Each edition we feature the views of a Local Government Association President. The following is from Councillor Jamie Edwards, President, Western Australian Municipal Association
The theme for Local Government Week 2000 was ‘balance’. Getting the balance right in terms of our Association structure is one of the most critical issues confronting us at the moment.
The single Association concept has been the subject of much discussion since last year’s Local Government Week conference. The decisions made at the three Association AGMs will have far reaching impacts on WAMA as we currently know it.
Being both an optimist and a realist, I am confident that with good will, vision and the desire of the majority of Councils to work through areas that at the moment seem difficult to resolve, the move to a single Association is the best way forward.
Balance is also important at the individual Council level. Recently, several costly and at times overly legalistic, inquiries and investigations into Local Governments have taken place, dealing with a range of issues from the failure to adhere to basic accountabilities through to allegations of substantial acts of corruption.
The current system has too many shortfalls, both from an investigative and financial perspective. Whilst easy solutions are not obviously apparent, WAMA has requested the Minister to investigate the application of clearer guidelines and a lessening of financial impost on investigated Councils.
When the media portrays one Local Government as failing the test of good governance, members of the public equate this behaviour with all Local Governments &endash; with their Local Government.
It does not matter that the public perceptions are not operating in reality for 99 percent of us, for in politics, perception is reality.
While we act individually, we are judged collectively, and that makes it our joint responsibility to address the perceptions that are, I believe, being wrongly promoted about Local Government.
We need to get back to the essence of what Local Government is about &endash; community service.
In many ways, we are at the cross roads in terms of the future of Local Government in Western Australia.
I see many examples of Local Governments individually and collectively either clinging, sometimes desperately, to notions of how things were in the past or grappling, often in vain, with the circumstance they find themselves in at present.
I could make the same observation about government at the State and Federal levels.
One of the challenges facing the new WAMA Executive is to work with the Minister for Local Government towardsdefining a clear vision for Local Government in Western Australia.
We need to provide a detailed picture of what Local Government should look, feel, taste, smell and sound like in the future, so that we can legislate, regulate and operate with proactive purpose, rather than reactive confusion.
Within WAMA we have already begun defining our own way forward, with a fresh strategic planning process being undertaken by the Executive Team, lead by our new Chief Executive Officer, Ricky Burges.
While the ‘Yes Minister’ cliché no doubt abounds in the public’s perception of the public sector, in my experience, the Local Government reality is very different.
Local Governments are not the ‘dumbed-down’ bureaucracies typical of some government agencies, nor are they the narrowly focused administrations of the private sector.
They are complex, multi-faceted community organisations, driven by a commitment to achieving better outcomes for their citizens.
We must be proud of our membership of the Local Government community, and encourage others to be a part of it.
