CONSULTANTS REPORT: Local Govt. Tas

As complex systems and organisational consultants, we'd like to add a little information that may help to resolve the dysfunctions that communities in Tasmania have and are experiencing with their Councils. 

Apart from the specifics of the case (e.g. personalities, local hot issues, power groups etc) there are generic issues created by weaknesses in the Local Government Act (LGA), that play out in Councils because there are too few protections for communities and their members built into the Act (e.g. Glenorchy) - indeed all the protections appear to be for the Councils themselves rather than those paying for them. 

We'll be brief and also make the offer to discuss any of this with you either by email (although that's slow), phone or in-person at a mutually convenient time. 

People have weaknesses and it is incumbent upon governments to try to legislate and regulate in ways that help overcome or avoid those weaknesses (e.g fraud protection, anti-corruption measures). .

We believe that the Tasmanian LGA is vague in its specification of Council's purpose and activities, and thus enables Councils to take on all kinds of activities and do "whatever is convenient" to carry out those activities. That loose definition is not offset by any practical means for community members to get redress or otherwise prevent Councils from acting in ways that damage, alienate or disadvantage the community or its members (e.g. Launceston Council operates businesses like gymnasia that compete directly with its own ratepayers). 

In the current situation then, the Act serves to protect the Council but offers no real redress to the community (discounting the weak 'code of conduct' actions that community members are charged for and that are carried out by the Council's own representative group the LGAT). .

We suggest that unless structural matters such as these are addressed, a counci such as Huon Valley Couuncil runs the real risk of lapsing into more of the same after any period of administration. 

We offer this purely in an attempt to help in case these issues have not yet been raised.

ABA Consulting (Tas)