Happy New Year folks!
An exciting but uncertain year beckons, with regional development coming to the fore. The Gillard Government may not see out 2011, as Abbott et al try to force a new poll. And Rudd may prove to be an unsettling influence – like Ricky Ponting, he hasn’t realised his time is up.
Anyway, how might individual councils deal with the ever changing hues and foibles of the Federal Government? Well, my consistent advice is to appreciate the quite different roles of politicians and bureaucrats, and then to be bold and persistent in dealing with both. The corollary is to ensure that your projects and ideas are sensible, financially sound and broadly supported on the ground.
However, councils are understandably uncertain about the required degrees of boldness and persistence. So below is some background and a few tips to improve your success rate.
The problem
The Federal Government doesn’t readily react to localised issues, unless they are emergency events, such as the Queensland floods, or spread across a number of communities like Indigenous welfare.
You are thus best advised to present your case in their language – for example, national frameworks, strategies, and Council of Australian Government (COAG) principles. The latest jargon is ‘evidence based’ policy!
All this can be a bit daunting at first, and it requires a shift in thinking for most councils. But hang in there.
An associated problem is the background noise in Canberra. To get heard, councils need to stand out. My advice is to push best practice that fits with Federal thinking, because Federal ministers like ‘first movers’ that can show the way for other communities.
Local Government FOCUS incidentally does a great job by featuring and disseminating best practice initiatives.
Another problem is that people forget and documents get mislaid. If a community has a squeaky wheel requiring attention, its accepted practice for you to amplify your problem and get cranky until a solution emerges. However, councils aren’t sufficiently persistent in my experience. Numerous reasons – lack of commitment or confidence, an early knock back, a change of council priorities or personnel, or just losing the thread of events.
Track the Feds strategy
A good means of building commitment and confidence is for councils to get closer to their Federal MPs of whatever party, track Federal policy announcements and make regular visits to Canberra.
To explain; it’s not too hard to see the policy direction of the Gillard Government – health, education, broadband, Indigenous and community affairs, the resources tax and immigration issues.
But it’s the next layer down where interesting developments are likely. For example, I’m tipping that in 2011 we will see action in the delivery of aged care and disability services. And there is a whole cluster of preventative health issues, such as food labelling, obesity, diabetes, tobacco, alcohol abuse, sports and exercise waiting for take off.
This area is most conducive to a heightened and bold Local Government role.
Councils should thus be brainstorming projects to run at the Feds at the appropriate time.
By anticipating events, a council can win considerable standing with Federal ministers by putting meat on their policy bones.
The hold ‘em strategy
Another way of improving the Feds’ appreciation of your local issues is to get Ministers to spend a bit of time in your community – that is, hold ‘em for at least a day.
To explain, Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries will be travelling a lot this year. Their visits will be planned at short notice via a phone call from a ministerial staffer to the council CEO, who will be expected to set aside a certain time and to await further details. As we know, the Minister rushes in, consults a group for 30 minutes, gets the media grab and then nicks off.
This is quite stupid of course. It is demeaning to your community and it gives the Minister nothing of substance – no insights or real world advice to take back to Cabinet or Parliament.
My suggestion is thus to tell the staffer that there are other valuable issues that the community wants to progress while the Minister is in town.
For example, droves of Federal and State ministers will be visiting flood affected towns in Queensland. A council might take the bold step of convening a forum where the Federal and State agriculture ministers agree on collaborative action with local growers, the local council and service providers.
Another example is an Indigenous town with sub standard and overcrowded housing stock. When the staffer rings to set up a visit by the Minister for the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA), why not be bold and suggest a forum with the locals and the State housing minister?
After all, aren’t we aiming for joined up government!
And remember the Community Cabinet meetings, and the scope for side events where ministers can be properly acquainted with key local issues.
The leveraging champions strategy
Councils generally look to their mayors and CEOs to do the lobbying. But the lobbying effort could be enhanced to include ex MPs in certain situations. This might sound a trifle bold, but it’s quite common overseas.
For example, the high cost of airfares outside the major routes is a major constraint to regional development. Similarly, the lack of water catchment and pan regional pipeline systems across Australia is laughable.
Now is the time to loosen up thinking on these issues.
What if we found champions to support mayors and CEOs in applying pressure on Federal and State Governments in these two areas?
What if a group of concerned councils established Dream Teams – corporate players (namely, Dick Smith and Wal King) and ex MPs from both sides of politics – as part of a carefully orchestrated lobbying effort coinciding with the interests of Messrs Katter, Oakeshott and Windsor?
Bold, well researched initiatives get noticed in Canberra.
Competitive grants
The full $10 billion of spending promised for regional Australia is unlikely for a variety of reasons. My best guess is that about half of this spending will happen, and mostly via competitive grants.
Key programs that you should track are:
- Priority Regional
Infrastructure Program ($800
million) – for projects identified by local
communities. Guidelines due
February - Regional Infrastructure Fund
($6 billion) – depends on the
new resources tax, which
could get knocked off by the
Liberals - local projects identified by
Regional Development
Australia Committees ($573
million within the $6 billion
above) - TQUAL – the Feds’ flagship
tourism program ($40
million). Guidelines due
February/March, with a
focus on Indigenous
economic development - Healthy Communities
Initiative ($71.8 million)
for 33 councils – closing 4
February - Health and Hospitals Fund –
a new round exclusively for
Regional Australia.
Getting organised
Councils interested in accessing significant funding or pushing particular ideas with the Feds in 2011 need to get organised by running brainstorming sessions, scoping projects, building in best practice, identifying support from State agencies and the private sector, and writing submissions.
Don’t be afraid to be bold and persistent. We help councils in all the above. Please contact us for more details.
*Rod Brown is a Canberra-based consultant specialising in industry/regional development, investment attraction, clusters and accessing Federal grants. He also runs the Cockatoo Network. He can be contacted at apdcockatoo@iprimus.com.au or phone
(02) 6231 7261.
Go to the blog at www.investmentinnovation.wordpress.com for 550+ articles on issues relevant to Local Government.
