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 Telecommunications companies Telstra and Motorola have formally signed off on a $457.3 million contract from the Queensland government to design, build, operate and maintain the state’s Government Wireless Network (GWN) in a 15 year managed services deal. The two companies have been in the running to take on Premier Campbell Newman’s GWN […]
17 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 Julian Bajkowski The Queensland Government has set out its grand vision for recasting how the state’s public sector buys and consumes more than $1.6 billion a year in technology services, software and infrastructure, confirming it will dump confirmed the longstanding build-own-operate model in favour of buying technology as a service. In a set of […]
30 August, 2013
By Julian Bajkowski When it comes to speed limits on Queensland’s roads, it seems just about everyone has an opinion … and almost as many are prepared to tell the state government exactly what they think. That’s the message that the Sunshine State’s Minister for Transport and Main Roads, Scott Emerson, seems to be getting […]
21 August, 2013
By Julian Bajkowski The saying goes that all politics is local and Queensland Minister for Local Government Community Recovery and Resilience, David Crisafulli is clearly a believer. The man put in charge of deconstructing the former Labor government's deeply unpopular policy of welding local governments together has wasted no time in reminding his state’s councils […]
8 August, 2013
By Julian Bajkowski The Queensland government has moved swiftly to punish multinational technology and services vendor IBM over the $1.2 billion software disaster that crippled the state’s health department payroll for months by immediately banning the company from securing any more deals. The move to ban IBM from further public sector work in Queensland represents […]
7 August, 2013
By Julian Bajkowski Councils across Australia will soon be forced to explain to ratepayers how much of their money was spent pushing the ‘Yes’ case for the proposed referendum on financial recognition for local government in the Constitution after the poll officially bit the dust on Sunday. The announcement of a 7th September election date […]
6 August, 2013
By Paul Hemsley Queensland Premier, civil engineer and former Australian Army Major, Campbell Newman, is taking military targeting technology to the state’s vandalised train system in a bid to catch so-called “graffiti grubs” red-handed at the scene of the crime. The state government has revealed it has put in thermal cameras and video analytics systems […]
26 July, 2013
By Paul Hemsley Queensland Premier Campbell Newman has warmly welcomed a funding pledge from federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott worth up to $10 billion to flood-proof the state’s Bruce Highway should the Coalition win government at the next federal election. The flood-prone Bruce Highway is a major artery stretching 1,700km along the Queensland coast from […]
19 July, 2013
By Paul Hemsley They say that necessity is the mother of invention, however Queensland’s Bundaberg Regional Council has gone one step further after the plucky local government salvaged the state’s most prestigious sustainability award for how it teamed-up with industry to remove a soggy mountain of rubbish dumped on it by the devastating floods of […]
2 July, 2013
By Julian Bajkowski Bitter factional infighting has torn apart public Coalition support for a Constitutional change that would guarantee federal funds can flow directly to more than 500 local governments after key hard-right elements publicly railed against the case for a ‘yes’ vote in a torrid Senate debate. After more than a year of publicly […]
19 June, 2013
By Julian Bajkowski Opponents of Constitutional recognition for local government have accused the federal minister leading the multi-party push for a ‘yes’ vote of trying to buy the referendum result by giving $31.6 million to supporters and just $500,000 to opponents of direct funding for councils. Conservative dominated group ‘No Power Grab’ claims that the […]
18 June, 2013
By Paul Hemsley A rise in fatalities and serious injuries for cyclists on Queensland roads has prompted the Campbell Newman government to consider instigating a ‘one-metre rule’ to urgently curb the number of collisions as part of a review of the state’s cycling laws. The change to the road rules would introduce a requirement for […]
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