By Paul Hemsley City of Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore has moved to reduce the amount of drinking-quality water used by residents and workers in favour of using recycled stormwater for toilets and laundries in the council’s ambitious $8 billion Green Square redevelopment. It is the City of Sydney’s latest dive to create an environmentally […]
24 September, 2013
By Julian Bajkowski and Paul Hemsley Attempts in Western Australia to push through reforms that would allow the government to halve the number of metropolitan councils have come conspicuously unstuck after local government reform proposals triggered a fiery backlash inside Premier Colin Barnetts’ own party room. The WA Premier this week ducked putting the issue […]
20 September, 2013
By Paul Hemsley The New South Wales Department of Premier and Cabinet (DPC) has issued all councils across the state with the set of formalised words that are now required to be used when contracting-in the NSW Electoral Commission (NSWEC) to run their elections, referenda or polls. The circular from the chief executive of the […]
20 September, 2013
By Paul Hemsley Queensland ratepayers who eagerly sent forced council mergers packing by voting for de-amalgamation from neighbouring councils will go to the polls on 9 November to elect their new representatives. The state government’s announcement has confirmed that people living in Noosa, Livingstone, Mareeba and Douglas will get new local leaders from 1 January […]
19 September, 2013
By Paul Hemsley New South Wales Premier Barry O’Farrell has yielded, at least in part, to demands from councils that he keep his key election promise to return planning control to local governments after Minister for Planning Brad Hazzard indicated the Macquarie Street may now compromise over electorally unpopular new planning legislation. The Premier’s concession […]
19 September, 2013
By Julian Bajkowski The federal ministry of Local Government could be the first of many administrative casualties in Canberra after the function conspicuously failed to appear in the publication of Prime Minister elect Tony Abbott’s first Ministry list. In a document that provides a partial window into how the bureaucracy and machinery of government of […]
16 September, 2013
By Paul Hemsley and Julian Bajkowski The New South Wales state government led by Premier Barry O’Farrell has mounted an ambitious push to make councils more “small business friendly” through a new carrot-and-stick regime that will reward achievers with a certificate but also publicly list laggards that the state and shopkeepers believe need to lift […]
13 September, 2013
By Julian Bajkowski and Paul Hemsley New South Wales Premier Barry O’Farrell is facing a fresh revolt in the state’s local government sector over controversial changes to planning powers after the peak group for councils warned it could hit Macquarie Street and big developers where it hurts the most – development approvals. Local Government NSW […]
11 September, 2013
By Julian Bajkowski Councils and local governments across Australia are digging in for a battle to try and keep $150 million of federal infrastructure funding promised under the Regional Development Australia Fund (RDAF) after the Coalition refused to guarantee the money if it wins government. The Australian Local Government Association (ALGA) on Friday upped the […]
6 September, 2013
By Paul Hemsley The New South Wales Department of Premier and Cabinet has warned councils that they must quickly get their act together in reporting complaints made about them by constituents and ratepayers to the state government. This firm reminder has come in the form of a circular from the chief executive of the Division […]
6 September, 2013
By Julian Bajkowski Australia’s official body for dentists has taken a bite out of Australia’s main political parties over what it claims is a “deafening silence” over local governments controversially removing fluoride from town water supplies against the interests of public health. The Australian Dental Association (ADA) is warning that taxpayers and the federally funded […]
5 September, 2013
By Paul Hemsley The City of Melbourne has triumphed over New York and Berlin in worldwide contest for creating sustainability programs after the city’s submission won top honours for efforts in retrofitting older buildings to become much more environmentally friendly. The CBD council was this week awarded the C40 & Siemens City Climate Leadership Awards […]
5 September, 2013
Governments are looking into each other’s backyards for lessons on how to keep community spaces in top shape reports Paul Hemsley. It’s all too easy for ratepayers to forget that councils do much more than more than “rates, roads and rubbish” especially with large tracts of publicly owned land to manage in the form of […]
3 September, 2013
By Julian Bajkowski A misbehaving software system has unexpectedly put the brakes on the launch of Australia’s first National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) by at least a month after the board of the so-called trucky’s watchdog revealed it still needs more time to get its technology together. The NHVR system had been supposed to start […]
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