An interview with Wayne Wright, CEO, MacDonnell Shire Council, Northern Territory
Having spent 16 years working for Local Government, Wayne Wright has senior management experience in three States.
Appointed as CEO of MacDonnell Shire following the Northern Territory amalgamations earlier this year, he believes the future will see Local Government working more closely with the other spheres of government.
“The Northern Territory Government and the Federal Government are currently realigning some of the responsibilities within key departments and shire boundaries, which will result in stronger partnerships and closer working relationships throughout the Territory,” he said. “With Constitutional recognition now firmly on the Federal Government agenda, I expect this will follow in other States/Territories across the country.”
While Wayne said that the eight new shires in the Northern Territory will face different challenges to those of the rest of Australia, he said staff attraction and retention is a significant issue for any council.
“The new council structures here in the Northern Territory are seeing more people looking to work in Local Government than ever before, however it is still a challenge to find people in the community who have suitable skills to fill available positions,” he said. “We need to encourage younger people to take on full time jobs and identify those who, with support, will commit to full time employment. At the same time, we need to look at flexible ways to take account of cultural beliefs and practices.
“At MacDonnell Shire, we are providing programs to mentor Indigenous staff to encourage them to move into management roles in the future.”
To overcome the ongoing issue of financial sustainability, Northern Territory shires are administering agency services as well as their Local Government responsibilities.
“These include Centrelink services, child, aged and disability care, night patrol and so forth,” Wayne Wright said. “Providing these services enables us to grow our Council revenues and contributes to our overall financial stability.
“Each of the new shires has also established a business plan, with a three year financial plan. MacDonnell sees its Business Plan as the critical planning framework for the organisation, ensuring Council, its key stakeholders and staff have a clear understanding of what Council wants to achieve and what it will cost.
“These plans will be ever important in the future as ageing infrastructure needs to be replaced and communities demand greater services.”
Wayne Wright said resource sharing will also play an important role in the future. MacDonnell currently shares its administration building with the Central Desert Shire, and Central Desert provides financial processing services for MacDonnell. In return, MacDonnell provides a record management service for Central Desert.
“The benefits of resource sharing are far and wide,” Wayne Wright said. “Not only are we largely able to minimise the number of staff required to run the centres, but efficiencies are also created in the way we deal with both our customers and business processes.”
Resource sharing became a major focus following the Northern Territory amalgamations, and as such, when the eight new Territory shires came into operation, a subsidiary was created under the Northern Territory Local Government Act called ‘CouncilBIZ’.
CouncilBIZ provides administrative, ICT and business systems support services to the eight member shires.
Having only been established for five months, MacDonnell’s major focus to date has been developing a strong and robust organisational framework that will guide the organisation.
However, Wayne Wright said that with a large Indigenous community that has strong links with the land, environmental sustainability will form a large part of Council’s future agenda.
