In each edition we feature the views of a Local Government Association president. The following is from Councillor Felicity-ann Lewis, President of the Local Government Association of South Australia.
We don’t like them, but like death, taxes are unavoidable. Australians’ attitude to taxation – as in other countries – is rarely positive and yet people continue to demand more and more services from governments.
The reality is that we need government services. Communities continually demand more and improved services.
We want the Commonwealth Government to deliver faster broadband to more areas of Australia and to protect jobs from the recession. We want desalination plants, hospitals and major roadworks from the States.
As a local Mayor my experience is that demands for more and better services far outweigh complaints about council rates. As President of the Local Government Association,
I am told the same thing by council leaders across South Australia.
We want hot showers at the footy change rooms, we want better maintained footpaths, we want internet and more new books in the library, we want improved recycling services, we want our families immunised against new diseases and of course every dirt road must be on the works program waiting for its share of bitumen.
Our biggest challenge is to link service improvements to taxes which are most efficiently bundled into one or two bills in Local Government.
In South Australia councils undertake consultation on draft budgets before they are adopted – something State and Federal Governments could look at.
We’ve also done a lot of work on understanding that an unmanaged infrastructure backlog is likely to be unfairly pushing costs onto the
next generation.
Of course, councils are limited to one tax, something noted by the Ken Henry Tax Review, which identified more than
250 taxes levied in Australia by other governments.
We tell people before they pay council rates what the total bill for the year will be.
Rates are virtually impossible to avoid, meaning our administrative costs in raising rates are low and those who do the right thing are not subsidising tax cheats.
There is no point getting angry when we hear someone say “my rates have gone up but I don’t get any more services”, something we know to be untrue.
What we need to do is become more active in telling people what they get and how services have changed, particularly in good news areas like recycling.
We are not always good at signposting ovals and libraries, to tell people who funds them, much less Twittering the Y generation.
In South Australia the Local Government Association has produced a new television advertisement that can be found on YouTube by searching for ‘jobs in councils’.
I’m interested in new ways we can find to tell our story because it is such a compelling one.
