Local Government
Prime Minister Julia Gillard was in Singapore yesterday. She got a flower named after her. She fell in love with the place. \
As a matter of fact, she loved it so much that she decided that she might as well move there. Just for the next few months, anyway.
Why wouldn’t you? The shopping is great. It’s clean. There’s a restaurant precinct where you can find almost any national cuisine you could think of. And besides, with Blackberries and Skype and the internet and social media these days, she could easily do her job just as well from the south-east Asian city-state.
Continue reading "Sydney councillor: I left my heartland for San Francisco" »
The news that a municipal council in Melbourne has banned local cricketers from playing the popular, fast-paced Twenty20 in more than 40 parks raises questions about the increasingly litigious and risk-averse culture in which we live today.
According to reports, the Boroondara Council introduced the ban to minimize the risk of injury and property damage. Apparently one ball had shattered a car window.
It is also a reminder of one of the most well known judgments in the English common law.
Continue reading "Nanny state calling stumps for no good reason" »
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Swingdog says:
Exactly! Don’t blame the council. It’s us. This is the society we apparently want, either through bringing ridiculous lawsuits which lead to councils taking this kind of action to protect themselves, or through not fighting this kind of action in any meaningful way. * Whingeing on a talk board doesn’t… Read more »
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Don Paul says:
It all comes back to the influence of Socialism. Socialism requires individuals to give up their rights and responsibilites allowing the State to broadly dictate parameters of social engineering. Removing personal responsibility leaves individuals addicted to the Government, whilst engrained with a sense of entitlement. No one takes responsibility for… Read more »
It is likely that the 2013 federal election will be accompanied by three referendum questions. The last 110 years have not been very successful in terms of changing the Constitution; only eight of 44 referendum questions have received the required double majority.
One likely question concerns local government - the third attempt! Referendums in 1974 and 1988, on whether local government should be recognised in the Constitution, were soundly defeated.
The third attempt, planned to allow the Commonwealth to directly fund local government, deserves to be passed. It has bipartisan support, and unless state governments fight to retain their power over the local sector, it may be successful.
Continue reading "Time for our morning constitutional change" »
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marley says:
Oh gawd no - nothing ever gets done in Switzerland. We’ve got three times their population - can you imagine how much less would get done here than there? I’d rather have a few errors than stagnation. Read more »
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Sean says:
Shame there’s no referendum to add to the Constitution the one thing it genuinely needs: a bill of rights. While we’re at it, let’s have a referendum to change the Australian legislative system so it resembles the Swiss one. That way, everything the govt does can (if challenged by any… Read more »
‘Tis the season to pretend there’s nothing wrong with starting Christmas celebrations this early in December, as we wind our way through the shopping malls and homemaker centres of suburbia.
We start in the southeast corner of Melbourne, where one council has decided to change up its approach to the festive season. The Mordialloc Chelsea Leader reports that Kingston council, sick of squabbling over public liability insurance rates, has packed up the tinsel streamers and hanging fairy lights – safe in the knowledge that no plastic stars can fall on the heads of passers by.
Instead, they’ve chosen to cover rubbish bins in Christmas wrapping. For the price of $26,000, some 200 bins in the area get to be wrapped with reusable Australiana-themed livery.
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Bill says:
As a young man Ron Stitzinger always did maintain a unique perspective on the world, and to find out that sympathetic service to disenfranchised goats are part of his adult life is gratifying, if not surprising. Read more »
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TB says:
First it started with Easter Eggs in supermarkets as early as January, and now it’s Christmas in (late) November - I was mortified to see ads for “Christmas specials” on TV as early as mid-November. I’d never thought that a time would come where I would be harking back to… Read more »
My first brush with politics was in local government. I think I was eight.
My father was an independent ‘alderman’ on our local municipal council. A significant part of my youth was spent standing on polling booths, pounding the pavement to deliver Dad’s election newsletters and fielding constituent calls after school before Dad got home from work, as my older brother refused to answer the phone.
I remember one year standing on a polling booth for Dad where the big issue was council amalgamations. Dad was strongly opposed. So there I was, arguing the case for grass roots democracy against the monolith of big council bureaucracy.
Continue reading "There’s more to councils than spivs and shysters" »
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Formersnag says:
An old friend of mine, who had, in the past, been a real, “underbelly” figure, tells me that he once encountered, real, former, bank robbers serving on local councils in Sydney. Seems, their extensive, criminal records, had gotten, “lost in the filing system” somehow, leaving them open to “run for… Read more »
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Hamish Wilson says:
Scott, I believe Hospitals are one example of what should be handed back to councils. If councils agree to cooperate in an area health service for efficiencies of scale they can. In my area, public opinion would probably allow the council to attempt a reopening of the maternity ward at… Read more »
It was a meeting last week with a fired up General Manager of the Bogan Shire Council, Mike Brady, and the Deputy Mayor Jim Hemstead over the town’s swimming pool which really got me thinking about bogans.
The news was full of chk-chk-boom bogans, and to top it off I even had 30 kids from Bogan Shire’s St Josephs School come into the Parliamentary office whilst on an excursion to Canberra.
After a moment of quiet reflection I am now convinced there is a bit of bogan in every Australian. I realise the statement may shock and dismay some of our nation’s more refined citizens.
Continue reading "On the origins of the bogan as a species" »
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SvetlanaBabe says:
The writer of this article looks like a ‘shaved bogan’ in a suit. The forklift driver is an ‘emerging senior baby boomer bogan’ There are many sub-species of bogan. Read more »
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Shelley says:
It’s pretty low when ministers mock the name of the place someone lives. It insults all people in that town. Even the Labor voters. Minister Albanese has really sunk with mockery about the town being named Bogan. Read more »
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