From a local government perspective, we now have three spheres of government in Australia that should operate in a cooperative and cohesive way. All three spheres should be treated as equal and valued partners, working together to achieve the best possible governance outcomes for the people they collectively serve; the Australian public.
Galligan (1996: 55) refers to local government’s greatest strength, ‘in the democratic character of the Australian polity’, as being to ‘represent and serve people in local communities’. Galligan also points out that ‘the Australian States have been, and in various degrees remain, dominant and dictatorial in their treatment of local government and will concede to its representatives no part of their constitutional rights which they so vehemently claim for themselves’. Herein lies the rub. There is no mention of local government at all in the Australian Constitution, the document that sets out the way the nation is governed. This is because in 1901 local government was regarded as ‘residue’, for which the States were responsible. Constitutional responsibility for local government lies with the State and Territory governments with formal roles, functions and responsibilities established in state-level laws that differ across the different jurisdictions in Australia. Local government was ‘established by state parliaments to exercise delegated powers and, as such, it is part of the States’ administrative apparatus (whose) powers can be readily changed and the manner in which it exercises them is subject to overall control by the State’ (Advisory Council for Inter-government Relations 1984: 23).
Importantly, local government is dependent on the States and the Federal government for resourcing. Though it has its own ability to raise revenue through rates, these are capped in NSW, and it does not have access to a growth tax such as the States and Territories have with the GST. Local government has also become a convenient dumping ground for costly and onerous state government services. This led to the historic signing of the Intergovernmental Agreement on cost shifting between the States, the Federal Government and local government in April 2006 (IGA 2006).
Councils have been amalgamated or sacked by state governments without apparent cause or what many would consider a reasonable process and without the councils having the ability to appeal against unfair treatment. The campaign catch-cry for local government in 2007 is ‘Fair Funding, Fair Treatment and Formal Recognition’, which I will explain further below. But this catch-cry is a response to the fact that in Australia today, we have a federation with four distinct features:
an increasingly dominant and centralist Federal Government;
state governments that are still strong, but whose power has peaked;
a complete absence of regional government, but a growing mish-mash of inter-government regional arrangements that are largely ad hoc and lack any real cohesion; and
local government that continues to deliver services for communities despite being seriously under-resourced and increasingly over-regulated.
Notwithstanding, on the positive side, we are witnessing a greater degree of cooperation when it comes to our key forum for the resolution of intergovernmental challenges – the Council of Australian Governments (COAG). Local government is represented on COAG by the Australian Local Government Association (ALGA), the peak national body for local government in Australia. As a peak government body, COAG brings together the Prime Minister, State Premiers, Territory Chief Ministers and the ALGA President to develop responses to issues of concern to all three spheres of government. COAG at the very least is a willing spirit to address issues of mutual national importance that affect all three spheres of government. However, we have perhaps the personalities of the day to thank – not the system of governance that surrounds them.