Local government Archive

Queensland councils set to de-amalgamate

By
Ben Raue
 – March 13, 2013

On Saturday, while most attention was focused on Western Australia, voters in four regional Queensland areas voted to overturn controversial council amalgamations forced through by the Beattie Labor government in 2007.

The amalgamations caused an uproar in large parts of regional Queensland, and the Liberal National Party promised to move towards reversing some of the amalgamations.

The City of Brisbane covers most of the Brisbane urban area, and has done so since the 1930s. Because of this previous merger, the amalgamations focused on regional areas.

The former local government areas of Mareeba, Livingstone, Douglas and Noosa were merged respectively into the super-councils of Tablelands, Rockhampton, Cairns and Sunshine Coast.

All four votes passed. In three of the areas, the plebiscite passed with 56-58% voting ‘yes’. The vote in Noosa was overwhelming, with over 81% voting ‘yes’.

The restored councils will be required to pay for the estimated cost of restoring an extra local council – with the cost estimated by the Queensland Treasury Corporation to be as high as $13.65 million in the case of Noosa.

The state government refused a request from the former Isis Shire Council to break away from Bundaberg Regional Council on the grounds that the restored council would not be able to bear the costs of separation.

It’s unclear how long it will be before new councils are elected in the de-amalgamated areas, and whether the remainder of the super-councils which will be broken up will also have to face new elections. It’s also unclear if any more former councils will be offered the opportunity to de-amalgamate.

These decisions buck what has been an inexorable trend for the last eighty years. Most local councils were created across Australia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and by the 1930s and 1940s, efforts began to be made to reduce the number of councils.

In that time, councils have been amalgamated all over Australia, with very few examples of councils being broken up into smaller units.

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Exploring the history of local government

By
Ben Raue
 – October 26, 2012

Last weekend I was at the Marrickville Festival and ended up chatting with one of the members of the local heritage society. For a while I’ve been fascinated by all of the old local councils that used to exist in Sydney prior to the Labor government’s massive round of amalgamations in 1948/9.

The Marrickville council area used to be covered by Marrickville, St Peters and Petersham councils, and part of the modern LGA was also covered by Newtown municipality.

Similar stories have taken place in other areas. The City of Sydney absorbed at least eight other local councils in 1948/9, in addition to Camperdown municipality forty years earlier.

The local heritage society gave me a name for an old company of mapmakers who made maps of local government boundaries (including ward boundaries) in the 1880s.

The City of Sydney archives has a copy of most of the Higinbotham and Robinson maps available online.

They are quite fascinating for anyone interested in local government and the political and demographic evolution of Sydney over the last 150 years.

Some of these councils largely reflect modern boundaries – Kogarah, Waverley and Randwick appear to have not changed at all, and North Sydney and Mosman were created in their modern form around 1890 out of the former St Leonards council.

At some point in the future I am interested in making maps of Sydney showing the evolution of Sydney’s local government boundaries over the past 120 years. I wouldn’t try and do this for all of NSW, but it is probably achievable to do this for the Sydney area.

In the meantime, go and have a look at these maps – they are fascinating for anyone interested in the history of Sydney or political geography more generally.

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Wrapping up the NSW council elections

By
Ben Raue
 – October 23, 2012

NSW voters elected their local councillors six weeks ago, on September 8. At the time I was working on the election campaign and thus didn’t have the time to give the proper treatment to the election on this blog. Now that the Tally Room is coming out of hibernation, I wanted to sum up what happened at the election.

Most councils in NSW are still dominated by candidates running without endorsement by political parties. However the role of political parties are growing, particularly in urban councils in Sydney, the Hunter and the Illawarra. About half of the councils in NSW didn’t have any political party run for the election in 2012, but only two of those councils are in Sydney.

Because of this, it is more useful to zoom in on the Sydney region when you are trying to get an overall picture of how parties perform. Most of the voters live in a small number of councils along the coast, in Sydney and in the regions. This means there are hundreds of councillors elected in Western NSW with a tiny number of votes.

Overall, this election was a good one for the Liberals and a bad one for Labor and the Greens. The Liberal vote has been bolstered by a decision to run for the councils of Camden, Hornsby and Sutherland. These councils are in very conservative areas and solidly vote Liberal in parliamentary elections, but until 2012 had never had official Liberal candidates stand. In all three cases the Liberal Party polled well over 40% of the primary vote and won a majority on the council.

The Liberals, however, also decided to not run officially in Penrith and Fairfield, where liberal independents stood instead. In Penrith the Liberal-aligned independents effectively won control of the council off the ALP.

Result of NSW Local Government Elections 2012 in Greater Sydney region

Party Seats +/- Votes % Swing
Liberal 151 +34 675,963 30.35 +7.19
Labor 122 -1 534,733 24.01 -4.51
The Greens 22 -26 159,707 7.17 -1.50
Unity 2 -3 15,088 0.68 -0.56
CDP 0 0 14,787 0.66 +0.47
Liberal Democrats 2 +2 11,962 0.54 +0.54
Australia First 1 +1 6,455 0.29 +0.17
Independents/Others 172 -3 808,824 36.31 -1.80

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London voting

By
Ben Raue
 – May 3, 2012

Voters across the United Kingdom will be voting today in local elections, for local councillors and Mayors.

The system varies wildly – with some areas not voting, and with many parts of England covered by two different levels of local government. Scottish voters will be voting using the proportional representation, while English voters will be voting using first past the post. Some councils will be voting for a directly-elected Mayor, while others will be voting on whether their council should directly elect their Mayor in the future.

I’ll be focusing on the biggest of these elections, which is that for Mayor of London and the London Assembly.

The Greater London Authority (GLA) was created by the Blair Government in 2000, covering the entire London metropolitan region, which has a population of over 7.7 million people.

The Greater London region consists of 32 Boroughs, as well as the City of London (counted here as a borough). Each of these boroughs have their own elected council underneath the GLA.

Map of the 32 London boroughs and the City of London.

The Greater London region and the boroughs were created in 1965, and from 1965 to 1986 they were led by the Greater London Council (GLC). The GLC came into conflict with Margaret Thatcher under its leader Ken Livingstone, and in 1986 the GLC was abolished. There was no London-wide level of local government from 1986 to 2000.

The GLA was established as part of the Blair government’s program of devolution, which also saw the creation of the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Legislative Assembly.

The Mayor is elected by a ballot of all voters in the Greater London region, using a modified version of preference voting. Voters can only mark two preferences. After primary votes are counted, all candidates other than the top two are eliminated, and preferences are distributed.

The London Assembly is elected using the Mixed Member Proportional, similar to that used in Scotland, Wales and New Zealand. 14 members are elected to represent single-member districts, using first past the post. A further 11 members are elected on Londonwide lists as a top up. Parties must win 5% of the vote to qualify for seats.

London Assembly constituencies, showing election result from 2000 and 2008 elections.

The first Mayoral election in 2000 was won by Ken Livingstone. Livingstone had served as Labour leader of the GLC from 1981 to 1986, but he was blocked from running as the Labour candidate for Mayor by Tony Blair. He won with 57.1% of the two-candidate vote.

The first London Assembly election saw the Conservatives win a majority of districts, winning 8 seats to 6 for the Labour Party. Overall Labour and Conservatives each won 9 seats, the Liberal Democrats won 4 and the Greens won 3.

Livingstone rejoined Labour in early 2004, and was re-elected as Mayor as the Labour candidate, with 55.4% of the two-candidate vote. Labour lost two of their seats on the Assembly, while the Greens lost one, with the Lib Dems gaining one and UKIP gaining two.

Results of the 2004 Mayoral election by borough, Livingstone in red, Norris (Con) in blue.

In 2008, Livingstone was challenged by Conservative MP Boris Johnson. Johnson had a high profile as a celebrity politician, and won 53.2% of the two-candidate vote. The Conservatives increased their seats from 9 to 11, while Labour also gained ground. The two former UKIP members lost their seats, while the BNP won a single seat.

Results of the 2008 Mayoral election by borough, Livingstone in red, Johnson in blue.

After Boris Johnson’s four years as Mayor, Johnson is again facing off against Livingstone. Johnson has led in most polls. In mid-April his lead narrowed down to 51%, but has since grown out to 56%. While it isn’t certain who will win, Livingstone hasn’t run a strong campaign and Johnson has held a lead in all polls.

Another question in the polls will be about the number of seats the Conservatives will win. The Assembly may amend the Mayor’s budget by a two-thirds vote of the council, so the Conservatives need one third of the Assembly (nine seats) to block the other parties from changing the budget set by a Conservative mayor. The Conservatives won nine seats at the first two elections and eleven in 2008. If they were to fall back to eight seats they would be forced to work with other parties in the Assembly to pass their budget. It seems unlikely, but the unpopularity of the Conservatives may see Boris re-elected but see his party lose seats in the Assembly.

You can download Google Earth maps of London boroughs and London Assembly constituencies from the maps page.

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Brisbane City Council 2012

By
Ben Raue
 – May 2, 2012

Brisbane City Council stands out from all other local government in Australia. Unlike all other capital cities, Brisbane is governed by a single local government, one that covers approximately one million people.

Brisbane elections are more like state elections than most local council elections, particularly in other capital cities. Brisbane’s city council  is elected by twenty-six single-member wards. These wards are only slightly smaller than a state electorate. The Council is led by a Lord Mayor who is directly elected.

This stands Brisbane apart from all other councils in Australia. While most other Queensland councils have a similar electoral system, their size doesn’t compare to Brisbane.

In many ways the City of Brisbane resembles a big American or Canadian city in the way that it is governed: large wards elected without proportional representation, a single government with a large budget and mandate, and a directly elected Mayor. Brisbane City elections are also dominated by political parties: in contrast most Australian council elections are dominated by independents, with political parties only dominating some urban councils in Sydney and Melbourne.

The Lord Mayor of Brisbane also has by far the biggest individual mandate for any single-member elected position in Australia. Over 500,000 people voted in the Brisbane mayoral ballot on Saturday. In comparison, approximately 90,000 people vote in each electorate at a federal election. Only Senators representing mainland states have more constituents, and they share those constituents with eleven other Senators.

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Can the City of Sydney survive?

By
Ben Raue
 – March 5, 2012

Last Wednesday, the ALP’s sole City of Sydney councillor, Meredith Burgmann, announced a plan for the party to use an open primary to choose their candidate for Lord Mayor of Sydney.

The following day, the Greens preselected Cr Irene Doutney as the party’s lead candidate and Lord Mayoral candidate for the election, which is due in September.

The ALP and the Greens, along with the Liberal Party, are all placed in opposition to the local juggernaut of Clover Moore and her allies. Moore has served as an independent member of the Legislative Assembly since 1988, and has served as Lord Mayor of Sydney since 2004.

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Seeking information about NSW wards

By
Ben Raue
 – February 4, 2012

I’ve been putting work recently into producing new ward maps for the three east coast states that will have local government elections in 2012.

The electoral commissions in Queensland and Victoria provide an easy-to-follow page on their website with all the information about ward boundaries and what changes have been made.

I’ve now finished the map for Queensland. I’ve also posted the map for Victoria, although it doesn’t include nine councils whose ward boundaries are yet to be determined – these should all be resolved by the middle of April.

However NSW is much harder. I assume most councils won’t make a change to their electoral structure. There is no central source of information on what changes are being made, and short of searching through the entire minutes of every council it is difficult to definitively know what changes are made.

So if you have information about your local council and what wards they will be using in 2012, please let me know.

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More redistribution news

By
Ben Raue
 – September 30, 2011

Following on from my post earlier in the week after I posted new electoral maps for Victoria and South Australia, there was more news yesterday on redistributions.

The final boundaries for next year’s ACT Legislative Assembly election have been announced. The committee reverted to the first draft, which was a minor change bringing Ginninderra and Molonglo into quota. The second draft had proposed radical changes to the boundaries, reducing Molonglo to a 5-member district and making Ginninderra a 7-member district, but these were rejected after vocal opposition. I have now posted the final version on the maps page.

In other news, the latest report from the Australian Bureau of Statistics on population for each state and territory makes it clear that there will be no changes in the number of seats for each state and territory at the next federal election. In the next month the AEC will make a determination about seat numbers, and this data makes it clear they will remain the same. This will mean that no more federal redistributions will be held in time for the next federal election once the current South Australian redistribution is completed.

An ACT redistribution is due in 2013, but won’t be finished before the election. Antony Green has also blogged about the new update.

So with the NT and ACT territorial boundaries now completed, the only redistribution map I need to work on now is the draft boundaries for next year’s WA state election. Later this year we will be getting final boundaries for the WA state election and for SA federal boundaries. I’ll keep you posted.

Apart from those, I am also looking to update my ward maps for New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland, as all three big states have council elections next year. Sorry Western Australia and South Australia, I just haven’t had time to cover those states.

Anyway, Victoria and Queensland’s state electoral commissions are doing a good job of covering the redistributions being held for council wards on their websites, but not in New South Wales, where it seems to be a job for the individual council.

So I’m calling on my readers to help me out by posting here any news about New South Wales council ward boundaries:

  • A decision by a council to get rid of or implement ward boundaries.
  • A clear decision to redistribute the boundaries, preferably with a link to the maps
  • A clear indication that ward boundaries are not changing.

This will make it a lot easier to produce a state ward map well before the September council elections.

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Wollongong Council restored to elections

By
Ben Raue
 – August 30, 2011

Voters are going to the polls in the two NSW cities of Wollongong and Shellharbour to elect their local councils for the first time in over seven years.

Wollongong and Shellharbour city councils were sacked in mid 2008, shortly before the scheduled elections in September 2008. Both councils had suffered from corruption scandals which engulfed Labor councillors.

Prior to the sacking, both councils consisted of a directly-elected Mayor or Lord Mayor, and twelve councillors elected from six wards, using the block voting system which results in the same group winning both seats in each ward.

The Labor government had plans to wait until the scheduled council elections in September 2012 before restoring elected councils to the two council areas to the south of Sydney. The Coalition government quickly announced plans for elections in September 2011, and these elections will take place next weekend.

Wollongong is one of the largest councils in New South Wales, and is the focus of a substantial campaign, and I thought I would focus on the campaign in that area.

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Alice Springs Council: bad electoral systems at work

By
Ben Raue
 – July 4, 2011

A friend recently referred me to an academic paper (PDF) produced by Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research at the Australian National University. The paper discusses the electoral system used by the Alice Springs Town Council (and all local government in the Northern Territory) to elect council members.

Alice Springs has an elected mayor and a further eight aldermen elected to represent the entire council area. Darwin elects twelve aldermen through four three-member wards, as well as an elected mayor.

Rather than using a system of proportional representation, NT councils use a system of exhaustive preferential voting to fill seats in multi-member districts. This page shows the counting process and results of the 2008 council election.

Under this system, the first seat is filled using a regular preferential ballot (like how a House of Representatives seat, or a mayoral race, is decided). The second seat is decided by a similar preferential ballot after excluding the candidate who has already been elected. This process continues until all seats are filled.

This tends to result in lopsided results, with a majority voting block winning most of the seats up for election. While you would win one of eight seats with a vote of 11% under a proportional system, most or all seats would go to the majority under the exhaustive preferential system.

A similar system was used to elect Senators from 1919 to 1946. Almost all elections produced a result where all three of a state’s Senators up for election were from the same party. The United Australia Party and the Country Party collectively held 33 of 36 seats following the 1935 election, and the ALP commanded a similar lopsided majority following the 1946 election.

It is also used to elect two-member wards in New South Wales. It was used to elect Wollongong and Shellharbour councils prior to their sacking in 2004, and is used for the City of Botany Bay. Botany Council consists entirely of Labor members, who were all elected unopposed in 2008.

Alice Springs is a controversial council, with a recent history of targeting the homeless and conflict between the council and communities on the fringe of the town. The area has been the centre of conflict over the federal government’s intervention on indigenous issues. In 2009, the council decided to begin fining beggars and remove blankets from local homeless people.

The paper focuses on the indigenous population who live in town camps on the outskirts of Alice Springs. They make up approximately 10% of the population of the town of Alice Springs but are socially distinct from the urban Alice population.

While this population could consistently elect a single alderman to the Town Council under proportional representation, they have been locked out of the council under the current system.

With Alice Springs Council regularly taking a hostile attitude to local homeless people and the indigenous population, it is interesting to consider the way that the majoritarian electoral system encourages neglect of minorities and locks them out of representation.

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