From today’s Crikey email:
By far the biggest political stoush in Queensland this year has been local government reform.
Moves to radically reduce the number of councils have seen Deputy Opposition Leader Fiona Simpson suspended from the House for orchestrating a bizarre protest with red bras tied to Parliament’s fence and Deputy Premier Anna Bligh trading rhetorical blows with Nats Leader Jeff Seeney over allegations that protesters had dishonoured an Anzac monument.
The angst, which saw Peter Beattie howled down in Labor’s birthplace Barcaldine on Monday, is now spilling over to the federal arena.
Local Government Minister Andrew Fraser established a commission, which included a former Nationals Minister, to recommend amalgamation of non-metropolitan Councils, many of whose boundaries had not been adjusted since 1909.
The commission has now recommended reducing the number of councils from 156 to 72. Fraser says the reform is all about ensuring financial viability and the ability to provide much needed infrastructure.
The policy has created angst all over the state, from the rural West to Brisbane’s northerly neighbour Redcliffe. The akubra hat brigade have been joined in protest by Noosa’s greenies who feel their anti-development shire will lose its exclusivity within a Sunshine Coast regional council.
Beattie this week over-ruled the recommendations of the Commission for council-wide elections, insisting that councils be able to be divided into wards so that smaller population centres are not swamped.
The politics of this issue are fascinating. Beattie’s government has been accused of taking the axe to Nationals powerbases in local government. The same accusations were made some years ago when Councillors were prevented from simultaneously holding state seats.
It would be surprising if this wasn’t an element in Labor’s calculations, but it has also enabled Beattie to paint the protests as self-interest from Mayors and Councillors affected.
Other critics like Democrats Senator Andrew Bartlett have attacked the process as deeply undemocratic.
At first glance, this policy would appear to be the sort of modernising reform Kevin Rudd would embrace with open arms. But Labor likes its chances in some regional federal seats – such as the new electorate of Flynn. Rudd has placed ads in local papers opposing the move, an action which spawned fury from Peter Beattie.
There’s no doubt that federal Labor would have liked this whole issue to be placed on the backburner, but Beattie has a point when he argues that the changes have to be in place for the next round of local government elections in March next year. (Queensland local government runs on fixed four-year terms.)
Behind many of the concerns expressed is fear that further services will be lost from the bush (which has been strongly denied by Beattie). Just as in Victoria with the Kennett amalgamations in the 90s, this issue is a lightning rod for all manner of rural and regional discontent, which might otherwise have been funnelled towards the federal Coalition government.
Rudd is no doubt hoping the Kennett experience is not an omen.
“Noosa’s greenies who feel their anti-development shire will lose its exclusivity within a Sunshine Coast regional council.”
It is inaccurate to say that Noosa is an anti-development shire. But they do have strict height limits on buildings, which is what makes Noosa different from the Gold Coast.
Maroochy shire has gone down the Gold Coast route and they would have the numbers in an amalgamation with Noosa.
Anti-development in that sense, Spiros, and also in the sense that they’ve got something of a population policy. With a word limit of 400 it’s hard to do nuance.
I visited Maroochydore for the first time since I was a kid in 1998. Massively different. Even more so now.
However, I think this is a bit simplistic. There are more people living in Caboolture and Maroochy shires than in Noosa shire. But this doesn’t mean that everyone in the enlarged regional council will vote purely on the grounds of where they live. Though the divisions will enhance the trend to that, especially at first. The commission’s at large recommendation for the election of Councillors was designed, I think, to force everyone in the new area to think more like one bigger community.
Just sayin…
The Townsville Mayor Tony Mooney is pretty antsy. But then to see him and his goon squads swept into the dustbin of history would only be good.
I was part of a VIP party recently in Townsville and he hauled me over the coals for being inhospitable to a group of US military personnel who’d just completed their war games near Rockhampton. A real wannabe dictator and Aboriginal hater.
Wasn’t Mooney the guy who cost Goss government in 96 by losing the by-election to that complete clown the Libs ran?
I don’t know, could be. Wish I knew a lot more when I shaked his sleazy hand.
I’ ve since learned that he was a hit and run driver, involving an Aboriginal pedestrian, when he was deputy Mayor, but all charges were dropped. He has been around for a long time, though only (!) about 52 now.
Townsville today, guess he bears at least part of the blame,except for a few early colonial architectural preservations near the seafront, is a barren wasteland. There is no nature, apart from the sea. No trees, no birds, and the original inhabitants have long been moved out of the city centre and foreshore.
On the other hand, it is apparently booming. Real estate and tenancy prices comparable to Sydney, population growth attributable mainly to mining. But, as the local cab driver opined, some people will complain about anything.
I’m just back in Victoria from some time travelling in rural Queensland and am therefore in at least some sort of a position to attempt a compare-and-contrast.
In Victoria, I don’t think local council amalgamations were a trigger for the anti-Kennett backlash in regional areas to any significant degree, for the simple reason that the amalgamations took place in Kennett’s first term and swings to Labor in regional Victoria in 1996 were patchy at best. One can make an arguable case that they fed into a general sense of grievance prior to 1999, but cuts in services were, I suspect, a more important factor there.
Based on the Victorian experience, I find it hard to believe that voters in urban and semi-urban areas will care too much about their council boundaries (places like Noosa may be a special case, but Noosa isn’t in a marginal federal seat anyway). Inland Queensland, which has no Victorian equivalent, is a different story altogether – the amount of political heat being generated by the issue was quite astonishing. However, most of the western Queensland shires are to remain unchanged (whether the locals are in the least bit grateful for this is an interesting question – I left the area the day before the report came out so would be keen to know what the local response was), and in any case the only part of this region which is remotely marginal territory is the inland extension of Flynn.
Herbert might be the other one to watch here given its marginal nature and single major community of interest. There will be people here who know the place vastly better than I do – is there a specific reason not immediately apparent to an outsider why people (other than the councillors, obviously) would be opposed to merging the two Townsville councils? (are rates or services drastically different between the two?)
(An interesting aside in Victoria – after the 1999 change of government councils were given the option of dis-amalgamating, but only one has done so).
This has disaster written all over it for the Qld Labor Govt. Surely Beattie remembers what happened to Wayne Goss and his “Koala Rd” (or whatever it was called) that lost him quite a few seats and eventually his majority.
Forcing a deeply unpopular change on locals, under the guise of economic rationalism or “it’s for yer own good” just doesn’t work here. It reeks of arrogance and will, as you say, become a lightning rod for regional discontent.
Why couldn’t Beattie have simply shown the commission’s proposed reforms to the various local councils, with the arguments for and against, and let the various regions decide if they wanted to amalgamate or not? Surely there would be some sort of carrot that could be used to persuade the populace to vote yes, rather than declaring by executive fiat that shires no longer exist?
There was a previous process of negotiation, but very few takers for amalgamations, and when you read stuff like the Mayors of two shires slated for amalgamation upping their remuneration from 18k to 50k in the time remaining, you have to wonder how frustrating the process of negotiation must have been.
The Nationals have been very aggressive in pushing this issue as this recent Estimates committee E exchange shows.
CHAIR:
Thank you, Minister. Do you seek leave to table those documents?
Mr FRASER:
I do seek leave.
Leave granted.
CHAIR:
The first period of questioning is allocated to non-government members.
Mr HOBBS:
Minister, you labelled the plan by communities to have a say–to have a referendum–on forced council amalgamations as a publicity stunt. On the basis that none of the reasons you have given on forced council amalgamations are true and you are spending $1.45 million on a taxpayer funded publicity stunt yourself, why are you being a jumped-up dictator when all the public wants to do is to have a say–to have a referendum?
CHAIR:
Member for Warrego, I think that language may be unparliamentary.
Mr FRASER:
I am happy to answer the question.
Mr HOBBS:
I am sure the minister would not need to hide behind a skirt.
Mr FRASER:
I am happy to answer the question, and I presume that this sets the tone for the next 3 hours and it should be an enjoyable 3 hours for everybody.
Mr HOBBS:
Answer the question. That would be good.
Mr FRASER:
I am more than happy to.
Mr HOBBS:
Good on you.
They’re a class act those Nats. Robert Ray and John Faulkner have nothing on their forensic skills.
I was fascinated to peruse the short order “Commission’s” recommendations relating to the forced amalgamation of Noosa with Maroochy and Caloundra, the most pointed being to “Promote and support major economic development initiatives emerging in the region.” Such as?????
I’m somewhat surprised noone here has picked up on the obvious in the context of the constituency of the good ole traditional Queensland boys and gals Commission eg.
Commission member Terry Mackenroth’s conflict of interest with his involvement with Devine Homes. Is there more little associations for fun and profit we as voters should know about, Peter?
Beattie is now saying Noosa is not threatened with wholesale highrise … so will it instead be threatened by retail or small scale highrise … the thin end of the usual wedge? How can he guarantee that future state governments, after he is chucked out next election for his totalitarian arrogance of course, will not permit rampant development in Noosa. When in doubt folks, always remember Russ Hinze and his role in the despoiling of the Gold Coast. In the mind of developers, their warren like slums look pretty – and the money even prettier. They don’t have to pay for the social, environmental and economic consequences of their ghastly erections later on – that’s left to you and me.
What puzzles me the most is how Beattie can claim that I will benefit from increased “clout” from a super Council, when by my calculations, my rates dollar will purchase only one sixth of the electoral representation it now does. Very hard sell to Queenslanders who’ve already seen the bullshit of the Traveston Swamp issue three times, and fought amalgamation twice before.
The Mackenroth point is a very good one.
Blair, that’s only true of the western shires where hardly anyone lives (apart from Mt Isa).
Here’s the map of the changes, which I got from the Stronger Councils website.
The basic problem is that they have joined areas where there is no community of interest. Apart from Noosa, look at Port Douglas, which is now an outer suburb of Cairns and Redcliffe, which has been appended to Caboolture and Pine Rivers. Caboolture and Pine Rivers both look to Brisbane, as does Redcliffe, which is geographically contained and off to one side.
Dalby has now swallowed four and a half other shires. I grew up in what is now the northern-most bit of the new Dalby, which would be two and a half hours drive away from Dalby city which would probably have more than half the new shire’s population. Dalby to us was a road house, a convenient watering place on the way to Toowoomba or Brisbane, nothing more. For services you couldn’t get locally you looked to Toowoomba and beyond.
A combo of Chinchilla, Murilla and the southern part of Taroom would have worked. Anywhere else is beyond the pale.
I have yet to see anything that convinces me that this is the only way to “ensure financial viability” or “provide much needed infrastructure”. I’m not sure who keeps confusing governments with businesses. Yes, you need to be financially viable, but governments main objective isn’t to make a profit! Surely there is a way of solving these problems without diluting the votes of people in councils.
The Victorian experience is a bit mroe complicated then just amalgamation.
Amalgamation was accompanied by some other far reaching reforms to local government. Firstly all councils were sacked and unelected commissioners installed for up to 2 years (if I recall correctly). Secondly the Kennett Government mandated an across the board rate cut. Thirdly, this rate cut was followed by a cap on the amount rates could rise in one year (3-4 percent from memory). And Lastly, a policy of Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT) was mandated.
CCT in particular was verty unpopular in communities as they saw things like lesire centres, meals on wheels and local services previously delivered by their local council. This was particularly the case in regional Victoria.
I went on a tour with a Shadow Minister (at the time) through places like Shepperton, Tatura, Echucha etc in 1998 and there was palpable resentment at the effects of these reforms, together with fees imposed by Catchement Water Authorities. Why amalgamation was resented it was what went with it – cost cutting, reduced services etc that was the real problem.
The clown in question was Frank Tanti who made application to government to add MAG wheels to his electorate car so that he would identify more closely with his electorate.
One that has slipped below the radar is a former Transport Minister, Steve Bredhauer who is now closely associated with a prominent land developer by marriage.
Everyone:
NOT ONLY only has Beattie jumped into the open grave, wrenched open the coffin lid, heaved the cold corpse of the National Party’s Federal Election Chances back to ground level, hauled it off to Intensive Care and successfully resuscitated it …. BUT he has, by his half-baked “amalgamations”, also unwittingly stuffed up all the hard work done by so many on practcal beneficial alternatives to the colonies/states inflicted on us by the Colonial Office in London 1n the 18th and 19th Centuries.
Well, Beattie has now earned himself a new nickname: Passion-Fingers. What the hell was he thinking????
I am yet to meet in the flesh anyone (apart from mayors & councillors) who think anything but the amalgamations are FANTASTIC!
Try the Torres Strait, 22 councils being merged into three. For a population of 10,000. Should be ONE council. But, one step at a time.
The problem for Rudd is that taxpayers at all levels are sick of the blame game and just want results, an attitude that has assisted the Prime Minister John Howard and Treasure Peter Costello to win the coming election 2007.
Australian economic is overwhelming in top gear and top speed. We should not vote for Kevin Rudd who is making it harder for the Green voters to favour a preference for Labor.
Nervous lip sucking, unsecured Kevin Rudd of a very poor family medical history is unfit to stand against the Prime Minister seat.
Kevin Rudd, Maxine Monkey, Julia Gillard and counterparts are a team of economic mismanagement, union conspiracy, inexperience, poll mislead, who seriously oppose their conspiracy theories about water talks, climate change, IR, unfair dismissal, Grocery prices, housing affordability but forgetting to reduce his state taxes.
Time goes on Kevin Rudd and counterparts must step out of the federal election 2007, repay the Coalition Government and Australian $96,000,000 labor’s debt, sacrify their political dishonesty to support a better future for the Commonwealth Coalition Government and all Australian.
Great analysis AA but now the election has been declared, Do we still need to turn up and vote? Why not just declare Australia a one party state where everyone will just do as they are told by a Liberal Party who clearly are superior to everyone on all levels. In fact I doubt whether God almighty his omnipotent self can hold a candle to this superior parade of millionaire lawyers.
SteveAtThePub:
The Shire Councils themselves have been rubber-stamps for quite a few years; ever since Shire Clerks became CEOs and the whole shebang was corporatized, “professionalized”, and service to the residents took second place creating bureaucratic empires. However, the Shire Councils did have symbolic value for the residents; that’s why having 22, or whatever, Councils in Torres Strait wasn’t as bad as it seemed.
Beattie’s real harm is that his ad-hoc hairy-chested over-reaction to Canberra’s shenanegans has now made the replacement of the inefficient colonial-era “states” with structures [such as much smaller well-integrated "provinces"] appropriate to Australia’s needs all that more difficult.