Council amalgamations - good or bad?

[journeyman Mick]

It seems the Queensland government will be amalgamating a lot of local councils. Now while I think we've got far too much government I'm not convinced that amalgamating councils is a good idea. In this region the various councils have very different industries and natural environments. Currently a lot of people in my town (myself included) believe that because we no longer have division councillors and our industry base and environment is very different to the rest of this shire that we don't get appropriate representation or decisions. I'm also not real happy about the lack of public input. Yes they asked for submissions, but we were given very little time to prepare them and given how soon afterwards the decisions were made I doubt that most of them were even read.

What do you reckon? Some may think that it's the state government doing as it should and making decisions for the future, and perhaps they are, I may change my mind after a persuasively put arguement.

So will we be better off because of economies of scale or will we be worse off because we'll be swallowed up in an ubercouncil?

Views please.

Mick

[ozwinner]

Mick, the same thing happened down here some years ago and I cant say it made a lot of difference.

The council still do things the rate payers dont want then to do, they still spend money on all the wrong things, the rates are still too high for just getting the bin emptied, etc. etc.

So in the long run nothing will change.

Al

[echnidna]

Its probably the way to deal with basket case councils, amalgamate them with more affluent ones.

[ozwinner]

amalgamate them with more affluent ones.

Bob, I think you miss spelleded it, it should start with an E.

Al

[Barry_White]

Mick

This happened in NSW about 21/2 years ago. I was in a donut council that had $9 million in surplas and had the lowest rates in the New England Northwest.

We were taken over by the Tamworth City council which took up four other smaller councils and ended up in debt. Rates went up, garbage fees went up and don't have any benefits whatsoever out of the amalgamation.

I suppose the only benefit was we got rid of about 12 councilers.

[markharrison]

I can talk about an opposite experience. Many moons ago, there used to be two shires on the Northern Beaches. Manly and Warringah. Then there was a referendum to split the Pittwater area away from Warringah. I don't know what drove this as I wasn't living there at the time though I was living in Sydney and I was vaguely aware of it happening.

Then I moved to Pittwater Shire. Bilgola actually, and it is a really nice place. Now the council is run by lunatic greenies and various other nut jobs. Collectively known as "The Fairies at the Bottom of the Garden Inc".

My modest renovation (two windows and a front door) took up around $5000 in fees (surveyors!, engineers, architects, Council and God alone knows what else) and the paper work is over seven inches high. No, I'm not exaggerating. I left it for the new owners of the house (millstone?) just before I left.They were gob smacked.

Remember, the whole project was two windows and a door and there were no privacy issues involved with neighbours either.

Well, I know Warringah has been sacked (twice?) and is currently in administration but there is no way they could have done as bad a job as Pittwater. I know many builders and architects (now) who would never touch a job in Pittwater. I don't blame them. How's this for an example:

I decided that I might as well get the driveway relaid as well. Council informs me that even though there is an existing driveway I still have to go to council with a DA. So I vary my existing DA (usual palava) but this isn't holding me up so I sit on it. So I said okay, I would like to straighten up my driveway as it crosses the boundary if I have to go through this. Nup. Refused. Fine, I will live with it as it is.

The day before the driveway is about to be poured (boxing and reinforcing is laid already) the bloody inspector comes along and has a fit. Now he wants me to straighten the driveway up. As you can imagine, I am purple with rage. Showed him the paperwork and he is still digging in his heels. So it costs me another $1500 to have the driveway I wanted in the first place because of the rework.

Don't start me on the flippin' possum nesting boxes! No, you don't want me to, honest.

[bitingmidge]

In a rare moment of disagreement with Mick:

Local authorities should be completely eliminated. Not abolished, eliminated.

There's absolutely no justification for the money-wasting uneducated grubs that are councillors! There, I've said it!!

As for all these cutesy locale's that think they are special, how do they think opposite sides of a city exist? In Brisso for example, how does one manage the coal terminal and the Southbank parklands in one go?? Hmmmm??

Of course, the underlying reason for all this is so that all local planners would somehow be killed in the rush of the councillors to get to the next trough!

It never ceases to amaze me that people without any form of education or business expertise and who don't know how to take expert advice, end up running their communities, and we all wonder why things aren't planned properly or why projects run over budget!

Kill the states next!

P

[ozwinner]

I cant for the life of me see why there are 3 tiers of government for such a small population base.
Maybe it was fine before electronic communications got to the stage that they are at now and the communities were so distant from each other, but now Im sure it could all be controlled from a central office by a spotty 14 year kid with a joy stick.

Al

[outback]

We went through the amalgamation thing about the same time as Barry. Up until about five years ago we were a small but well off shire council.

We then elected a couple of lunatics who apponted a completey insane GM and we went broke, big time. SO we had a malgamation forced upon us.

The caretaker GM appointed by a beaurocrat, answerable to the minister achieved more in the 12 months he was here than any council had for years.

We are now back to an elected council, and as Al said, nothing has changed from our small council of yesteryear.

[Gingermick]

Kill the states next!

I think we should kill the states first. That is where the obscene waste of public funds is and where we have this duplication of responsibility and effort. I think we should be strengthening the local councils. Give em new responsibilities at the time of the next council elections. We have a local businessman who wants to be a Councilor. He has run a successful business and should be good, but there are some entrenched deekwads on Council that will need to go before it can be run like a business.

[echnidna]

In a rare moment of disagreement with Mick:

Local authorities should be completely eliminated. Not abolished, eliminated.

There's absolutely no justification for the money-wasting uneducated grubs that are councillors! There, I've said it!!

As for all these cutesy locale's that think they are special, how do they think opposite sides of a city exist? In Brisso for example, how does one manage the coal terminal and the Southbank parklands in one go?? Hmmmm??

Of course, the underlying reason for all this is so that all local planners would somehow be killed in the rush of the councillors to get to the next trough!

It never ceases to amaze me that people without any form of education or business expertise and who don't know how to take expert advice, end up running their communities, and we all wonder why things aren't planned properly or why projects run over budget!

Kill the states next!

P

and while we're at it , line up all committtess against a wall.

really dunno about eliminating the states.
prefer to eliminate the feds instead and have a state triumveret.

[Daddles]

Amalgamating like council areas works.

Amalgamating unlike counil areas has been an unmitigated disaster here in Adelaide.

I currently live in a humungous council area that was formed out of a lot of relatively new and similar areas and it seems to work reasonably well, if a bit ponderous.

I used to live in the best run council area in Adelaide. Old residential. Efficient. Reasonable rates. Very few dramas. Effective budget. It was amalgamated with two councils next to it. One of these was your chronic basket case full of bickering and self interest groups, always poverty stricken and the epitome of bad service. The other was a smallish, reasonably run council but the area had a lot industrial land and a rather different style of residential area. The amalgamated council, almost since inception, has been forced to shove rates right up, has found itself in the news for lousy service, seems to run a constant agenda of controversy and damned loony programs.

If you've got any concerns about the amalgamation in your area, vote against it.

As for reducing the tiers of govt, if everyone lived in Sydney and Melbourne, that'd be fine, but we don't. We're in a large and varied country and the issues in one area are wildly different to issues in another. Would you be happy to have Australia run from a government in Washington? Reckon that Washington based government would understand the rather different society we have here? Reckon that Washington government would listen to the few representatives from here when there are far more representatives from there?

Richard

[journeyman Mick]

..........If you've got any concerns about the amalgamation in your area, vote against it.......

We don't get a say.

Mick

[journeyman Mick]

Like I said, I'm not really convinced one way or the other, but my unease with amalgamations is because I figure that the larger the council becomes the less input or leverage we'll have over the councillors.


Quote:
Originally Posted by bitingmidge
It never ceases to amaze me that people without any form of education or business expertise and who don't know how to take expert advice, end up running their communities, and we all wonder why things aren't planned properly or why projects run over budget!

Of course, the same could be said of state or federal pollies.

So what's the answer? Just let the bureacrats run it all? I don't think so . I agree, we've got way too much government, but what to get rid of? A mate of mine reckons we should just cut the top of Qld off, somewhere above Townsville and become a seperate country, leaving the rest of you mob to sort yourselves out. Of course, he's joking. I think I'd be happier with state governments being abolished and more responsibilties to councils. That's more responsibility, not neccesarily more powers.

As far as "cutesy locales" go, yeah it's a problem when you get a vocal minority dictating to the rest of the community, just like it's a problem when you have councillors from one large town spending most of the budget in their town and neglecting the rest of the far flung towns. This will only get worse if shires get larger, I'm sure.

SO let's say we only have one level of government (less snouts at the trough ) how do we ensure that money is spent equitably? And should it even be spent equitably? Dunno, all too hard for me. They reckon that a benign dictatorship is the form of government which gets the most done.

Vote 1 Mick, for dictator of Oz.

Mick

[Gingermick]

how do we ensure that money is spent equitably? And should it even be spent equitably?

Cant be spent equitably, needs to be weighted against the locales wealth generation.