CQ Today – Local voices matter most

People were taken aback this week when the Prime Minister had a dig at local government. The Prime Minister had been asked a question from an Independent Member, Dai Le, about whether he could assure that no Minister had been able to use inside information about the tax changes in the Budget to sell assets and avoid impending taxes. The question clearly got under the Prime Minister’s skin and he accused Ms Le of not taking Parliament seriously and eventually the PM erupted by saying, ‘This is not a council’. I was shocked too, but as I reflected on the PM’s outburst before my speech to the Australian Local Government Association the next day. I thought maybe he has a point. See, if the Australian Parliament was a council, then there would be much greater accountability, transparency, and you could even get sacked for lying, as the PM repeatedly has over the past year. That last point is not hypothetical. The former Mayor of Townsville was sacked for lying about his military record. Yet the PM can lie repeatedly about not planning to increase taxes on property, small businesses, and superannuation and get off without consequence. The fact is that local government mayors and councillors face a highly regulated and intrusive environment. They expose themselves to this for less pay than a federal parliamentarian, but with just as much responsibility. Indeed, I believe that local government is the most important level of government because it is the government closest to the people. G.K. Chesterton was right when he said that it is best to keep politicians close enough that you can give them a kick up the backside now and then. Councillors are always the closest to the people and so are the ones that get more ‘kicking’ than most. That also means that they are more in tune with how people are feeling at any particular time. Local government also has skin in the game. Their decisions affect their lives too, for good and bad. Too often decisions are being made remotely from the impact of them. So we get absurd outcomes like the stopping of a major dam project for a skink, the random buying back of water that hollows out a farming community, and the taking away of farmers’ rights to develop their own land. This week local government mayors and councillors have travelled from all around our country to come to Canberra for their national conference. When I spoke to them, I made clear that I believe strongly in the principle of subsidiarity. Subsidiarity means that government decisions should be made closest to the people they affect. We see too often in regional areas the impact of poor decisions being made in faraway capital cities. People often end the concept of subsidiarity there, but its true meaning is richer. The word subsidiarity comes from the Latin term subsidium, which denoted the third line of a Roman legion made up of hardened veterans. Roman legions were organised for the raw recruits to fight first, and the second line was made up of older men. The third line was there to help and assist if required. So the idea is that we let the local governments fight their own battles and make their first charges on a political problem. However, the higher levels of government should be there to support the decisions of the lower levels if needed. In our federation, the federal government does that by supporting important priorities like roads. However, the current federal government has cut many of these programs and local governments are suffering. We have been served well by our local governments and the Liberal and National parties will support them. We will invest $5 billion in helping to build trunk infrastructure that opens up more housing developments. That will serve a national priority for more homes and help grow our regions. So the PM is right. His government is not a council, because they would be more in tune with the needs of Australians if they were.