Notes from the Brisbane Round Table on Place-Based Governance and Local Democracy, 8 February 2018

By Graham Sansom

Introductions

 The Roundtable was chaired by Gary Kellar, CEO of Ipswich City Council and LogoNet’s Queensland convener. Participants included other council CEOs, representatives of major local government organisations, and leading practitioners. They were welcomed by Matt Bradbury, Partner, McCullough Robertson Lawyers, who hosted the meeting.

Graham Sansom (also a LogoNet convener) provided an introduction to LogoNet and the genesis of its national Dialogue on place-based governance and local democracy. He pointed to:

• A sense that local government generally is not fulfilling its leadership potential.
• An opportunity to restore trust in government, starting from the ground up.
• A growing need to deliver services through partnerships with other organisations and the community.

Greg Hoffman, former General Manager-Advocacy for the Local Government Association of Queensland, introduced some other key issues for discussion. These included:

• How do Queensland’s large amalgamated councils use the capacity they achieved whilst also maintaining local engagement and identity?
• Why do surveys reveal such a large gap between the importance people attach to community engagement, including consultation and responsiveness, and the level of satisfaction with councils’ performance in those areas?
• What do councils’ really stand for as local governments? Is there a gulf between what they say and what they do? Do they really understand people’s priorities? Populist rhetoric and promoting ‘quick fixes’ may get people elected, but trust evaporates when promises can’t be delivered.

Discussion

These themes generated robust discussion. Key points were as follows.

• Declining trust in government and the need to strengthen local government’s reputation in the community are fundamental issues that must be addressed. Without community belief and engagement in its work, local government will struggle. Councils must give voice to people who feel strongly about issues.
• Both Redland and Noosa have been seeking to enhance community engagement through panels and citizen juries – but again “you can’t do any of this if you are not trusted… if people don’t trust those doing the engagement they won’t engage…There must be a genuine attempt to engage and not to present preconceived outcomes.”
• Noosa’s experience suggests that local people want to actually decide what will happen to their area, and to secure community confidence councillors must agree to abide by the outcomes of mechanisms such as citizen juries: “whatever you come up with we will implement.”
• Councils need to offer stable local governance to secure community trust. This has been Brisbane City’s big success – a sense of continuity and reliability in the processes of decision-making and implementation. In the case of Brisbane, it could be argued that stability has been achieved through a series of directly-elected, executive Lord Mayors with a mandate to pursue the projects and priorities they took to the election.
• In addition, Brisbane City’s scale and capacity has enabled regular and extensive provision of information to the community on council’s activities, excellent customer service systems, and high quality project-focused community engagement. To date, Brisbane’s “package” appears to have satisfied majority community expectations around participation, democracy and accountability.
• Queensland’s de-amalgamations showed that people are willing to pay for effective local democracy and control. Some communities did not want economic rationalism but rather localism – a voice and identity of their own.
• Fostering or maintaining that sense of local identity is important, regardless of whether the local government area is large or small. LGAs that are large or diverse (in terms of population and/or area) need the capacity to engage with communities in a meaningful way within their local places.
• This again highlights the importance of mayors, councillors and senior managers really understanding and reflecting what communities want: does their behaviour demonstrate understanding and responsiveness, or self-interest and internal divisions?
• Mayors must manage inevitable differences of opinion within the elected council, whilst reaching out to a wide range of stakeholders and championing community priorities. Their success is crucial to local government’s reputation and standing.
• Improving the knowledge and skills of its political leaders thus becomes crucial to local government’s future. Are elected members disposed to a more collaborative mindset? Do they know how to engage with the community and provide leadership in this new era of communication and social media?
• Do perspectives on decision-making and outcomes for local places and communities vary depending on whether councillors are elected at large across the local government area or from individual divisions (wards)?
• Further consideration needs to be given to how these issues play out in different types of local governments – smaller rural councils and Indigenous communities in particular.

There was general agreement that these important issues required an ongoing dialogue and a follow-up meeting.

LogoNet expresses sincere thanks to Matt Bradbury, Troy Webb and Kate Chaundy of McCullough Robertson Lawyers for their generous support.

The full version of these notes can be accessed here.