Australian mayors: what can and should they do?

This paper on the changing role of mayors, and how that role might be strengthened, seeks to fill one of several significant gaps in research and discussion of political governance in Australian local government. It reviews relevant literature and recent developments in Australia, New Zealand and the UK, and concludes that if local government is to perform effectively and meet growing community expectations, the capacity of its political arm needs to be enhanced. In that regard, the office of mayor seems a good place to start. The final section of the paper thus sets out a suggested framework of mayoral functions and associated legislative provisions to support an enhanced role. Recent decades have seen significant developments in the role of mayors across the world. These developments have mirrored the widening international discourse on local governance and civic leadership, and are part of broader changes sweeping through local government. Australian local governments have been subject to wide‐ranging reforms that have addressed structure and efficiency, strategic planning, asset and financial management, community engagement and accountability, and corporate governance. However, little attention has been given to how the intended direction of such reforms interacts with frameworks for political and community governance. This contrasts markedly with the consistent focus on trends in local politics evident in the United States, United Kingdom and Europe. In those countries particular attention has been given to the importance of mayors as civic leaders, and there has been extensive debate about, amongst other things, how the role of mayors should be structured and evolve, as well as the relative merits of different models of governance. Image: Campbell Newman when mayor of Brisbane, David Jackmanson / flick

Editorial - Issue 3

Editorial by Graham Sansom

Editorial

Editorial by Graham Sansom

Editorial

Editorial by Graham Sansom

Editorial

Editorial by Graham Sansom

Challenging times for local government in Labor’s new federation

"Vice-chancellors have a responsibility to get down and say that we're prepared to reform the sector in the following sensible and constructive ways … rather than going back in a traditional way and saying, 'Give us more money and leave us alone'. We will get nothing simply by asking for more money.”The Australian Labor Party went to the 2007 election promising a new era of cooperative federalism that would end the ‘blame game’ between federal and state governments and re-energise reform and productivity agendas. On the evidence of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting on 26 March 2008, these agendas are advancing rapidly. The communiqué foreshadowed a raft of new commonwealth-state agreements, streamlined arrangements for special purpose grants and, perhaps most significantly, performance criteria for payment of at least some of those grants.

Editorial

This second issue for 2010 contains a rich variety of material, reflecting in part a considerable increase in the number of papers submitted to the journal. Processing the large volume of submissions has stretched available editorial resources resulting in both a few weeks delay in publication and deferral of consideration of several papers until next year. We regret those delays.There are five research papers in this issue. Desmond Amosa reflects on the important question of whether non-elected traditional local governance – in this case village governance in Samoa – meets acceptable standards of accountability and transparency normally associated with ‘democratic’ local government. He concludes that Samoa’s village councils, consisting of matai (chiefs) do indeed meet those standards and that any attempt to build the capacity of local government in Samoa should therefore involve embracing and enhancing, rather than supplanting, its long established cultural practices

Recent trends in Australian local government reform

This practice note reviews some of the recurring themes of local government reform in Australia over the past decade. In doing so it updates previous findings of the Australian Centre of Excellence for Local Government (2011) and Gooding (2013). Six themes are explored: structural reform and regional cooperation; principles-based local government acts; roles and responsibilities of elected officials; revenue controls; financial and performance auditing; and integrity and accountability