Bigger not better

A recent advertisement in Sydney papers proclaims “It’s time to get councils working better for local communities”. So says the state government’s Office of Local Government. The ‘a’ word did not appear, but the ad was clearly the start of a softening-up campaign for the Baird government’s local council amalgamation policy, which few citizens seem to want.

No government should use taxpayer money to promote policy proposals through advertising. Every opposition agrees, but only until they get into government. But that’s not the main point of this commentary.

Sometimes governments are justified in pushing a policy hard against public opinion – that’s what leaders do. But just why the Baird government is determined to push hard in this instance is unclear. Why does bigger have to be better? The functions local government performs in Australia don’t require huge scale for effective delivery.

Many small communities welcome the greater accessibility and responsiveness of councils that are close to them, want to keep their own identity, don’t want to be absorbed by a large, impersonal entity, and are willing to pay if having their own local council means overhead costs are a bit higher.

Judging by the advertising, the state government’s case is tendentious. It tells us that New South Wales has “nearly twice as many councils as Victoria or Queensland”, as if this is shocking. But can’t NSW be right and the others wrong?

“The system is not working as well as it should.” What system of government is? Local government has it problems, but why is amalgamation the answer? In some cases it may be, but not as a generalisation.

You know they’re scraping the barrel when they assert the happy outcome will be that councils “can invest in better services and facilities.” Investment always sounds good, but there is no evidence that fewer, bigger councils would ‘invest’ more in the true meaning of that word, or on better things.

Robert Carling is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies