Anne Moran: Local Government Association either needs to step up or step aside

THE Local Government needs to start looking after its core membership — councils, councillors and ratepayers, writes Anne Moran.

The Adelaide City Council had many of its powers taken away by the Government some years ago and now all councils are losing them, writes Anne Moran.

IS the Local Government Association worth the membership fee any more, that is the question.

In my early days on Adelaide City Council, some 20 years ago, the answer to that question would have been a resounding “yes”.

The then LGA chief, Wendy Campagna, stood “shoulder to shoulder” with the Adelaide City Council and fought off an unfair attack by the government to sack the Council and to appoint an adminstrator.

Then the LGA was a great, effective and respected ally.

Fast forward to now, and my answer would not be so clear. It seems that the LGA is now caught up in matters very divorced from the everyday problems and struggles of the ratepayer and of little help or support to the average council or councillor.

Two of the biggest challenges our ratepayers face now are the blowing out of their rates and the massive planning changes that threaten the very fabric of our city and suburbs.

So what is the Local Government Association doing?

They are attacking the Liberals for promising to bring in a council “rate cap” if they win the next election rather than exploring ways to help councils reduce their rates, something the ratepayers desperately need.

The Adelaide City Council, I should add, has kept its rate in the dollar frozen for the last three budgets, and intends to keep it that way.

The public perception of the LGA, which reflects on all councils, is that of a group caught up in a tangle of expensive golf club memberships and other elitist activities.

This, of course, may not reflect the hard work going on within the LGA but that is what the public see. Planning reform is the other big challenge local government is facing and has been facing for a while.

The Adelaide City Council had many of its powers taken away by the Government some years ago and now all councils are losing them.

If the LGA has been — or is jumping up and down — I for one haven’t heard them and now it is too late.

An “independent” commission appointed by the State Government will now decide most planning issues.

The community and their advocates (local councillors) have been thrown out of the process.

Whenever councillors are under attack the LGA seems to be nowhere to be seen.

Local government is, in my opinion, the very coal face, the grassroots of politics, but councils are at an all time low in the public’s perception.

At a time when local government is being eaten alive by the State Government we need the Local Government Association to step up or step aside.

ANNE MORAN IS A LONG-TERM ADELAIDE CITY COUNCILLOR