State and Local Governments must work together to make local communities more resilient, confident and engaged, Victorian Local Government Minister, Candy Broad, says. Speaking at the LGPro Conference, Minister Broad said the Bracks Government would deliver better services and help build stronger communities during its second term in office, with new administrative arrangements being introduced to strengthen the partnership between State and Local Governments.
“Over the past three years I’ve seen what a difference a real sense of partnership between State and Local Government can make to the quality of services delivered to our communities,” she said. “We are very serious about treating Local Government as an equal partner.”
Minister Broad described Victoria as “a complex network of cities, towns and regions that relate to each other and depend on each other”. She said that the State Government aimed to increase skills in the Local Government sector, decrease bureaucratic obstacles, encourage ‘natural leaders’, protect community assets and listen to the individual needs of communities.
“Governments can create the frameworks and pre-conditions in which communities can grow and flourish,” the Minister said. “Resilient communities know that they can do a lot for themselves. We need to work together to build strengths so communities can make themselves more resilient, confident and engaged.”
Policy changes in the Government’s second term would include increased Home and Community Care funding and the realignment of municipal election dates so all Victorian Councils will go to the polls on the same day.
“We will continue to be a government prepared to listen and then to act,” she said. “I am interested in working with Councils to deliver more sustainable communities.”
Minister Broad said that leadership is a very slippery concept – one that means different things to different people.
“Leadership in Local Government means involving the practitioners of Local Government,” she said. “We need leaders who make things happen, leaders who share their vision and leaders who deliver programs.”
