Big Issues Survey: The Mercury readers vote in favour of council amalgamation

Tasmania has 29 councils, and according to readers of the Mercury, it’s too many. How readers voted in the Mercury’s Big Issues Survey.

View over Hobart towards the Derwent River in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

The majority of Tasmanian Mercury readers are not satisfied with their local councils, with many in favour of amalgamation.

Readers were asked a series of questions as part of The Mercury’s annual Big Issues Survey, including a number of questions about local government.

When asked if they were happy with the performance of their local council, more than half (51.56 per cent) of the 2405 respondents said no.

Readers were asked if there was enough transparency around council decisions, to which 67.07 per cent of respondents said no.

And when asked if they supported council mergers, 75.69 per cent of the 2,369 respondents said they did.

Tasmania has 29 councils, and after a review into the local government sector was undertaken, it was recommended 12 of them merge into five super councils.

The review board said it was a “structurally unsustainable system” to have 29 councils.

But whether councils choose to follow the recommendations and amalgamate is entirely up to them; last year local government minister Nic Street announced there would be no forced mergers.

Local Government Association Tasmania president Mick Tucker said the group had no position on amalgamations.

Mr Tucker said the Future of Local Government (FoLG) review panel undertook its own community survey, to understand what communities wanted.

“The local level engagement found that there were a number local government areas where there was an appetite for voluntary amalgamations, to varying degrees. However, this is only around a third of local government areas,” Mr Tucker said.

Break Of Day Mayor and LGAT president Mick Tucker. Picture By Rob Blakers

He said a phone survey revealed people were satisfied with their councils.

“On ‘providing adequate and quality services and facilities’ people view that their council is doing this well to very well,” he said.

Mr Tucker said the survey asked ‘how well is your council governed, accountable and professional?’

He said the results showed there was the opinion councils were “doing this well”.

“Councils, publish a range of materials minutes from council meetings and publish a range of community, financial, asset management plans and reports,” Mr Tucker said.

“The FoLG review has proposed a council performance dashboard to make it easier to understand how councils are delivering for their communities across key metrics. It will be important that this allows ‘apples with apples’ comparisons.”

The Future of Local Government Review is open for public consultation until February 29.