five months of beautiful warm dry weather and outdoor festivities – a great time to visit. Central Australia is also stunning at this time of year even if the temperature is a bit cooler than usual.
Like lots of local councils in Australia, tourism is a major contributor to the economy so our tourism industry is hoping that now as we are learning to live with Covid, that we will have a bumper season. If you have not been to the Territory, I encourage you to book a visit!
Since I last had the opportunity to comment in Focus, the Territory has held local government elections. Nearly half of our 159 elected members are new so LGANT and the Northern Territory Government have been focusing on supporting these new members with governance and other training, something particularly important in regard to the sustainability and effectiveness of individual councils.
By the time this piece goes to print the federal election will be behind us and we could have a new Australian government. Whatever the result, we hope the ALGA coordinated campaign yields the desired results and commitments. Here in the Territory, we pushed hard on the ALGA asks and some additional items specific to the needs of our member councils and communities including requests to fund new cyclone evacuation centres in remote communities and a Territory-based Closing the Gap Coordinator position. The Northern Territory Government’s Budget 2022 will have also been handed down so we hope our advocacy efforts are heard in this space too!
LGANT and our member councils are heralding recent advocacy success in terms of conditional rating of pastoral leases and mining tenements here in the Territory. In other Australian jurisdictions, rates for pastoral properties and mining tenements are set for each local government area by the council for that area but here in the Territory the conditional rate is set by the Minister for Local Government. For many years this has meant rates payable on these leases and tenements in other jurisdictions have been many times higher than those imposed in the Territory.
After extensive advocacy, the Minister for Local Government has determined that conditional rates will increase by 36 percent on 1 July 2022 and for each of the two subsequent financial years. The cumulative impact of these changes will result in a total increase in conditional rates of 151 percent over the three financial years. Put simply, much needed additional revenue for our councils that will enable them to deliver additional services and infrastructure for the benefit of the whole community.
In closing, the Territory will have a strong contingent of local government representatives travelling to Canberra in June for the National General Assembly. It is a great forum and an important one for building a stronger, more inclusive and sustainable Australia. I look forward to seeing you there.
The Hon Kon Vatskalis, President Local Government Association of the Northern Territory (LGANT) and Lord Mayor, City of Darwin.
