In the last edition of FOCUS, we criticised the Victorian Government’s sacking of Darebin City Council. Following an Inquiry into the Council, the Minister suspended the elected Councillors and replaced them with an Administrator. Despite the Inquiry finding the Council had no case to answer, the Minister decided democracy had no further place in the City of Darebin.
The two Letters to the Editor received in response to our comments clearly illustrate the divergent views of those in Local Government compared to the Minister, representing the State Government.
The superannuation black hole (see page 1), has led to Victorian Local Government arguing that, due to State policies resulting in extensive redundancies in Councils, the Government must take some responsibility for this blow out. In response, the State has simply handed the problem over to Councils and ratepayers to sort out. This is yet another example of rocky intergovernmental relations and what can result when a State Government usurps full control of the Local Government reform agenda.
Turning southward, rumblings in Tasmania indicate that State Government may also be tempted to venture down the same path as Victoria by threatening to remove elected Councillors from the reform process that is currently under way.
Just a few years since its last major amalgamation process, the Local Government Association of Tasmania (LGAT) has criticised the fact that all requests to the State Government, to specify what is actually wrong with Local Government that the current reform process needs to fix, has been met with silence. Threats that Councillors will be replaced by Commissioners if they do not toe the line has certainly not endeared Tasmanian Councils to the reform process.
LGAT has accused the Government of using Local Government as a political scapegoat for the poor performance of the Tasmanian economy. The answer to this intergovernmental bickering is simple. State legislative ‘muscle’ has never been, and never will be, a satisfactory substitute for the spheres of government working in a real and open partnership for the betterment of their joint constituents.
