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The government is not ruling out forced council amalgamations after indicating that the number of councils across the state is "unsustainable". [That has been evident for decades and this realisation is an exemplar of the level of disconnection in regard to governance's purpose and the administration of it in local govt.]
When asked by Labor whether the state government would use this power, Local Government Minister Nic Street failed to deny forced amalgamations.
Mr Street said the local government review was underway, and in the first six months of that review it became clear that "the status quo is unsustainable for a number of councils going forward in this state".[That was know at the outset]
He said a report with recommendations will be released at the end of March, and there will be options for the local government sector to shape what course would be taken moving forward.[The status quo will as likely as not be Councils and their management want given the fiscal rewards at stake]
"I have been absolutely clear the whole way along that I want to be open and transparent about how we go through this process," Mr Street said. [If so that has been poorly presented and marketed]
"The government's role will come when the report is delivered to us ... I am not going to preempt what recommendations might be in that report but I am more than happy to put on the record that we want to be transparent and open about this process. What role parliament has will be a decision that we need to make going forward as well," he said.
"At the councils that I have visited [28 out of 29], I have made it clear that all options are still on the table as far as the state government is concerned because we have not received the second report." [Nonetheless, 'THE PROCESS' is slanted towards the status quo Indirect Representational model with a repair here and there when in a 21st C context CHANGE needs to be a fundamental shift away from it]
Labor local government spokesman Luke Edmunds said the minister was looking to forcibly amalgamate Tasmania's local councils by stealth. [Quite probably and all the while essentially maintaining the status and that too by stealth]
He said Labor did not support forced amalgamations and the loss of jobs and local services across Tasmania. [That need not be so with audacious and fundamental change]
"Minister Street has arrogantly refused to say if he'll take on board the views of councils and their communities and won't rule out using his powers via Section 214 E of the Act to force the issue," Mr Edmunds. [YES that is an ominous and subliminal signal coming from Minister Street]
"If he wants to close down councils and trash local jobs in the process he should commit to bringing his amalgamations agenda before both houses of parliament," he said. [That is true but parliament needs to be deliberating on the model of governance NOT weather or not forced amalgamations should occur]
"The future of local government is worthy of more than a few poorly advertised town hall meetings that excluded every city in Tasmania." [That is so, so true albeit that it is being said rather late in a rather questionable process]
D&M Waste Management started in 2001 as a bulk waste transport business, with current General Manager, Daniel Taylor, taking over in 2012. The business has since evolved to become a leading player in the waste management industry and has more recently made the move into the recycling arena. ..... The company has several contracts with local government authorities throughout Perth and the north-west of Western Australia for bulk verge waste collection including green waste, general waste and recyclables..... Daniel says while the move into plastics recycling was something the company had been considering for a while, it was fast-tracked by the national export ban on waste high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastics in 2021. The ban coincided with the launch of the Federal Government’s Recycling Modernisation Fund, which D&M successfully obtained. This funded a significant part of the Genox recycling plant that the company purchased.....“We were extremely grateful for the financial support we received from the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation, which allowed us to enter the recycling market quicker than we anticipated,” Daniel says. .... The Genox brand has been distributed and supported exclusively by Applied Machinery since its entry into the Australian market. Today more than 300 companies in Australia have Genox equipment installed, making it one of Australia’s leading suppliers of recycling machinery
So it is a year on from Putin's audacious perpetration of an obscenity in the Ukraine that impacts upon the world in ever unfolding ways. This was understood internationally at the time Russia invaded Ukrainian soil and challenged everything that the Ukrainian people hold dear. This diabolical and outrageous war persists despite predictions a year ago that it couldn't.
A cohort of Launceston's ratepayers sought Town Hall's support to fly the Ukraine flag on Town Hall in support of, and in solidarity with, the Ukrainian people and as it turns out Hobart's Council have been doing unrestricted by bureaucratic 'stones in the road'. Yes, Town Hall was lit up in the flag's colours but such tokenism in such times approaches being insulting. Whatever, it diminishes the perpetrators but somehow they just do not get it!
Launceston's 'Town Hall's' resounding NO that was the response from the GM/CEO and Mayor was and is palpable and it goes on and on.
It was pointed out to the good people of Launceston that before any such action could be contemplated the Ukraine's Embassy needed to sanction such an action. This was contested but to no avail. For whatever reason the City of Launceston's management flexed its POWERmussels and deemed that such a thing could not and would not be done – and indeed it has not been done.
It has to be assumed that the majority of elected Councillors willingly complied withe the GM/CEO 'expert advice' – albeit contrary citizen's requests and their expert advice. Every obstacle at the disposal of backroom decision makers has been deployed and the outcome is not on display for all not to see unlike in Hobart where other sensibilities apparently prevail and are on display – much like many Town Halls the world over.
So is this Launcestonian sensibilities on display? OR, is there something else at work here that defies the ordinary that one might reasonably expect to come across in local governance, placemaking and cultural landscaping?
LInk |
The acknowledgment of the sensibilities and sensibilities that shape and make 'places' is unquestionably a fundamental component of effective local governance. Moreover, the management cum administrative mechanisms 'governance' puts in place needs to to be something more than alert to such sensibilities and sensibilities.
It turns out that civic managerial breakdowns and ineptitudes trickle down into, and impacts upon, communities' wellbeing imperatives, It is no-trivial matter and ultimately when the negativity becomes intolerable, communities act sometimes rationally other times less so.
Currently it is a fact of folklore that within a every hierarchy, its member tend to rise to their level of incompetence. Sadly it is a prophecy that is fulfilled all too often. When the hierarchy evolves into a fiefdom any pretence of 'democracy' is hollow, unsustainable and is indeed it is a total fiction.
So, when Launcestonians want to acknowledge the grief, the fears, the decimation, the losses the Ukrainian people faced and are now experiencing daily, they are not only looking far way but also close to home – closer to home than might be comfortable with.
While flying a Ukrainian flag might be 'symbolic' its symbolism is deeply embedded in the realities of a cultural landscaping – here, elsewhere, wherever and it is non-trivial! It not anything that might be or should be the subject of a bureaucratic FOBoff!
It is not drawing too long a bow to call this littleSTORY as an exemplar of a bureaucracy that has become a self-serving fiefdom. Neither is it outrageous to claim that local governance in Launceston is well and truly broken along with indirect representational governance in most places in a 21st C context.
Below there is a compilation of images, images that we are bombarded with, images that witness distress, loss and most of all a class of depravity that is almost beyond belief in the 21st C given 'history'. They strike fear and loathing into people everywhere and if people in Launceston want express their solidarity with the Ukraine people it is not for an unrepresentative bureaucrat to SAY NO!