Keeping the “local” in Local Government – a population perspective on council amalgamations
‘Reform’ is one of the favourite words of the Australian Government lexicon. Reform seems to come in many guises and in the case of Local Government, reform means make ‘em bigger and better. Of course, one of the more interesting things about local government reform (or more correctly amalgamation) is the fact that there is little concern as to whether local government remains ‘local’ in nature. This is an interesting debate in the context of the proposal to recognise local government in the Australian Constitution.
Our preoccupation with amalgamation
Most state governments have entered into local government restructuring in recent years. Large scale amalgamations and restructuring have occurred in Victoria, South Australia and Queensland. At the moment, there are local government reviews occurring in Western Australia and New South Wales. By contrast in Queensland, approval has been given for de-amalgamation of several areas previously amalgamated. The case for local government restructuring / amalgamation is therefore well established. It seems the mantra of keeping Councils rates low and government lean and efficient is paramount. However, at what point is local government no longer ‘local’?
In Victoria, during the 1990s, there was a major restructuring of local government, with the number of Councils decreasing from 210 to 78. In most cases, the amalgamations produced urban LGAs averaging about 100,000 in Melbourne, about 70,000 people in regional Victoria, with rural LGAs of about 20,000 people. However, many oddities remained. For example, the largest Council area by population, which was the City of Greater Geelong (population 183,700) was adjacent to the Borough of Queenscliffe (population 3,450), which was the smallest by population. Such anomalies may be inevitable, but this is one of the more obvious inconsistencies which remained from this process.
Where to draw the boundary?
So how should we go about local government restructuring? Is it just about efficiency? Is it just about overcoming challenges to revenue raising and keeping rates low? In the global information age, do we care what community we are part of? Should we be keeping ‘local’ in local government?
As people who work with population data, we are always amused by the vagaries of LGA boundaries. Some seem to make sense, others less so. Local Government in NSW is no exception, with some rather odd boundaries. These are both urban and rural.
For example, in the St George region of Sydney, the suburbs of Hurstville and Kogarah are in multiple LGAs, despite the fact that these suburbs are the focus for the communities in these areas. Many of the LGAs in the NSW Riverina seem very small in size and population, although they may have seemed more reasonable in the past. The western boundary of Orange is relatively tight around the urban area which means about half of the rural residential growth of the City falls into the LGA of Cabonne. The boundary between Newcastle and Lake Macquarie seems at best highly arbitrary to the outsider. These are all prime examples of areas that probably need to be reviewed and in some cases, changed.
The NSW proposal
The Local Government Review Panel is currently looking into the future of Council boundaries in New South Wales. This assesses local government futures in both Sydney and regional NSW.
In the recently released ‘Future Directions Report’, the Panel suggested the Sydney Metropolitan Area should be covered by 15 super-councils, which would result in an average population of about 300,000 per LGA. As a part of this proposal, they suggested that Sydney, Parramatta and Liverpool would be the centre of Council areas with 800,000 people. In regional NSW, they suggest a two-tiered approach, with amalgamations necessary in many areas. In addition, Councils should seek to form regional groupings, so-called County Councils which are modelled on the ROC approach (Regional Organisations of Councils).
The primary justification relates to the efficiency and management of Councils. More specifically, the Panel cite a report by the NSW Treasury Corp which suggests local government in NSW has major financial problems. Here is the link if you are interested. http://www.localgovernmentreview.nsw.gov.au/documents/LGR/Future%20Directions%20Paper.pdf
The report does address the issue of ‘keeping local’ in local government, but tends to suggest that larger units in themselves are not a hindrance to a sense of ‘community’. This position is probably quite reasonable if you don’t start with prescriptive targets for the number of LGAs you should create and effectively telling people, “You are part of this community”.
It is also hard to argue that Councils are not financially sustainable if you persist on rate-pegging or rate-capping which undermines Councils’ ability to raise revenue to pay for services. In all these reviews, the question must be asked, “Are people prepared to agree to pay higher rates?” to maintain some sense of shared community.
If we take these financial arguments to their ultimate conclusion, we may not bother with local government at all. It seems there are always greater efficiencies and bigger is always better, so perhaps the State Government should start to rate properties, maintain local roads and collect rubbish itself. The practicalities of amalgamated Councils suggest that bigger is not necessarily better. Surely if you end up with three or four council separate offices per council, the pretence of efficiency has been, at the very least, undermined.
The restructuring of local government should not be based purely on bean-counting. Identity still matters. The changes suggested always seem to be about what’s good for the State Government and not for local involvement in decision-making. Let’s try to find a better balance.
I’m sure many of our local government readers and community members have a view on this subject – we’d love to hear it and share it, so please leave us a comment …
The Victorian government has committed to an integrated catchment management approach. In a general sense this means ecosystem services are managed on a catchment by catchment basis. Cardinia, the largest growth area as I understand it also encompasses what was once the ‘hills’ sub-region a more laconic and rural region than the bustling growth area. catchment management, resource use, in fact all of the distinct demographic and environmental indicators have been lost to the community here since Cardinia, it would seem, incorporated a single demographic model. This is no small loss given the Woori Yallock sub-catchment is the unique home of both Helmeted honey eaters and Leadbeater’s possum. The State’s bird and animal emblems; one endangered the other critically so. While many work to to secure their survival the area seems to be considered by Cardinia insignificant. The Cardinia LGA seperates a small section of of the catchment area from the broader Yarra Valley LGA and make the survival of these species a little less likely. The threat to survival, particularly for the honeyeater, is no doubt impacted by Cardinia shire’s role as overlord to the upper reaches of the catchment. Cardinia oversee, and ahve failed to protect two most decimated creeks in Melbourne’s east. As one of the Councillors said when I raised the issue at a VEAC open forum “I’m very busy with a growth corridor to oversee”. Perhaps it’s time to map LGA’s to geo-physical boundaries and ecosystem services rather than the secondary needs of the populations they support!
I think that you are right on the money there, Colin. The boundaries for the Shire of Cardinia are at best odd. The northern area of the Shire is obviously very different to the central corridor or indeed the southern rural section. The northern section of the Shire should probably be with Yarra Ranges on the basis of land use and environmental factors. I would also say that the Lilydale part of Yarra Ranges could be separated or perhaps included as part of Maroondah. Perhaps we are not familiar with the important political deliberations which were used to create the current boundaries! I suppose there are many more examples across Australia.
“It is also hard to argue that Councils are not financially sustainable if you persist on rate-pegging or rate-capping which undermines Councils’ ability to raise revenue to pay for services.”
This statement goes a long way in explaining LG councils financial positions in a nutshell.
“In all these reviews, the question must be asked, “Are people prepared to agree to pay higher rates?” to maintain some sense of shared community.”
I am kind of hesitant to accept that residents will pay any less with larger LGAs.
That’s an interesting reflection on the history and possibilities of amalgamation. From my understanding its purpose is not just about economies of scale, but also includes elevating the influence of local government, with a greater strategic capability to leverage what’s needed from State and Federal levels; Improving the consistency of rules, planning and service delivery standards; and benefitting communities with the ease of dealing with one administration. Some of our councils in NSW are clearly too small to be viable in the long term, and many of the others can do better than they are, yet still retain local democracy. That sense of local identity and representation is all about how you ENGAGE and RESPOND to your community, its not about size, and clearly it can be done well with the right structures and practices in place – eg. Local Boards and a comprehensive practice of community engagement using IAP2 framework. I’d like to read or hear more about the success factors for this despite the council size, examples of Local Boards or other structures. Its too easy to fall back on the usual fears about loss of identity and control, and reapeating the mistakes of the past. Lets look at what’s possible and what’s working well, it may be a better outcome for everyone if its done right.
What I would love to hear about with all this reform discussion is wether Victoria or Queensland residents are seeing any benefit from what must be a significant improvement in the operation of their local councils.
A lot is promised in WA but no facts or figures are presented – just a promise. The WA Governmnet spent a fortune to get an expert panel report to put a case for amalgamations but after many months and 192 pages they couldn’t utter the words which makes me think they concluded the contrary but it was not within their remit to state this.