2004 has certainly been another eventful year for Local Government. In this last edition for the year, we will revisit some of our coverage and editorial comment on key issues in 2004.
March – progress of the Cost Shifting Inquiry
Last year, the Australian Government’s Inquiry into Cost Shifting recommended that a major overhaul of intergovernmental relations was well overdue. This being an election year, whether the follow up to this Inquiry gets the attention it should, given the raft of issues that are already being canvassed, remains to be seen. Cynics might suggest that unless there is some electoral advantage from a showdown with the States, it could well end up in the too hard basket for the time being.
June – on the perennial issue of Council amalgamations
State Governments have a duty to approach Local Government amalgamations in an open, fair and systematic manner. In the early 1990s the Victorian Government bludgeoned its way through rural areas.
When councils merged, rural communities lost people, businesses lost customers, schools lost children and long established communities eventually began to wind down. If the Kennett Government had listened to the communities, it may have found a better way to introduce the changes without the long term damage to communities. But there are positive signs in New South Wales. It is good to see that the Local Government Minister, Tony Kelly, will be the keynote speaker at a conference looking at structural reform options being implemented by various councils in New South Wales.
July – on a breakthrough in intergovernmental relations
In early June, the Federal Minister, Senator Ian Campbell, convened a roundtable to look at the Hawker recommendations. This brought together State and Territory Local Government Ministers and Australian Local Government Association (ALGA). The ALGA came away from the roundtable very encouraged. It believes that the Federal Government is demonstrating a preparedness to seriously address the issues and that it will not merely fiddle around the edges.
Mike Montgomery said each State/Territory and their Local Governments need to sit down and sort out their relations as to how best they can meet the needs of their joint constituents. He suggests they look at what is already working well in other States and to build on this. He urges them to look at the South Australian model and the fact that the SA Local Government Minister, Rory McEwen, is currently working on setting up a tripartite pilot to look at better ways to address service delivery and funding issues.
September – on the endemic public debt phobia
The quality of our built infrastructure is a key factor in our competitiveness in the global marketplace as well as improving the liveability and sustainability of our cities, towns and regions. However, particularly at the Commonwealth and State levels, over the past two decades public infrastructure spending in Australia has not kept pace with economic growth.
With running budgets in surplus now seen as a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) for Governments, coupled with low taxes increasingly becoming another KPI, sourcing much needed funding to address the issue our rapidly ageing infrastructure is proving to be more and more difficult for councils.
In the last decade, Australia’s debt ratio to our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has fallen dramatically from 20 per cent to 4.6 per cent, well below that of other OECD countries, the USA and Japan. Yet government spending on infrastructure brings enormous economic and social benefits. The $1.2 billion injection of funding into local communities thanks to the Roads to Recovery program is clear testament to this.
November – on planning controls
Recent moves by both the New South Wales and Victorian Governments and, in September, changes by the Western Australian Government to its Planning and Development Bill, indicate that State Governments are starting to work more closely with Local Government on the vexed issue of planning controls. Local Government Associations across the nation have argued long and hard on behalf of their council members to protect local responsibility for planning matters.
The local council and its community are key stakeholders in contentious planning proposals because, long after the developer has left with money in the bank, it is the local community that has to live, and deal daily with, the consequences of bad planning decisions.
