Likewise, if you want to get on the wrong side of the people of the Gold Coast, talk about Brisbane, same for the people of western Queensland. New England wanted their own state in 1967, but Newcastle was included in the referendum to (successfully) knock it out.
My office has a continual representation from local government people with issues from their local area which have never been raised to me by their respective state governments.
Because of this it makes sense for the Federal Government to provide direct funds to the people of that area for the specific purposes of what they lobby for. No doubt if the State had the capacity to do this then I suppose you wouldn't be here talking to us.
It would probably be a better outcome for the State to do this. The reality is that in many cases this is just not happening.
The Coalition is committed to building a new partnership between federal and local government across Australia that recognises local government’s role as the jurisdiction closest to and most engaged with our local communities. The Coalition will do this by enhancing the Commonwealth’s direct financial relationships with local government [local bridge program and review of FAGs], ensuring that the states abide by their promise to avoid cost-shifting, encouraging improved professionalism in local government, supporting the role of local government in the Council of Australian Governments and supporting efforts by local government to secure constitutional recognition and provide certainty regarding the powers of the Commonwealth to enter into direct financial relationships with local governments.
Financing for local government has been and will remain the principal challenge. If you do not have the resources, you will not be able to fix the transport, infrastructure and housing
issues. It is always local government that can find you the cheapest way to do it, because of their knowledge on the ground of what their people want, how to deliver it and how to get a good price for it.
There are many local governments who would have been far better equipped to deliver school infrastructure delivered by the so called Building the Education Revolution and avoided the consequent massive cost blowouts.
A major challenge for local government is that the costs of maintaining what they are responsible for are increasing exponentially. For example, road and bridge construction costs have been increasing at 5 per cent per year over the past decade, higher than the rate of inflation. The rateable base for local government has not been matching this pace, particularly when some states cap the ability of local government to raise rates. We need to make sure that we find alternative ways of maintaining the resources of local government.
I probably do not need to remind this audience that before the last Coalition government introduced the
Roads to Recovery is a classic example of how direct funding to local government can deliver a very substantial and vastly more cost-efficient outcome than a higher level of government.
There is another lesson from the roads to recovery experience. That money was made available for local roads because there was money available. The prudent financial
Roads to Recovery program Federal grants to local government as a percentage of GDP were falling. While that program arrested the decline, the fact remains that while the majority of local government payments from the Federal government are indexed to CPI or less, payments as a proportion of GDP will fall in the future.
management of the previous government left money in the Commonwealth Government's bank account for this type of expenditure which was just as important as it was needed.
The program has now become an enduring feature of Federal government payments to local government, and one that the Coalition wholeheartedly supports and wants to build on.
That is why we announced the Bridges Renewal program (otherwise known as Bridges to Recovery) at last year's National General Assembly to help repair and upgrade the 30,000 small bridges around the country. These bridges are key economic assets in connecting local communities to the broader road network and getting people to work and school.
In contrast, both the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure program and the Regional Development Australia Fund are time-limited programs which provide local government with less enduring financial security. Indeed, the RDA fund is over $100 million less on an annual basis than the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure program that it replaced.
In summary, the actual funding in the forward estimates for local government is quite deceptive. After the election the government initially promised the independents $1.4 billion in funding for local community infrastructure. Of that $350 million has been allocated to the disaster of the floods and cyclone Yasi, $50 million was sent to pork barrel the seat of Lyne and $573 million is actually contingent on a mining tax that even if it passes state governments could neuter by just raising their own royalties. In fact, if you look in the budget papers to see what will be delivered before the next election it only amounts to $150 million.
That is, government has guaranteed to deliver only just above 10 per cent of their original promise.
There is another difference between these programs and Roads to Recovery. Roads to Recovery provides each local government with a guaranteed share of funds for them to allocate to road improvement projects. While the funds have to be spent in a way consistent with the program, local governments have control over what is funded and when.
However, as a competitive grants program, the RDA Fund requires councils to enter a ‘beauty contest’ and therefore put substantial time into bidding and lobbying for funds. The ultimate decision on a project rests in Canberra not in your local communities.
I genuinely believe that your time would be best spent worrying about the needs of your constituents in your local communities rather than worrying about the needs of bureaucrats in Canberra. Likewise, I believe I am better off worrying about the general resources that I can make available to you rather than which community centre or park deserves Federal government funds.
In this respect, local government is the small business of our Federation. Just like small business, you are close to your customer's needs. You can respond quickly and flexibly to their requirements. Just like at your local butcher, you can just walk in and talk to the person in charge at your local government office.
Just like a local business if you don’t respond to their needs they can quickly get it around town that you are not much of a council and vote you out.
However, just like small business, the effects of red tape and bureaucracy will be more pernicious on local governments than it would be on state or federal governments. Local governments are stretched enough on spending on the things that local communities truly need than to be stretched further by the bureaucratic demands of higher levels of government.
Already I have heard of reports of local governments having to pay more to respond to government probity and application requirements than the funds they are actually applying for. Spending more than $10,000 on a grant application for $10,000 is an unconscionable waste of resources.
I think that the Commonwealth Government needs to find ways to streamline the burdens that it and State Governments impose on local governments. There would appear to be much greater scope to coordinate the different grant programs which Federal and State Governments run. I believe that we can significantly reduce these burdens, freeing up more resources for frontline services rather than form filling.
I think this should be given at least as much priority as the recently announced review into the equity and efficiency of the current funding provided through the Financial Assistance Grants program.
The Coalition supports this review, indeed we announced an intention to conduct such a review before the last election.
It is also why the Coalition supports the constitutional recognition of local government. The recent High Court decision in
Pape v the Commissioner of Taxation 2009 has put the need for constitutional change into sharper focus —and I have to admit that Bryan Pape,
member of my party, the Nationals, certainly made things more difficult with this one. The High Court decision in that case underlined the limitations of and uncertainties about the Commonwealth’s relationship with local government.
The Coalition, however, is certain about the need for the Federal Government to have the ability to provide direct funds to local government.
In the past 30 years we have seen more and more government responsibilities centralised in Canberra. This has been an understandable response to the failures of state governments, but Canberra cannot make all the decisions.
The continuation of this trend will see more and more powers going from the states to Canberra, never to be seen again. We must start working on the diminution of this power and the movement of power back to the people, back to local government. For that to happen, there must be a capacity for a conduit of funds from the federal government to local government.
Many people have accused the Coalition of centralising government while we were in power. But what the Coalition stands for is exactly the opposite. We want to get power away from Canberra not to Canberra.
But the trend has been for more power to come to Canberra. If we don't do something about this then we will end up with one government based in Canberra and under this we will have organisations with no real power or independent revenue source called state governments and under that will be the Australian public disconnected from the public services that matter to their lives.
When I address people about these issues I get a lot of support about the need to have government close to and responsive to the people. But when I then talk in more particulars about local government I get a more sanguine and, from some, an openly hostile response.
If a local government decides to go on a frolic on such things as foreign policy, just picking a random example, say, a full frontal diplomatic slanging match with the State of Israel, from say, I don't know, a local government from inner suburban Sydney, then this becomes perfect ammunition for those who don't wish to provide greater powers to local government.
Ultimately, if you can't convince people of the benefits of local councils and the services they deliver, then constitutional recognition won't succeed. You are the frontline advocates of the constitutional recognition of local government. You have to do the heavy lifting on this task. My suggestion to you is keep it simple and in a form that does not directly threaten the relevance of your state political colleagues.
I personally believe that local government should be either a minimum geographic area or a minimum population.
It should be noted that the Brisbane City Council seems to work effectively. It has a greater population than the state of Tasmania, it is almost comparable in size to South Australia. It should be noted that the 380,000 square kilometres of the East Pilbara shire makes it bigger than Tasmania, bigger than Norway and the third largest municipality in the world.
In Australia once an area gets to a comparable size or comparable population it is only right that we attempt to give them some form of comparable representation.
I recognise the efforts that the Australian Local Government Association has made to build support for constitutional recognition. I note that more than 300 councils have passed resolutions in support of local government constitutional recognition.
The Coalition also welcomes the announcement to establish an expert panel on constitutional recognition of local government. I particularly note that the experience and passion for local government that Jane Prentice, former councillor of Brisbane City Council, will bring to this panel as the Coalition's representative.
Jane is just one of the 36 members of the Federal parliament with local government experience, including 20 members from the Coalition.
1 There are plenty of my colleagues who directly know of the pressures that face local government and you should unabashedly enlist them in support of your cause. If I was an uncharitable man I could point out that the 16 Labor members with local government experience gives you probably more numbers in the caucus than Kevin Rudd!2 However, it is only slightly just after 10 o'clock and things at this time of year can move very quickly.
1 Bruce Billson, Russell Broadbent, George Christensen, Mark Coulton, John Forrest, Joanna Gash, Natasha Griggs, Russell Matheson, Jane Prentice, Don Randall, Stuart Robert, Alby Schultz, Patrick Secker, Warren Truss, Richard Colbeck, Alan Eggleston, Bill Heffernan, Ian Macdonald, Julian McGauran and Michael Ronaldson.
2 David Bradbury, Sharon Bird, Chris Bowen, Darren Cheeseman, Joel Fitzgibbon, Alan Griffin, Jill Hall, Harry Jenkins, John Murphy, Michelle Rowland, Sid Sidebottom, Kelvin Thomson, Maria Vamvakinou, Tony Zappia, Steve Conroy, Jan McLucas.
I am an optimist about the potential for the campaign to recognise local government to succeed because local governments as a group have shown how essential and important they are in recent times. During the global financial crisis, though I disagreed with much of the need for the stimulus spending, local governments proved to be efficient and timely
managers of the funds allocated to their projects, which is more than can be said for your state government cousins.
The facts are that many government programs could be delivered better if politicians listened more to the local knowledge and expertise that resides in local government.
For us to give those people this liberty and a capacity to express their desires in the form of government closest to them, we have to allow that form of government access to the funds to do it.
For many, local government is the formative deliverer of services, water, roads, parks and gardens, the local library, the collection of garbage. When you watch the television you might be watching Federal parliament but when you walk out the door of your house in the morning you are looking at local government.
Over the past summer, as many areas of Australia have battled floods and fires, local governments have literally been involved in the frontline defending residents' property, providing relief to the dispossessed and assisting in saving people's lives.
In my local area, local government built the levy to keep the water out of a large section of the town. Like a medieval community we were divided between those who lived inside the wall and outside the wall. The churches and schools inside, the bordellos and profane dens of iniquity outside. I must admit that I preferred having a beer with my mates outside the wall!
An especially important outcome from this experience is the direct funding of local governments from the Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements. I recognise the
efforts of the Australian Local Government Association to fight for this outcome and also the work of some of the mayors among you from the affected areas, such as Campbell Newman, Brad Carter, Ray Brown, Peter Taylor and, from my own area, Donna Stewart.
In many areas it would be fair to say that the mayor is better known than the local member. Paul Keating said that if state governments didn't exist we would have to invent them. I feel that it is more the case that if local governments didn't exist, we would have to invent them.
Local government is government closest to the people and, it is widely acknowledged, the closer the government is to the people, the better is the form of government. Our nation in 2011, with 22.5 million people, is a vastly different nation that federated in 1901 with 3.8 million. At Federation the population of Queensland was only 500,000, about half the population of the Brisbane City Council now.
State governments are normally the reflection of a boat landing on a point of the coast in about 1800, followed subsequently by a surveyor who drew an arbitrary line and said this is a colony. Local governments, however, are a more distinct representation of a certain area, a certain interest, a certain demographic. In summary, in many instances, but not every, people have a stronger connection to their local area than their state. Such as the people of Tamworth who would have naturally more affinity with Tamworth than where government is actually run, from Macquarie Street, Sydney. Multiply this by 10 and you are getting close to the views of the people of Cairns in regard to their affinity to the government of George St, Brisbane.