There was a story yesterday about plans by the NSW government to form a “Greater Sydney Commission”, which would take charge of planning for development across Sydney, and seemingly also have some kind of responsibility for infrastructure and transport.
Apparently the Commission was announced in 2014, although I missed it at the time. It appears to be linked to the government’s ongoing plans for local government reform (which I will cover later this week), with the Commission effectively including both council and state government representatives and would take control of setting housing targets and a variety of other Sydney-wide planning concerns.
The Sun-Herald described the Commission as ‘London-style’, but there’s a critical difference. In London, where there is a city-wide Greater London Authority alongside local borough councils, the Authority is a democratic organisation, run by a directly-elected Mayor and a 25-member Assembly, elected using proportional representation.
Instead, the proposed Commission would appear to have twelve members. The senior public servants covering roads, transport and planning for the NSW government would be represented, alongside three “independent members” (who knows what that means – just NSW government appointments?) as well as six representatives of local councils. It appears that six regional organisation of councils will each have a representative on the Commission.
So this body that would be taking over responsibilities from the democratically-elected state government, and from democratic local governments, would always be at least two steps removed from the will of the voters – voters elect councillors, who elect regional representatives, who elect Commissioners, while state government representatives are public servants appointed by the relevant ministers.
I can see a lot of value in a body that would look at planning issues for the whole of Sydney, in a way that is hard for either the state government or small local governments. But there’s no reason this can’t be democratically run.
There are two places in Australia where a democratically-elected government effectively covers an entire city, but no more – the City of Brisbane, which covers a large part of the Brisbane urban area, and the Australian Capital Territory, in which nearly all of the population lives in Canberra. In both cases we have ‘big city government’ that prioritises the city as a whole, rather than small parts of the city, or a bigger area of which the city is one part.
There’s a tendency amongst those pushing for local government reforms to push for any mechanism which takes the decision a step away from the voters: creating panels of mayors (thus excluding the vast majority of local representatives), or creating apolitical commissions. It’s almost like democracy is a necessary evil, and where possible it should be pushed into the corner.
There are real political issues to be debated across Sydney – which areas should receive the brunt of the new housing needed for current and future population growth, and how much investment should go into public transport or roads. But they should be debated in democratic forums.
I don’t see a good reason why such a body couldn’t be democratically elected. It could be elected at the same time as the next local government elections in September 2016. You could elect it using the same voting system, with a number of large ‘wards’ or electorates covering a number of local government areas.
Sure, such an elected Greater Sydney Assembly would be likely dominated by members of the political parties, but that’s democracy, and such an election would have different dynamics to state and council elections, and would focus attention on the needs of Sydney as a city, in a way that doesn’t happen in NSW state elections.
It appears this Commission will have a lot of power over planning Sydney’s future – and that power should go to a body that represents the people of Sydney. If things work out well, such a body could then go on to take on other responsibilities currently sitting with state or local government.
What this really highlights is the redundancy of the state governments in any rational system of government for Australia. In England there is no layer of government between London and the UK. (In Scotland and Wales there are now three layers of government.) The rational course would be to break Australia up into about 20 regional governments, of which Greater Sydney would obviously be one. As long as NSW and Victoria exist, state governments won’t agree to elected Metro Councils for Sydney and Melbourne, because they would become more important than the state governments. In Brisbane this is not the case because Qld is much more decentralised than NSW or Vic. But of course nothing so rational will ever happen in Australia.
Yep, I agree, but I think there is an opening here in NSW with the appointment of a government body with some serious power with the remit of covering all of Sydney – maybe it can be a gradual process of pushing powers towards it and making it more democratic, until it can surpass state governments.
On the other hand, if it’s a failure it wouldn’t be any harder to abolish it.
From what I have seen of local Government in Australia it is mismanaged. Democracy does not stop land developers et al descending on local government like fly’s to a rotten carcase.
Does it really require democracy to run the sewers. It requires technical expertise administration and management but my inclination is to abolish local government as we know it in Australia and have State Government’s appoint public servants to run Local Government activities. Town Planning would definitely be better without Real Estate interference. By Laws could easily be state wide.
As a minimum standing as a local government candidate should preclude one from owning real property for anything other than their home and business. Once someone has been a local government candidate their Real Estate licence should be cancelled and no further licence issued for life.
LG Officials can not be both the game keeper and the fox as they currently are. They have to be on one side or the other.
Brisbane has the worst system of all with a directly elected Lord Mayor who from viewing past history quickly turns into a megalomaniac once elected. We need leaders who can build coalitions not ones who destroy their own parties.
Both ALP and LNP Lord Mayors have been as bad as each other.
Director General’s generally do not become megalomanias.
If we are to have elected local governments we need councillors who are interested in roads sewers, rats and libraries rather than becoming Premier of the State or turning their city into a 21st century Gomorrah.
Adam is wrong even the worst State Governments are generally better managed and administered than Local Governments.
Imaging how Local Government would look without the equivalent of the Financial Administration and Audit Act.
Andrew Jackson
apjackson@hotkey.net.au
I now recall that Melbourne used to have a body like this, the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works. It was abolished in 1992 as it was felt that it had too much power for an unelected body. It was suggested then that it should be replaced by a Melbourne Metro council, but no state government would agree to that, since Melbourne has 75% of Victoria’s population and it would render the state government redundant.
This body sounds like the perfect opportunity for a Citizens Jury. True democracy, just like the recent city of Melbourne one regarding the 10 year plan. Sensible decision making.
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