Caution urged on reform

Benjamin Seeder | The Examiner | 21 April 2023

As the government progresses its controversial local government reform, which could see some smaller councils merged with larger ones, several independent Legislative Council members have urged it to consider introducing a ward system that could help merged councils retain their local voices.

Local Government Minister, Nic Street, on Wednesday committed to taking the eventual reform model to the state parliament, following speculation that he would use special powers under the Local Government Act to implement the reforms directly.

Labor’s Local Government spokesman, Pembroke MLC Luke Edmunds, has already said he wouldn’t support any forced council amalgamations.

With the government needing independent support to pass any local government reforms, some independent chamber members on Thursday urged the government to consider wards as a way for merged councils to continue representing their communities.

Ruth Forrest Murchison MLC Ruth Forrest said councils in her electorate were willing to discuss how to make their representation and service delivery more efficient and effective.

She said that if done properly, forced amalgamations might not be necessary.

“If the government does this consultation process well, then the need for forced amalgamations should disappear, because we’ll get to a point of shared agreement about how best to do this,” she said.

“But when you start forcing people to do stuff, that’s when you are going to get problems.”

Rob Valentine Hobart independent MLC Rob Valentine stressed that it was “premature” to discuss how the upper should respond to the reform.

But he said the concern of smaller councils was understandable.

“The concern is that smaller councils and the people in those rural areas, that their voices will be lost. I think there are ways of being able to ensure that their voices aren’t entirely lost,” he said.

Along with several other LegCo members, Mr Valentine said a ward system, where councillors represent geographic areas within the council, would help merged councils continue to represent communities.

“If there were mergers, then through that ward system, there would be representatives elected for each of those current municipal areas which could still maintain representation,” he said.

Nelson independent MLC Meg Webb agreed a ward system should be part of the discussion, but it was not under consideration by the review being carried out by the Local Government Board.

“It doesn’t seem to be part of the proposal, apparently, so I’m not sure why that’s been ruled out.”

Like others, she said it was too early to discuss specifics of the proposal. But she said she was “not a fan” of forced amalgamations.

“That has been problematic when it has been imposed elsewhere, so it does need to be a result of a conversation with the community and that has at least broad agreement in the community.”

“I think it’s going to be a really hard ask to land on something that’s got really thorough agreement across the community, we know this from all previous attempts to have this conversation about local government.”

Rosemary Armitage Launceston MLC Rosemary Armitage said she agreed with the need for reform.

“We’ve got too many councils now, 29 is just not viable when you look at what we’ve got,” she said.

“But you have to make sure, depending on who they are merging with, that the constituents don’t lose out, that the people are looked after,” she said.

“I think we need a ward system, we need some way of making sure, particularly in the more outlying areas, we need to make sure they are not losing services.”

See more of Meg in the media.