The third meeting of the Australian Council of Local Government (ACLG) took place at Parliament House Canberra on 18 June. Over 400 Mayors and Shire Presidents from around the nation met with the then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, various Ministers and a number of Parliamentary Secretaries.
President of the Australian Local Government Association, Councillor Geoff Lake, described the current relationship between the Australian Government and Local Government as the strongest ever.
“The architecture of these ACLG meetings provides for formal deliberation on issues that affect both spheres of government,” Geoff Lake said. “People don’t care who provides the service, so long as we get the job done.”
The ‘cabinet’ of 16 Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries fielded questions from delegates in what was described as a ‘turbo charged community cabinet meeting’, with issues raised by Councillors representing communities from across the nation.
“Over the past two and a half years, we have held community cabinet meeting in
25 different locations around the nation,” Kevin Rudd said. “This exposes the Cabinet to direct local feedback on how we can do government business better.
“All over the nation, the Commonwealth Government and Local Government are doing things together,” he said. “In this historic new partnership, some 5,000 projects large and small have created local jobs and left a lasting legacy of new community infrastructure.”
An additional $100 million for the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program was also announced at the ACLG. This brings the total funding under this program to
$1.1 billion.
Each council will receive the same amount as they did under round two of this program.
In a similar format to other community cabinet meetings, Kevin Rudd then opened up the ACLG meeting to questions from the floor.
Some of the issues raised with Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries included the following:
- additional demands to provide services by
those councils that have a significant number
of refugees and Indigenous residents - Local Government receiving a share of the
GST - meeting the challenges presented by rapid
population growth - policies to assist mature Australians to stay in
the workforce - balancing environmental, social and
infrastructure impacts of a bigger Australia - aviation impacts on local communities and
planning for future development of airports - the rollout of the national broadband
network - infrastructure spending from the mining
supertax going to other areas as well - moving to a greater reliance on our own
compressed gas fuels rather than oil imports - improved rail and ports infrastructure
- housing affordability
- additional funding for councils to provide
services for dementia and Alzheimer’s patients
and their carers.
