Anne Stanley (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Indi and I note her concern about the strain on local government but also note it's not limited to rural and regional councils; it includes councils within large cities and councils in my electorate. Before I had the honour of representing the people of Werriwa in this parliament, I served the people of Liverpool as a councillor for almost eight years. During my years as a councillor, one of the major issues my council faced was the demand to deliver more services with an ever-decreasing revenue base. My council was not alone, and in conversations I've had with mayors, councillors and staff of local government recently, I'm assured this has still not changed.

I note that this week Canberra is hosting the Australian Local Government Association's 2018 National General Assembly of Local Government. There is no doubt that local councils have a responsibility to extract every last bit of value from their rates and charges, provide services to their communities and still manage their budgets responsibly. However, sound fiscal management by local government has been put under increasing strain by both state and federal governments through cost shifting, faux reform and a freeze on the indexation of the federal assistance grants. The impact of the indexation freeze in the 2014 budget has meant that local councils have missed out on close to $1 billion in funding. When grant income declines councils have no choice but to fill that revenue gap with either increased rates and charges or a reduction in services, less footpaths, less bus shelters and less time for people to enjoy local pools.

I commend the New South Wales Labor opposition for, earlier this month, committing to a review of the formulas for both the general purpose and local road components of the financial assistance grants. This is long overdue, and examples highlight just what this freeze has done. Dungog, with 602 kilometres of road, received—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 12:56 to 13 : 09

For the 2017-18 financial year, Dungog, with 602 kilometres of road, received only $880,000 worth of funding. If you compare this with the City of Sydney, which has 301 kilometres of road, it received just over $1.25 million. And Liverpool, in my electorate, has in excess of 900 kilometres of road and received $2.1 million. You can see that there are challenges with the way that these things are looked at.

In New South Wales, the local government sector has faced the additional challenge of a state Liberal government who, to put it kindly, have been antagonistic towards local government. This is a state government that has forcefully merged councils against the wishes of their residents, stripped away decision-making powers of councillors and overridden local development controls to let developers run wild under the guise of reform. With the implementation of the state Liberal government's Fit for The Future faux reform program, New South Wales councils are also subject to a series of ratios and measures. These ratios are an attempt to measure a council's ability to generate revenue, provide value for money and adequately maintain infrastructure while adhering to a debt service ratio. Any council that fails to meet these ratios is faced with the threat of dismissal. Despite being democratically elected representatives of their communities, councils can be sacked for not meeting a narrow ideologically driven set of numbers imposed in Macquarie Street.

There is a saying that all politics is local. However, the state and federal liberal governments appear to have taken this as a licence to abrogate their responsibility and recklessly cost-shift to local government. The peak body for councils in my state, Local Government NSW, estimates that cost shifting by state and federal governments is costing local councils upwards of $800 million a year. Some of the more egregious examples of cost shifting include shortfalls in cost recovery on regulation undertaken by councils on behalf of state government and various emergency services levies, and the list just goes on and on. What we have here is a perfect storm—an increased expenditure burden through cost shifting, a reduced revenue base through freezing grants plus the additional burden of Fit for the Future ratios. Local governments all over Australia now face a lose-lose situation where costs are shifted onto them by other levels of government, meaning their residents are completely left in the cold.

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