Reframing the role of Australian mayors: an update and rejoinder to Grant, Dollery and Kortt (2016)

ABSTRACT

Recent moves for local government reform in several states of Australia have focused in part on a perceived need for more effective civic leadership, and in particular the role of mayors. Proposed legislation in New South Wales and Victoria would expand the responsibilities of mayors in several areas, such as community engagement, partnerships with key stakeholders, strategic planning and providing guidance to the chief executive officer. In 2012 the Australian Centre of Excellence for Local Government (ACELG) published a discussion paper that canvassed these issues as well as the way in which mayors are elected. That paper elicited a strongly adverse critique by Grant, Dollery and Kortt, now published as an article in this issue of Local Government Studies. Regrettably their critique failed to offer a constructive contribution to the debate sought by ACELG, and the article contains a number of significant errors and misleading statements that demand a response.

KEYWORDS:

• Local government reform
• community leadership
• mayors
• governance
• democracy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. A process of amalgamations of councils is currently under way in New South Wales: at the time of writing it was unclear what overall reduction in numbers might be achieved.

2. Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart, Adelaide, Perth and Darwin. Except for the City of Brisbane, which houses around half the population of the South East Queensland conurbation, these are geographically small local government areas covering the central business district and adjoining suburbs.

3. The City of Sydney is the only instance where such delegations have been effected to a large extent, giving the Lord Mayor significant executive powers.

4. The ‘council plan’ is a 4-year strategic and corporate plan prepared by the incoming council after each general election of councillors.

5. For example, the Australian government has proposed a variant of the British ‘City Deals’ model, under which federal, state and local governments would collaborate to undertake major infrastructure, urban renewal, economic and social development programmes.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Graham Sansom

Graham Sansom is an adjunct professor in the Institute for Public Policy and Governance at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia. He was formerly director of the Australian Centre of Excellence for Local Government and chaired the New South Wales government’s Independent Local Government Review Panel.