ASU: Local Government Review Not Transparent

Media release – Australian Services Union, 14 July 2023

Tasmania’s terminal Local Government Review fails the transparency test

Despite being obliged to do so by its mandate, the Tasmanian Local Government Board has failed to publicly release local government workers’ feedback on council amalgamations, as workers were promised.

This betrayal of transparency goes to the ailing heart of the review, with flawed consultation sessions limiting the ability of workers and other members of the public to have confidence their knowledge and experience of how local government works in their communities will be shared publicly.

‘Just a small percentage of local government workers were able to provide their experience and feedback to the board because of the deliberately inadequate windows given to them to speak,’ says ASU Vic Tas branch secretary Lisa Darmanin.

‘Nevertheless, participants in staff consultations were told their feedback would be collated and publicly available. It’s not. Their valuable contributions are buried on a password-protected website, unable to be seen by the public. It’s another misleading outcome of this flawed review.

‘Presumably this is because the board feels the feedback is either too critical or doesn’t suit the narrative of pushing mergers.

‘Limiting the opportunities for workers and communities to provide their comments – the much-vaunted public hearings will be squeezed into just an hour and a half per proposed catchment, and council sessions will hear only from managers and elected representatives- it is a blow to transparency that the board has decided to block community feedback from public view.’

Ms Darmanin says the entire process of the Local Government review is now looking increasingly terminal.

‘It’s telling that Minister Street keeps emphasising how he did not appoint the board. In estimates he acknowledges reducing the number of councils will not do anything to address labour shortages across Tasmania. I mean, he said it out loud: “…reducing the number of councils, if that is the outcome of this review, won’t reduce the number of planners that we need across the state, or the number of engineers, or the number of environmental health officers.”

‘The state government has spent $3 million and rising on a review which will achieve nothing for stabilising employment in Tasmania, has caused widespread and growing concern in communities, and hides legitimate feedback from those directly affected by merger plans. It must now be asked whether the entire disastrous and distressing process is so flawed as to be terminally unworkable,’ Ms Darmanin said.