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Lord Mayors: bypassing state government

By Stephen Jones - posted Monday, 13 August 2007


Second, the objectives of programs will be established on Commonwealth terms; it’s their money so they determine the conditions. The Commonwealth maintains tight control over the funding and has the final say in which projects go-ahead. What would appear at first glance to be a co-operative arrangement could really be another means of coercion by an increasingly centralist Commonwealth government.

Third, funding will more than likely be through competitive specific purpose payments (SPPs). This is one of the classic ways used by the Commonwealth to determine the policies and expenditure commitments of the other spheres of government. Projects need to meet the criteria of the program as there is only so much money to go around. Experience shows that with such programs it is the money that becomes the goal and the project is an incidental by-product.

Fourth, projects will require changes to traditional planning and regulatory approval arrangements. Development corporations and redevelopment authorities are used as a means to overcome obstructions and parochial interests. The East Perth Redevelopment Authority, the Southbank Corporation, the Urban Renewal Taskforce, and the Docklands Redevelopment Authority were established to remove the influence of local government from the planning process.

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Fifth, projects will be required to establish a master plan or development control plan that takes precedence over local government town plans. These are high cost projects and the Commonwealth doesn’t want meddlesome local councillors getting in the way and slowing things down.

Finally, there will most likely be a social cost. Urban renewal projects have proven to be a boost for developers often at the expense of the less fortunate in the community in Brisbane, for example, where low cost inner city housing was replaced by expensive apartment complexes as part of the urban renewal program in areas like Southbank and Fortitude Valley.

The lessons for the Lord Mayors from project based programs like Better Cities, are that they need to be prepared:

  1. to co-operate with both the Commonwealth and state governments;
  2. for the Commonwealth to dominate;
  3. for local issues to be less important than the objectives of the program;
  4. to compete for a limited amount of money;
  5. to lose their power to control the planning of these projects; and
  6. for developers to reap the rewards, often at the expense of the disadvantaged and local community’s interests in general.

It is rather surprising that the Lord Mayors wish to establish a partnership without involving the state governments. It appears the reason they are pursuing the Commonwealth is that they can no longer rely on the states. How they intend to undertake such significant projects without the involvement of the states is most curious.

Most concerning is that what the Lord Mayors propose may even further reduce their autonomy to undertake project initiatives. What seems to be missing is anything that would help promote their financial independence.

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Rather than creating a situation that shifts their reliance from the states to the Commonwealth it would make more sense for the mayors to lobby for an allocation of national taxation revenue.

The Australian Local Government Association has been calling for a 1 per cent share of national taxation revenue to be allocated to local government. Such an arrangement would permit greater certainty and flexibility for all local councils in determining their own priorities.

Surely the Lord Mayors could more effectively turn their ideas into reality if they had more of their own money to bring to the bargaining table.

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About the Author

Stephen Jones is a Perth based writer and policy analyst.

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