BY URGING local councils to be “fit for the future”, Premier Mike Baird is using a deft political touch to deliver a sledgehammer message.
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Like a parent asking a child to set their own punishment, Mr Baird is asking the state’s 152 councils to effectively self-assess their viability.
He has promised no forced amalgamations, a term which induces involuntary spasms in council bureaucrats, and instead “politely requested” councils have a good look at themselves.
But while the government’s Fit for the Future package carries with it a sizeable inducement – about a billion in incentives all up – it also carries with it an implicit threat.
Get your house in order or we might not be as friendly next time around.
That the state’s councils could run leaner and meaner is in little doubt.
Two-thirds of them operated in the red last year and collectively cost the state government about a million bucks a day.
Many fail the government’s Fit for the Future health check: saving money on bureaucracy and administration to free up funds for front-line services and community facilities; contributing to projects and tackling issues that impact on its residents and extend beyond the council boundary; and having credibility and influence across councils, across government, and with industry.
Many of those criteria, especially the last, simply cannot be met by small councils.
In The Leader’s readership area alone, there are 13 councils and over 100 elected representatives.
Those figures indicate this region is grossly over-governed at a time when its citizens need strong representation, not necessarily a glut of representation.
The argument that the best chance of these small councils having their voices heard at state and federal level above the din of more powerful rivals is to band together is a compelling one.
It stands to reason that a single council representing the interests of more than 50,000 people would be far more effective in lobbying even the hardest of hearing politician or bureaucrat than a council of, for example, the size of Walcha Shire.
It’s an inconvenient truth that smaller councils have conveniently ignored for decades.
Soon, they won’t have a choice.
