In each edition we feature the views of a Local Government Association president. The following is from Alderman Kerry Moir, President of the Local Government Association of the Northern Territory.
Saturday 25 October 2008 was a milestone in the history of Local Government in the Northern Territory because it:
- marked the day of election
for 11 councils until they
next face the polls in March
2012 - completes a large part of
the structural reform of
Local Government - results in the Northern
Territory having just 16
councils.
The reforms have reduced the number of councils in the Northern Territory from 61 to sixteen. In all this represents a loss of some
500 elected members, although it does mean elected member training will be a lot easier to organise for the now remaining
167 members.
Even though the elections are now over and councils are in place, there are still many matters that require bedding down, as one would expect.
The Northern Territory Government’s plan was initially to only have 12 councils, however it decided not to amalgamate four councils, due largely to resident pressure.
It seems obvious that structural reforms are not something that State or Territory Governments like to do when their elections are close, so it will be interesting to see if further reforms are introduced (especially for the four councils above) in the next 12 months or so.
If nothing happens during that time Local Government will probably not see further reforms of the like we have just seen until after the 2011/12 Territory election.
All of this restructuring does pose an interesting question about the extent of future reforms and where they are likely to be heading.
With the often quoted cliché around these days of Australia being ‘over-governed’ and the seemingly inevitable move towards larger and larger Local Government entities, a question for the Northern Territory might be: Will there be only five councils in the Northern Territory in, say,
15 years’ time?
People might say it is a ridiculous question to ask, but then many also said that of the reforms we have just been through. Indeed you could ask this question right around the country, as many no doubt have, and history supports it, even if change of this order over the past century has, at times, moved slowly.
An article by Dr A J Brown in the Weekend Australian of 26–27 July 2008 (see www.griffith.edu.au/federalism) provides some very interesting reading on this very topic and I for one am glad to see that the issue of our future Federalism is being researched and debated and has some structure to it.
I particularly like the references in the article to the 2020 Summit (Big Idea Number 9.4) to do with roles, responsibilities, functions and finances of governments. We seem to never get this right and yet it is going to be at the heart of the matters faced by the new shires in the Northern Territory.
Questions over ‘who does what’ are inevitable when we are doing the same or similar functions, and competing for finances from the one source is always an issue.
We in Local Government can even tell now if we are financially sustainable or not, and I guess I will be able to say more about that after the end of this financial year when data is available in the Northern Territory.
