Queensland's burning - local government amalgamations Beattie-style

Enforced state government amalgamation of local governments is not new in either Australia or Queensland. However, the Queensland Beattie Labor Government’s decision in August to cut the number of local authorities from 156 to 72 and to sack 724 elected councillors deserves our attention in terms of its processes, rationale, and what it tells us about the status of local government in Australia and democratic practice at a state level.

Even by Queensland’s executive government top-down decision-making standards the Beattie Labor Government’s enforced amalgamation of local governments announced at the beginning of August has been breathtaking in its speed of execution, breadth of impact, and lack of consultation.

Further, the Beattie Government’s threat to sack any council holding a referendum on the issue has given the issue wider significance especially as it has provoked unprecedented federal government intervention.

Prime Minister Howard announced he would change the Commonwealth Electoral Act to override the Beattie Labor Government’s “dictatorial” and “undemocratic” actions and allow the Australian Electoral Commission to conduct polls for those local government areas that wanted to hold these.

No previous national government has sought to intervene so directly in local government or state responsibilities or on these grounds of democratic practice. That this action was supported by federal Labor who were also openly critical of the Beattie Government’s processes in this matter suggests that the Howard Government’s actions were not totally partisan.

The issue is not whether some of the recent amalgamations in Queensland were necessary, as some were. Rather, the debate has increasingly focused on how it was done as it is in relation to processes that democratic standards can be best assessed. Indeed, the issue highlights the meaning of community consultation, just where does local government fit in our system of government, the nature of state governments in relation to democratic practice and whether “national” standards need to be imposed on miscreant state governments as in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s in relation to civil liberties.

Background to local government amalgamations

During the past three decades the number of local governments in Australia has fallen from just over 900 to approximately 600. In recent years there has been renewed interest in amalgamations with numerous federal, state and local government sponsored inquiries into local government financial sustainability.

This issue has been driven by two different influences. On the one hand drought and the decline of many rural areas have caused many local authorities to struggle with a declining rate and population base. In other cases rapid population growth and development in “sea-change” regions and the stresses this has caused local governments has spurred amalgamation.

Where local government fits into Australia’s rapidly changing and increasingly nationally dominated federal system, also figures in these discussions, though Australia has yet to pursue this issue as comprehensively other countries.

In relation to Queensland local government, amalgamation has largely been off the agenda since the 1990s when there were a spate of amalgamations and other local government reforms introduced by the Goss Labor Government in response to the reform process unleashed by the Fitzgerald Commission of Inquiry.

Proposals by the Electoral Administrative Review Commission (EARC) for amalgamations across 16 local governments met considerable opposition and caused the Goss Government to establish a Local Government Commission, as recommended by EARC, to investigate and consult on these proposals. By 1994 it resulted in four amalgamations with others following. Despite the consultative process these amalgamations were seen as contributing to its poor 1995 election results and fall from office in 1996.

The National Party-led Coalition government abolished the Local Government Commission and amended the Local Government Act so that amalgamations could only occur if the matter was referred to the Local Government Electoral and Boundaries Review Commission by the Local Government Minister, who would act only if convinced that there was considerable community and clear local government support. Further, any proposals for amalgamation had to go to a local referendum (though Parliament could still reject the referendum result).

The pragmatic and cautious Beattie Government elected in 1998 continued with this policy. Even as the Beattie Government gained record majorities in subsequent elections, collaboration and co-operation with local government was the order of the day as shown by the regular renewal of a memorandum of understanding between the Queensland Government and the Local Government Association of Queensland (LGAQ) and state government support for the LGAQ’s Size, Shape and Sustainability (SSS) review into the viability of local government and voluntary amalgamation.

The Beattie Government’s 2007 local government initiatives

It is against this background that Premier Beattie’s sudden and unexpected announcement of the external review of local government boundaries in April this year needs to be appreciated. Overnight this ended the SSS review process. It immediately placed local government amalgamation on the agenda and ended the previous consultation process.

Because the Beattie Government did not mention its intentions during the 2006 State election and supported the SSS review until a couple of days before announcing the external review, many in local government believe that they had been duped by the Beattie Government by a process of deliberate subterfuge and a false sense of participation. The Beattie Government’s decision promoted a great sense of betrayal among local governments. As Councillor Paul Bell, State President of the LGAQ lamented:

Why kill the Size, Shape, and Sustainability? Why not confide in local government if the state was unhappy with progress ... Why the deceitful charade over the first three months of the year (i.e. 2007). The LGAQ was deceived, so were mayors and council CEOs, even the Independent Review Facilitators (of the SSS process) right up to the very last day.

Furthermore, the seven-person external review was seen by many in local government as being neither as expert nor as independent as the government contended and that the review’s outcome was largely predetermined. This perception was reinforced by the rushed process and limited consultation. From the start to when the new legislation was passed in a one-night sitting, the whole process took less than four months. As one local government constituent complained:

... the so called Independent Local Government Review Commission ... were given just three months to consider more than 36,000 submissions from 156 councils. The outcome was preordained as the Commission was under instructions to redefine boundaries, but not given time to conduct a rigorous “cost benefit” analysis or a cultural impact study based on amalgamation experience in other parts of Australia.

This rushed process in parliament again highlighted Queensland’s notorious lack of legislative scrutiny of executive government actions. Nevertheless, the consultative processes of local government amalgamations under the Beattie Government were in contrast to the more extensive consultative processes of previous Labor and Coalition administrations. Also recent processes seemed contrary to accepted norms of consultative processes for good policy development.

Indeed, the Beattie Government’s promise on coming to office to “listen” to the electorate through a complex ritual of community cabinets, forums, and regional parliament, has been replaced in relation to local government amalgamation, by a more autocratic approach to policy development. It seems that the Beattie Government has even ignored the advice of its own Policy Handbook that stressed, “consultation is an integral part of the policy process and should be a normal part of government’s operations ... (and) needs to occur throughout policy development”.

Further undermining the democratic process was the Beattie Government’s threat to take action against any council seeking to hold a referendum on the issue. Initially, the government amended the legislation to fine such local governments, but later the Beattie Government decided such councils would be dismissed, and amended the legislation again. As the Local Government Minister warned:

Staging a referendum will be an explicit trigger for immediate dismissal of individual councils. If a council has already started a poll they must take all necessary steps to ensure that the poll does not go ahead ... If a council declines to desist and goes ahead with plans for referendums, they will be dismissed without notice. Administrators will be appointed to any councils that are dismissed.

No Queensland government has treated its local government or its citizens so crudely. However, with federal government amending the Commonwealth Electoral Act to allow the Australian Electoral Commission to conduct the local government referendums, the Beattie Government relented and subsequently altered the legislation yet again to remove its ability to sack such councils. Now the Beattie Government has stated it will ignore the result of any referendums!

Motivations

Why the Beattie Government embarked on amalgamation at this critical time in the federal electoral cycle is difficult to assess. Certainly, the Beattie Government’s prime justification for amalgamation has been that the creation of larger councils will be more efficient, but such alleged efficiencies have long been hard to prove in relation to local government amalgamation. Critics of the amalgamations argue that there were serious flaws in the Beattie Government’s evidence in this area. Other suggestions by the Premier that resistance to “reform” was because local councillors would lose their income was crass, ignoring the fact many councillors receive only nominal pay and do considerable community work at great personal expense.

Nor is amalgamation needed, as the Queensland Government contended, because local government boundaries have not changed for 100 years. This is a fiction as there have been many alterations over the years including some major ones, as noted made by the Goss Labor Government a decade ago.

Others have suggested that community of interests have been undermined in some of the new larger amalgamated councils in rural areas. Recent amalgamations may also be about payback given the way local government forced the Beattie Government to back down on some major policy initiatives in the past and in other cases, how local government has upstaged State Labor members.

The recent amalgamations are about the exercise of power by a state government anxious to gain control over land, water, housing, and environment issues now so politically important in Queensland’s burgeoning urbanised southeast corner and coastal regions. This, and the creation of larger and fewer local governments provides a possible means for the state government to manage more effectively these now urgent issues.

Conclusions

The Beattie Government’s amalgamations of local government, like those in other states, highlight the vulnerability of local government in our system of government. Unless amalgamation can be better resolved in the future by a more collaborative and democratic process then local government can never aspire to becoming the third tier in our federal system. Its place in Australian government remains tenuous.

The fundamental issue is not whether some amalgamations were necessary. Justifications for amalgamations can always be found, but so too can alternative strategies. Rather, the real issue in our system of democracy is whether one level of government should be able to sack another government that is democratically elected. It is this issue that lies at the heart of community reaction against enforced amalgamations and until it is resolved then local government’s very survival is questionable. Certainly, local government around Australia should take heed and alarm at the recent Queensland experience.

But there are even wider ramifications of these events. We understand that trust in government is declining and there is growing cynicism in government actions and consequently disengagement by some community members in the political processes. This will continue while governments eschew democratic processes as occurred in Queensland.

At the very time when the Queensland Government was threatening to sack local governments holding referendums on amalgamations, it was advertising for members of advisory bodies on youth, seniors and domestic violence to provide opportunities for an “exchange of information and views between members and the Queensland Government”. Given recent events who would now believe in these processes or would bother to join such advisory bodies? The real damage to democracy by the Beattie Government’s enforced amalgamation of local governments and the processes it employed is the loss of belief by citizens that their views count.

As postscript to this whole issue was Beattie’s resignation as premier on September 10. Although Beattie has previously hinted at retiring, it may not be coincidental that his resignation has been made before the calling of the federal election. Beattie’s actions in relation to local government were proving to be potentially damaging to Kevin Rudd’s federal election plans, both in terms of its direct impact on particular communities and several key federal Queensland regional seats and the embarrassing way it was done.

Although the new premier, Anna Bligh, has endorsed the local government amalgamation, the Local Government Minister, Andrew Fraser has now been moved to Treasury. The former Minister for Communities, Warren Pitt, a person from north Queensland with well known interpersonal skills, has now taken over the local government portfolio and will oversee the implementation of amalgamation.