NZ elected members check out local government in Queensland
For a week in September last year a group of 30 elected members and officials were hosted by their Queensland colleagues on a good practice tour of the state's local authorities.
In a tour that ranged from the metropolis of Brisbane and the city of Ipswich to new councils like Toowoomba Regional Council, the New Zealand delegation had the chance to examine the Queensland approach to local governance and lots more.
Entitled "Best Practice - Queensland in the Future; developing capacity and capability in New Zealand from shared experiences", the tour was designed to give elected members and officials an opportunity to widen their horizon and understand how councils in other jurisdictions dealt with issues held in common.
Key topics for the tour included: shared services; local government reform; urban and provincial planning; managing growth within communities and regions; managing tourism growth and related infrastructure; transport development, funding, and planning; and emergency management.
One of the issues of special interest was how Queensland councils had responded to the recent amalgamation process. From the perspective of the visitors it was apparent that the amalgamations had produced variable results. In some cases the result was better integrated planning but for others, community diversity and community interests are going to remain as points of tension
There was a general view that New Zealand was ahead of the Australian councils in terms of long term planning, community participation and asset management practices. Reflecting this, the State Government has recently passed legislation, modelled on the LTCCP, requiring councils to be more strategic in their infrastructure planning and management processes. (In response, a group of Queensland officials were in New Zealand in early December to examine how New Zealand delivers on these expectations.)
The New Zealand team also looked at public private partnerships (PPPs) for transport-related infrastructure. Looking at the magnitude of the projects being undertaken by Brisbane City most of them concluded that it was unlikely New Zealand would have projects (or an amalgamation of projects) of sufficient scale to make PPP's work
The strong consensus from tour participants was that the tour was extremely worthwhile and represented value for money.
Eugene Bowen, the Chief Executive of Local Government New Zealand, the agency which organised the tour, commented that "without the generosity of the Local Government Association of Queensland (LGAQ) and the individual councils which hosted the tour it would not have been such a great success".
