From the President
The 5th anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre was an occasion marked by reflection of the new world we live in - one marked by fear and speculation about the threats now faced by Australia as a partner in the war against terror.
Anyone who travels can not fail to notice the greater security precautions at airports, the longer check-in times and more rigorous screening of baggage. There are more security cameras than ever before in public places and anti-terrorism laws have been strengthened, provoking a public debate about civic rights.
With reports that Australia, and possibly Melbourne, could be a target in the lead-up to an election, local government is an essential part of any national response to any threat to our security.
The Federal Government has committed over $8.3b over 10 years to enhance national security arrangements. These arrangements are largely focused on boosting funding to intelligence organizations and protecting critical infrastructure. Local government has an important role to play in the area of national security and ALGA is involved in discussions on counter-terrorism initiatives at the Council of Australian Government (COAG) meetings.
But national security is more than counter-terrorism initiatives. There are other threats to our security apart from terrorism, and local government is at the forefront of a national approach to combat diseases that pose serious risk to human, animal and plant health.
As part of this holistic approach, COAG has resolved to develop an Australian Management Plan for Pandemic Influenza by the end of this year. The plan will bring together nationally-consistent measures which aim to prevent bird flu coming into Australia. It will also identify a coordinated rapid response in the event of pandemic developing.
ALGA is working closely with the Department of Health and Ageing and state and territory government senior health officials to develop state and territory plans which will provide the framework for local government action. It is also represented on the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry’s National Communication Network.
Biological threats such as foot and mouth disease, weeds and pests, and diseases such as citrus canker threaten our multi-million dollar agriculture and farming industries. Local Government is involved in the AusBiosec committee under the Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council which is developing a national framework and early response strategy. This strategy will involve environmental officers at state local government associations who met in Canberra last week with ALGA officials.
Local government, as the sphere of government that is the most representative of local communities, is well placed to communicate and develop proactive strategies in the area of disaster management. As part of developing a coordinated response we are initially focusing on three main areas: land use planning and risk mitigation, communication networks, and a stock take of local government resources and systems.
Being prepared and having systems in place is vital as local government takes on the important responsibility of working with the other spheres of government to protect and safeguard our communities. ALGA will continue to work towards this primary goal with the cooperation of councils through state associations.
Cr Paul Bell AM
ALGA President
Australian citizenship proposals
Prime Minister John Howard and Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration Andrew Robb will release a discussion paper today aimed at strengthening requirements for Australian citizenship.
Expected measures include migrants waiting at least four years before becoming Australian citizens.
They will also have to pass an English language test to qualify for citizenship.
Prime Minister John Howard said yesterday the English language requirements would feature prominently in the package. "I am keen on everybody learning the English language as soon as possible," Mr Howard said.
It is understood the proposals also include an increase in the waiting period for people to become citizens.
Timber bridges
The Shires Association of NSW today welcomed a commitment by the State Opposition to spend $60 million during a four-year term of government to restore the local roads timber bridge replacement program.
NSW councils have 2,333 timber bridges on their 162,000 kilometres of local roads which would qualify for State Government assistance. The President of the Shires Association of NSW, Cr Col Sullivan OAM, said less than one quarter of regional timber bridges were in good condition.
"The Shires Association, and the Local Government Association, have nominated the timber bridge funding program as one of our top five priority requests to government," he said. "The Labor State Government promised us a $105 million contribution over seven years on a dollar for dollar basis to maintain bridges on regional roads, and reneged on this promise in the 2004 mini-Budget. I welcome the Opposition's pledge to restore a timber bridges program - and especially I want to recognize the efforts of the National Party Leader, Andrew Stoner.
"As he says, timber bridges are a vital part of the country road infrastructure network, and we are pleased to see that the funds under a Coalition Government will be directly given to councils," Cr Sullivan said. Councils with the highest number of timber bridges eligible for funding include Kyogle, Bega Valley, Tenterfield, Narrabri, Hay and Wakool. In the lead up to the next State election in March 2007, Cr Sullivan said the Shires Association would also press the Iemma Government to restore the timber bridge program it had promised in 2003.
Australian transport and the regions
The Australian Government Minister for Transport and Regional Services, Warren Truss, has launched the 2006 editions of About Australia's Regions and Australian Transport Statistics, issued by the Bureau of Transport and Regional Economics (BTRE).
Mr Truss said the BTRE operated within the Department of Transport and Regional Services to provide information and analysis for the Government and the community to improve the understanding of the economic factors influencing the transport sector and regional Australia.
Key information in the August 2006 edition of About Australia's Regions includes:
" Between 2000 and 2005, population growth was highest in inner regional Australia (9.1%), followed by major cities. Remote Australia declined by 3.4% during the same period; and
" Residents in remote (71%) and outer regional (70%) areas reported that they had neighbours who commonly help each other out, a higher rate than major cities (55%).
Copies of both booklets are available in both hard copy and electronic format.
DAF meets in Melbourne
The National Development Assessment Forum (DAF) met in Melbourne recently to progress its ongoing work to encourage best practice in development assessment processes across Australia.
The forum, consisting of participants from all levels of government, industry, and associated professional associations, discussed ways to meet COAG's commitment to streamline development assessment and referral procedures , the ongoing roll out of the electronic development assessment (eDA) through the Australian Government's Regulation Reduction Incentive Fund and the value of participating in the development of a resource document seeking to promote sustainable development practices at the larger subdivision/redevelopment scale.
The forum specifically resolved to proceed with a benchmarking and track-based assessment investigations to clarify what are effective and efficient processes in these areas. It was also agreed that further work is required in developing a governance and operating guide for assessment and decision making processes.
ALGA will be represented at future meetings by Mayor John Rich of South Australia. The next meeting of DAF is scheduled to take place in Canberra on 10 November. The DAF website has recently been updated and interested parties are encouraged to visit the site for further details on the status of current projects undertaken by the Forum.
Tough new water restrictions for Qld
Businesses will be forced to slash water use, backyard swimming pools must be covered and children no longer will be able to fill water toys under tough new water restrictions proposed for south-east Queensland.
The measures, agreed to by the south-east's 12 local councils but subject to a consultation period, will come into effect in mid-October, when average dam levels are forecast to have dropped to 25 per cent.
The south-east's 180,000 swimming pool owners are the main residential targets of the new restrictions, with owners of new and existing pools required to install covers - at an average cost of $500. They would need to introduce water efficiencies into their homes, as well, and topping up pools with town water will be restricted. Brisbane City Council and the state government have offered pool cover rebates of $400.
The region's 50,000 businesses are the chief targets of water restrictions, with those using more than 10 megalitres of water a year required to prepare water efficiency plans and to register them with their local councils by June. Stakeholders have until September 28 to comment on the proposals.
Being prepared for a human influenza
All local government authorities have been sent two copies of the recently released Being prepared for a human influenza pandemic - A Business continuity guide for Australian businesses and one box of A kit for small businesses.
The guide is a comprehensive and practical information and planning tool prepared by the Australian Government to assist businesses (and other organisations) prepare for a possible human influenza pandemic - an outbreak of a new strain of influenza. The kit provides tools and information for use by small businesses.
The kits have been designed for businesses and could be used in a variety of ways, including display in local chambers with other business information, distribution to key local businesses or community organisations or as information and planning tools for meetings about human influenza pandemic or business continuity. The guides are also intended for use by local government.
Both products can be downloaded from the Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources website. You can also find out more about Australia's health response to pandemic influenza.
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Local Road Safety & Traffic Engineering Conference
The two-day Local Road Safety & Traffic Engineering Conference focuses on road safety and traffic engineering for local roads, including pedestrian and cyclist safety. It includes local roads and traffic areas from residential streets to shopping precincts and rural roads.
It will be held at Darling Harbour Sydney between 14-15 November, and is being supported by major road bodies in Australia including Austroads, ARRB Group, the Australian Automobile Association, The National Transport Commission, Monash University Accident Traffic Research Centre, AAPA and the Australian Road Forum.
Conference Convenor, Scott Matthews, CPEng, said that a variety of practical presentations will be made on the conference theme with particular emphasis on what individual councils are achieving with respect to these issues.
Case studies will be a particular feature of the conference with extended discussion periods to enable strong audience participation and interaction. Topics will include: local area traffic management solutions, speed on local streets, parking, traffic management plans, road safety audits, litigation, line-marking, signs, etc.
This conference will be of direct relevance to council engineers and officers, councillors, consultants and contractors within the traffic engineering and road safety areas.
To obtain the conference brochure or to register to attend, visit www.halledit.com.au/conferences/traffic or contact Denise McQueen on 03 8534 5021 or email denise.mcqueen@halledit.com.au
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Scholarships boost local council skills
Skill shortages was facing regional and rural councils in New South Wales are being tackled with a scholarship program announced by the NSW Government.
$27,500 has been provided for 11 scholarships per year in New South Wales. Councils will also be asked to match the government's funding for each scholarship of $2500 with either a cash or in-kind contribution.
The funds from the Department of Planning will be used to provide scholarships with a specific planning focus. Councils will be advised of scholarship program details, including selection criteria.
Cigarette butts main litter culprit
The issue of increasing numbers of cigarette butts and other rubbish littering our roadways, public places, and affecting our environment has become a growing concern for local government. ALGA is working with Commonwealth agencies on anti-smoking strategies to try to combat this problem which is reaching epidemic proportions and has invited Mr Ian Kiernan, founder and Chairman of Clean Up Australia and Clean Up the World will speak at our General Assembly.
Keep Australia Beautiful recorded a third more rubbish nationally in their latest National Litter Index survey. According to the survey the Top Dozen Litter Items are cigarette butts, other paper (including tissues), snack bags and confectionery wrappers, plastic, metal bottle tops and can pull rings, plastic bottle tops, straws, cigarette packets, cups/take away containers, other foil, lollipop sticks, shopper dockets and shopping lists.
Simon Chapman, Professor of Public Health at the University of Sydney and ASH Australia board member, says that tobacco companies should have no role in anti-litter campaigns. He says there are around 2.9 million smokers in Australia today, who on average smoke about 17 cigarettes a day. Together they generate over 18 billion non-biodegradable butts a year, of which an estimated 7 billion are thrown onto the ground as litter. Those that are still alight are responsible for an estimated 4600 fires a year, occasioning 14 deaths and a minimum of $80 million in damage. Butts are easily the single most common form of litter, although by weight they constitute less than 1% of litter from all sources.
Chapman says the Butt Littering Trust is wholly supported by British American Tobacco, who sit on its board. He says all anti-litter campaigns openly embrace three broad strategies: reducing use, recycling and education to "do the right thing" whereas the Butt Littering Trust deliberately limits itself to education. He also says the Trust opposed moves by Newcastle City Council to ban smoking at outside al fresco tables. Reducing the prevalence of smoking would do more than any other strategy to reduce butt pollution.
Nominate sites for mobile phone stations
The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) is planning a survey of environmental electromagnetic energy (EME) levels produced by mobile telephone base stations in Australia. One site per month is to be examined for an initial period of one year, and the results made publicly available. While no adverse health effects are known to be caused by EME levels below current standards, it is recognised that base stations are a cause of some public concern and information about actual exposure levels should be obtained.
Nominations of sites for inclusion in the survey are sought from local government. Sites will be selected to be representative of carrier, technology, geography and type of installation. Also taken into account will be other factors, such as level of public concern, concentration of base stations in close proximity, or other special circumstances that may provide cause for community concern. Not all nominated sites will be able to be included.
Nominations for sites should be received by 30th October 2006 in order be considered for inclusion in the first survey round.
Requests for further information and nominations, including the exact street address of the site and reasons for inclusion, should be addressed to:
ARPANSA is an Australian Government agency within the Health and Ageing portfolio.
National wind farm code
A national code covering wind farms will be developed by the federal government, wind energy industry and community groups. The code will include a framework for wind farm developers in their dealings with community groups. The role of local government is to be examined, and also what are the main concerns of communities on subjects such as wildlife preservation and landscape values.
Citizen participation in the UK
A summary of the key issues raised in relation to questions posed in the 2006 discussion document "Empowerment and the deal for devolution" is now on the www.communities.gov.uk website. The issues include proposals to get more people actively involved in their neighbourhoods and to enable individuals and groups to influence local decisions about their communities and services. The four key themes are capacity, being innovative and finding local solutions, equity and the role of councillors and local government freedom.
New Qld Local Gov and Planning Minister
Andrew Fraser has been appointed as Queensland's new Local Government and Planning Minister. Mr Fraser takes over the ministerial role from Desley Boyle, who is the new Minister for Child Safety.
ALGA President, Paul Bell, has welcomed Mr Fraser’s ministerial appointment and says he is looking forward to working with him to further develop the local government agenda in Queensland and discuss the implementation of the Government's election policies.
 Book review
Dr Robert Lowell, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Monash University, has written the first history of local government human services in Victoria, dating from settlement to the present time. It is titled: Localising human services: a history of local government human services in Victoria. Dr Lowell has been working in the human services field since 1964 and between 1968 and 1990 was the Coordinator of the West Gippsland Social Worker Group. This was an innovative partnership between two rural municipalities and a base hospital and delivered a range of localised health, housing, youth and welfare services.
The term human services covers health, housing, cultural, recreational and welfare provision. Dr Lowell said that local government is the most appropriate level of government to deliver, coordinate and plan localised human services, because it has features not replicated by other levels of government or non-government organisations. Reform in recent decades has made it a stronger and more viable entity, with its identity found in physical accessibility, responsiveness and immediacy. In addition, local government encourages participatory democracy and engenders a closeness between electors, elected and employed.
He is critical of the failure of successive federal and state governments to recognise local government as an equal partner within a federalist system of government and to fund it on an equitable basis. He says the failure by central governments, to enshrine the subsidiary principle into legislation, has resulted in the haphazard development of human services throughout Australia. With an increasingly complex and uncoordinated pluralist human services system, he considers there needs to be an authoritative legislative basis which mandates specific roles and responsibilities for local government in human services regulation, monitoring, delegation, provision, coordination and planning.
An informative read for local government policy-makers.
Localising human services: a history of local government human services in Victoria by Dr Robert Lowell is published by Australian Scholarly Monographs. Tel: 03 9654 0250 or email: aspic@ozemail.com.au
Quote of the week
"The scoreboard said I lost today, but what the scoreboard doesn't say is what it is I've found. Over the last 21 years, I've found loyalty. You have pulled for me on the court and also in life. I have found inspiration. You have willed me to succeed sometimes even in my lowest moments."
- An emotional Andre Agassi talking to his fans as he bowed out of the US Open and retired from professional tennis.
International news 
Earthquake jolts tourism in NZ
Should you be in the NZ town of Napier on a certain weekend any February or July you could believe that you'd entered a time machine and been whisked back 70-something years.
Out of the rubble that was the town centre after a major earthquake in 1931 has grown a unique tourist attraction: a city of art deco architecture and twice-yearly, back-to-the-1930s festivities.
The town almost died at 10.46am on Tuesday February 3 1931, when it was struck by a 2-1/2-minute earthquake, measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, killing a total of 256 people in Napier and surrounding towns.
Buildings were levelled some areas raised as much as two metres; more than 4,000 hectares of seabed became land. Napier's now-famous art deco reputation grew from the massive rebuilding of the city through the next decade, in the depths of the Depression, when townspeople bravely rebuilt in the styles then fashionable overseas - mainly art deco.
Some 50 years later, it would give birth to a new industry: tourism.
But the potential wasn't recognised at first. After World War II, Napier's 1930s style inevitably became "old hat" - no longer worthy of comment. Until, that is, some overseas visitors in the early 1980s pointed out the uniqueness of the city. Fortunately, few art deco buildings had been lost. A handful of Napier citizens took notice of the visitors' comments. And so, the Art Deco Trust was born to preserve, enhance and promote Napier's buildings.
Robert McGregor, executive director of the trust, said that after early scepticism most locals were now strongly behind the art deco concept. The local council, he said, supported preservation of the art deco culture, subsidising building owners who maintained the art deco style and colours.
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Chartered Secretaries Australia
23rd National Conference
CSA's 23rd National Conference is the premier annual event for governance professionals across Australia; it brings together all the major players under one umbrella and addresses the 'big' issues you should be aware of.
Don't miss the following sessions presented by key governance experts -
- Hear the latest thinking on government and business partnerships; identify governance issues affecting PPPs and how to address conflicting expectations, and learn how the two sectors can work more effectively together on raising the quality of requests for tenders.
- Examine the impact of reputation; learn key lessons from the AWB affair, and explore how organisations can recover positively from a crisis
- Understand the changing role of government and regulators in promoting good governance.
- Update your awareness of the broad trends and issues that currently impact governance professionals across all industries.
CSA National Conference has been designed to prepare you for the year ahead by highlighting everything you need to know about the latest developments in governance. Over three days, experts will discuss topics on regulation reform, risk management, compliance, ethics and sustainability, to name a few. Practical afternoon streamed sessions, interactive panel discussions, workshops and plenty of networking opportunities will ensure you are stimulated and engaged from start to finish.
Monday 20 - Wednesday 22 November 2006
The Marriott Resort, Surfers Paradise, Queensland
For further information or to register visit www.csaust.com/nationalconference or call 1800 251 849.
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