In each edition we feature the views of a Local Government Association President. The following is from Mayor Rosemary Craddock, President of the LGA in South Australia.
I had the recent privilege to lead a consortium of Associations from Queensland, Western Australia, Tasmania, Northern Territory and South Australia in proposing a fairer distribution between States of Commonwealth untied grants to Councils.
The Associations made a joint presentation to the Senate inquiry into a new tax system, urging the funds be distributed based on need and that the old unfair population based system be phased out.
I have been pleased that we have been able to put forward a mechanism that can achieve this without disadvantaging our colleague Councils in Victoria and New South Wales.
The purpose of this Commonwealth funding is to redress disabilities and needs so that given reasonable effort, every Council has the capacity to offer the same level of services to their communities. This is known as ‘fiscal equalisation’. It has served Australia well and has been the basis of distribution of untied funding to State Governments, and the basis of distribution of untied funding to Councils within States.
All we have asked is that the same fairness be applied to Local Government grants. A fair distribution of the grants could see up to $30 million per annum flow to SA Councils.
With the shift to GST being the funding source for these grants, expected growth will create the capacity to equalise the smaller States over about five years while maintaining real terms guarantees to NSW and Victoria.
In the past, this issue has caused friction between States and there is no doubt that any shift which potentially could have taken $200 million out of two States to be distributed among the others was to be fraught with tension.
The new tax proposals now give Australia the opportunity to make the shift to a fairer system without creating such tension. I believe we had a good hearing from the Senate Inquiry, and it is now incumbent on all of us to pursue this issue of fairness with vigour with all our MPs both State and National.
The other major development occurring in South Australia is the launch of our new intranet to be known as ‘LGA.net‘. It ushers in a new level of communication between Councils and enormous potential for Local Government.
The system, launched this month, has been developed from the Local Government Association of Queensland’s LGAQ.net system and we are indebted to them for their support.
The system is based on Lotus Notes, but in SA will be available to Councils via the internet as well as via Lotus Notes.
Initially, it will carry fully indexed, linked and searchable databases including the SA Local Government Act and Regulations and Legal Opinions under the LGA’s opinions scheme, LGA circulars and reports, our database of all enterprise bargaining agreements in SA Councils, an events calendar and bulletin boards for networking among professional staff in Councils.
In future we anticipate involving each of the corporate entities in Local Government House and moving towards electronic forms, such as the lodgement of workers compensation forms as is occurring in Queensland, and electronic business.
We also look forward to involving other agencies and have raised the potential for the State Government to establish a database of all grant programs available to Councils.
The introduction to Parliament of three Bills to replace SA’s 1934 Local Government Act, has been welcomed by the Association as has the acceptance by Minister Brindal of a host of changes sought by the LGA. We continue to have some concerns and are maintaining a dialogue with the Minister while also briefing Opposition parties and independents.
As the largest Act of State Parliament, and given considerable complexities, we anticipate it will be in Parliament for several months.
The Association is continuing to apply the bulk of its resources to ensuring the new Act provides the level of autonomy and appropriate local performance and accountability frameworks required to support communities and their Councils well into the next millennium.
