At our December Meeting, the LG Pro Board met with the Local Government Minister, Nic Street. The conversation was wide ranging and in addition to the Future of Local Government Review work, covered other legislative areas of focus.
Reassuringly the Minister stated that when it comes to implementing reform, the Government is committed to ensuring officers are engaged throughout the process and in that there are no surprises (you won’t read about decisions in the newspapers first). The options paper is not intended to be definitive but to try and generate more discussion about the current context and future options for Local Government. The Minister indicated a willingness to broadly examine how councils’ regulatory role can be improved, from building capacity in Local Government to examining the potential to reduce red tape and providing better co-regulatory support from the State Government. He noted that while amalgamations have of course come up during consultation thus far, the Government wants to avoid a superficial approach and clearly be able to articulate benefits or risks of structural changes. The role of Council as a Planning Authority has generated a lot of interest during consultation to date and the options paper will explore some of the suggestions that have come forward.
Outside the Future of Local Government Review the Minister advised that a review of compulsory voting processes will be rolled out shortly, while the experience is fresh in everyone’s mind. There will also be a strong focus on promoting councillor learning and development by the Office of Local Government (OLG) following elections. The Code of Conduct Bill has been tabled in Parliament, to be debated when Parliament resumes in March 2023 and the OLG will be doing some further work to look at how to lift the standard of candidate behaviour during elections.
Subsequent to meeting with Minister Street, I received a briefing from the Local Government Board on the options paper that has just been released. During that meeting I emphasised the importance of accessibility to consultation sessions for Council officers.
There are 33 options presented in the paper (see https://hdp-au-prod-app-tas-yourvoice-files.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/6916/7088/4595/FoLGR_-_Stage_2_Options_Paper_Appendix.pdf) ranging from those considered long overdue and non-controversial to more significant structural changes. Many of them need significantly more work to understand the detail. In February the Board will be running sessions in several regional locations with opportunities for officers, elected members and the community to have input into what is being suggested. I hope that Members of LG Professionals Tas will take part and ensure their experience and understanding of the sector and possible risks and benefits of options are captured through the process. You can register for sessions here: https://www.futurelocal.tas.gov.au/your-voice/
Finally, I wanted to let you know that during December we held interviews for our Executive Officer, to permanently fill the gaps lefts by Mary Frost’s retirement and which Katrena Stephenson has been filling on a temporary basis. I am confident that I will be in a position to announce the results of that process in our January newsletter if not before. Watch this space.
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