PROPOSITION TLG/2020: Local Gernment Model in Tasmania Redundant & Failing

If the current Local Govt Act 1993 isn’t broken yet it is however well and truly past its USEbyDATE 

Given current technologies that by now are: 

• Well proven and truly functional;
• Very accessible; and generally 
• Well understood in the wider community. 

They're increasingly ubiquitous and not the property of bureaucracies to fiddle with and 'keep away' from the citizenry. These technologies are in fact exemplary examples of 'democracy' in their in-built ‘democracy’ albeit that they embody a disruptiveness that persistently changes the status quo!

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LOCAL GOVERNANCE TASMANIA 

RETHINKING LOCAL GOVERNANCE IN TASMANIA

When the current legislation for local governance in Tasmania was framed it was 1993, Internet communications was only just at a beginning point. Where we have come to today was absolutely unanticipatable. The 21st Century world is quite a different place yet the legislation essentially remains as if the world hasn’t changed one jot.

To think of the legislation as being redundant and Neanderthal would not be an exaggeration. Moreover, in terms of current understandings it is well past its use-by-date and it fails to deliver in so many ways.

The first problem facing local governance in Tasmania is the wastefulness of having 29 local jurisdictions for a population that hovers around half a million people. 

That is:

•  29 mayors and however many councillors state wide;

•  29 general managers state wide; and

•  Unnecessary and wasteful capital expenditure and infrastructure expenditure state wide.

Even a ‘back of the envelope calculation’ will tell you that is something like two BILLION dollars is being expended without delivering the kinds of fiscal, social and cultural dividends commensurate with that expenditure.

To quote Rosemary Armitage, Independent Legislative Council Member for Launceston and a once Alderperson, she has invoked that famous quote that says "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result". So, there is some residual wisdom out there and given half a chance it can be engaged with.

So, where to from here?

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