LGANT ‘no’ to smaller regional councils change
Local government’s peak Northern Territory body has rejected calls for a return to smaller community councils. Read why they’re against the idea.
Northern Territory
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Local Government Association NT president and Darwin’s Lord Mayor Kon Vatskalis says a return to a community council-style regional shire model would make existing problems in remote Northern Territory worse.
He said the proposal put by the Country Liberal Party as an alternative to a constitutional Voice to Parliament would bring back concerning conditions across the Territory.
The CLP is consulting in communities about changing the July 2008 local government reforms which saw about 60 community councils shrunk into eight regional shires.
But Mr Vatskalis said a return to pre-2008 would entrench old problems back into the system.
“The amalgamations occurred due to the insolvency of the majority of the community government councils and punctuated by nepotism and governance issues,” he said.
“Simply, 61 councils over 17 per cent of the nation, with only 200,000 people was not a sustainable model.”
Mr Vatskalis rejected that having more councils would create more jobs in remote communities.
He said during the days of community councils, much of the work generated at local government level was funded by the commonwealth through the Community Development Employment Program.
He said employing people under the current eight shire structure is already difficult.
“Right now, the Central Desert Regional Council in Central Australia employs over 200 people but has 76 vacancies,” he said.
“There is no doubt that many still feel a loss of the ability to make local decisions for and with their local communities.
“While the current system is perhaps imperfect, it does provide a mechanism for direct input into local government council decision-making.”
During its one-term tenure from 2012, the CLP introduced community-driven regional authorities within the larger regional shire structure to bring people closer to shires.
Regional authority members aren’t paid.
Barkly Shire mayor Jeff McLaughlin also opposes a return to regional shires.
“This is a facepalm to local government,” he said.
“I believe in local decision-making as much as anybody, but how are they going to pay for it?”
He said regional shires in the Territory already have a tiny rate-base compared to elsewhere nationally and smaller shires would make funding availability worse.
He said while rates make up 12 per cent of Barkly’s approximately $32m budget, meaning it relies on a “drip-feed” of grants, local government areas interstate earn as much as 90 per cent of revenue from rates.
‘Tail wagging the dog’: Former Labor minister backs CLP call for community councils
One of the politicians responsible for replacing the NT’s community councils with regional super shires said the policy did not work.
Former Labor Minister Elliot McAdam, who spectacularly quit Paul Henderson’s Labor government in 2008 on a matter of principle, said on Tuesday he supported a CLP call to reinstate community councils.
Mr McAdam made history in 2008 when he quit the government on a point of principle after it amended a proposed boundary re-draw for Litchfield Shire, but refused to amend proposed boundary changes to remote community councils.
Mr McAdam was furious the government would capitulate to a regional council because it thought it would bring electoral advantage while ignoring pleas from community council leaders for remote boundary changes.
As it was, Labor narrowly won the 2008 election but were thumped at the ballot box in 2012 when remote voters deserted the party for the CLP.
Mr McAdam was responding to a plan announced by the CLP to roll back the eight remote super shires in place of a community council model.
Mr McAdam said in 2008, the NT and commonwealth governments wanted to stop funding the regional council model, but instead gave substantial funding to non-government organisations to support regional councils.
He said the new shire model was never intended to remove services from remote communities into towns.
“The commonwealth and the NT failed to invest in communities at a local level,” Mr McAdam said. “They preferred compliances and to fund the big NGOs in town at the expense of service provision in the bush.”
“The model has been gutted now. In Tennant Creek, for instance, you can’t even register a motor car.”
He called on Local Government minister Chansey Paech to work closely with CLP shadow minister Steve Edgington to develop a better model than the one currently in place, particularly around Central Australia.
“I think it’s incumbent on Paech to work closely with Steve, who’s been living in the bush for 25 years, knows what’s going on aside from politics and is committed to improving services at a community level,” he said.
“It’s almost 50 years (since self government), the outcomes haven’t been there and I think it’s an appropriate time to look at options and the ways and means of how we can improve service delivery in the bush.”
“There’s ways and means to be able to ramp up decision making in the bush including by reconfiguring the service delivery model and the incorporation of appropriate entities and then subsequent operations by management of programs and decision making.
“At the moment you’ve got shire management in the towns — It’s the tail wagging the dog.”
Mr McAdam lives in Tennant Creek and is a member of Barkly Regional Council.
CLP’s council plan spruiked as an alternative to the Voice
The Country Liberal Party will move to change local government boundaries in a radical policy reset the party hopes will improve decision-making for Aboriginal people and benefit Aboriginal communities.
The party last week flagged the return of community councils to the Northern Territory’s local government structure, 15 years after the model was scrapped in favour of a shire council model.
Defending the CLP’s support for the No vote in the Voice to Parliament referendum, Barkly MLA Steve Edgington said the proposed constitutional change would have zero impact at a community level.
“People are telling us that the shire and regional council model hasn’t delivered,” he said.
“It’s taken away decision making at a local community level. People want to be able to make their own decisions in communities.
“People believe they’ll get better outcomes by having a local Voice running their local communities, delivering things like municipal services, housing repairs and maintenance, roads maintenance and general jobs that were previously there before Labor took that away.”
Mr Edgington ended decades of Labor dominance in Barkly at the 2020 election, pipping his opponent Sid Vashist by just five votes after a 15.9 per cent swing away from the government.
Mr Edgington singled out July 1 2008, the date the then Paul Henderson-led government introduced the local government changes that ended community councils, as a dark day for remote residents.
“We’ve seen a loss of jobs, and a loss of commitment by local people,” he said.
“What I’ve been advised by local people is that they want to see a new leadership structure in those communities restored through a community government council model, where the community has their own president, they have their own councillors, they can make decisions around funding, they can make their own decisions around jobs.
“We’ve been out speaking to a number of people in remote areas and what we’re hearing from people is that they want to restore community councils whether that’s based on language groups, people want control of their communities. They want their local leadership structure back.”
Labor’s local government reforms and subsequent restructure saw the amalgamation of nearly 60 Aboriginal community councils to eight shire councils in 2008.
The move was viewed at the time as unfair because boundaries in the major population centres, with the exception of Tennant Creek, were not changed.
The reform led to the resignation of respected Labor MLA Elliott McAdam after the government capitulated and scrapped changes to Litchfield Shire and many believe it ultimately cost the party victory at the 2012 NT election.
Opposition Leader Lia Finocchiaro said consultation with remote residents had showed the importance of governance reforms in the bush.
“The number one issue that Aboriginal people talk to us about, no matter where they live, is that they have been deprived of control of their communities through government’s super shires,” Ms Finocchiaro said.
“We are actively out for consultation right across the Territory talking to Aboriginal people about how we can restructure local government to better deliver for people on the ground.”
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