And the winner is …

...

It’s something in the water

The Australian newspaper reports that “The government's top infrastructure adviser has warned that water utilities in regional towns are failing to comply with water quality standards.  This is because they are starved of crucial resources.  A secret report commissioned by Infrastructure Australia (IA) has found that some utilities are not meeting the national guidelines on what comprises good quality drinking water and are failing to deliver a secure water supply.  In recent previously unreported testimony to the Productivity Commission, IA said the report had found water quality reporting was very patchy for regional towns but available evidence indicated there was a problem that warrants attention.

They found that water utilities in many towns really struggled to comply with drinking water guidelines for a range of reasons: fewer resources, lower availability of technical knowledge, competition for the technical knowledge that exists in regional areas, inadequate infrastructure and poor processes for operation and maintenance of equipment. A key factor is the lack of adequately skilled people to operate, and systems to operate, and maintain water systems.

The IA’s director said many regional water utilities were not charging "anything anywhere near" cost-reflective prices.  "Many of them aren't even charging the sorts of prices that are obtained in major cities, where you would expect there would be economies of scale," he said.  "We believe that without pricing reform, many of those water utilities are never going to achieve financial sustainability."

Yarra Valley Water’s Oracle CC&B project finally goes live

How many consultants over how many years for how many millions of dollars?  We’ll probably never know, but there was a huge sigh of relief all round when Yarra Valley Water’s Oracle Customer Care & Billing project finally went live in July.  You would have to wonder at the impact on water prices when monopoly utilities such as the water companies spend what is reputedly $40 million on a water billing implementation.  The next cab off the rank for a water billing system is Allconnex Water in Brisbane, who you would have to hope will have more sense of the value-for-money proposition, and City West Water who have boldly decided it’s time to look at replacing all of their systems.  One of these days someone is going to be courageous (in Sir Humphrey Appleby’s sense) and select SAP for water billing – and then we’ll really see the dollars mount up.  At least the Yarra Valley Water experience of Oracle’s billing product (formerly SPL) has delivered a per-customer cost that’s nowhere near the stratospheric amount Aurora Energy in Tasmania is spending on the same product.  On the other hand, how much longer is Gippsland Water going to take before they finally decide they’ve done enough testing on their Hansen-8 product and go live with it?

Do large dogs have a place in the city?

Dog attacks have surged to more than 1,300 over just three months, latest figures reveal.  The figures show that 134 attacks required medical treatment and 31 led to hospitalisation.  Local councils have reported a 16 per cent increase in the number of attacks, with 1,306 attacks taking place between April and June this year.  An increase of 20,000 dog registrations happened in the same period.

NSW Local Government Minister Barbara Perry said in a statement:

It's not just people who are being attacked by dogs, there were also 1,235 animal victims including other dogs, cats and livestock that suffered from a dog attack during the last three months.  Unfortunately these attacks on animals resulted in 522 deaths.

The staffordshire bull terrier was the dog breed most commonly involved with 167 attacks over the three-month period.  Australian cattle dogs came second with 99, followed by 82 attacks by German shepherds. 

Open source council web sites

From August, a consortium of 46 rural and regional NSW councils has dumped its aging, proprietary content management system (CMS) for an open source Joomla solution.  Their websites are being migrated to the new CMS in a $300,000 upgrade to the NSW Local Government and Shire Associations' (LGSA) Local-e project.

Local-e was formed in 2001 to improve smaller councils' web publishing capabilities through shared services and joint purchasing arrangements.  Joomla vendor Jentla and its integrator, Energetica, won the Local-e contract following a competitive tender process involving both open source and proprietary bidders.  Jentla-N is also expected to satisfy Government 2.0 aims of making public sector information more readily available through tools like RSS feeds and improved transactional capabilities.

Pricing, minimal infrastructure changes and interoperability with LGSA's open source server environment led LGSA to select the Jentla-N CMS, which is expected to simplify content management for non-technical council staff.  Many site administration tools have been pushed to the front-end, allowing council staff to create users and content after logging in to the user-facing website.

According to Jentla, the deal was aligned with a public sector trend towards open source CMS. Joomla powered the websites of the United Nations Regional Information Centre and the US City of Boulder, Colorado.

There's a growing acknowledgement in government that open source is the right decision.  The days of paying really large amounts of money for a CMS is over; and particularly with government, they are very interested in the longevity of data, which may be maintained through open standards.

Taking your life in your hands, courtesy of your local council

Motorists will need to get used to bridges that are closed or can only bear reduced weight as the nation's bridges continue to decay, engineer Chris Champion,  the chief executive of the Institute of Public Works Engineering Australia, has warned. 

Many councils were closing bridges or reducing their weight limits, leading to problems for vehicles forced to curtail trips or take significant detours.  'What local government tries to do before [bridges] get to the point of failing is they try to close them or restrict their weight.  'You can travel on a poor road but you can't travel on a poor or closed bridge, so it's the weak link.

Research into timber bridges by his group in 2008 found that 27 per cent were in a poor state and another 52 per cent were fair.  Traditionally, road bridges are funded by local councils, but many cash-strapped municipalities have struggled to find adequate resources.

Queensland is different

Reviewing the Queensland Local Government tender box site the other day I realised how different Queensland is.  Across Australia there’s a well-used industry-standard acronym known by all participants – RFT - “Request For Tender”.  In Queensland, however, flying directly in the face of a National Competition Policy whose aims include making it easier for national businesses to do business nationally, the Queensland Chief Procurement Office has introduced a new term – ITO - “Invitation To Offer”.  It’s not as if this new term adds any information or clarity to the one it replaces.  As well the Australian standard GITC - “Government Information Technology Contracting” – framework, also intended to support national competition policy, has been hijacked by the Queenslanders who have introduced an entire accreditation superstructure known as GITC-5.  Yes, Queensland really is different.

Geelong’s mayoral election (again)

Victorian Local Government Minister Richard Wynne recently tried to shut down the push to get a directly elected mayor for Geelong. The Minister told a room full of city leaders yesterday that the push was not on the state's agenda despite a concerted effort by lobby groups such as the Committee for Geelong.  “I'll have to reiterate we are not considering it,'' Mr Wynne said.  The Minister was asked by Committee for Geelong head Michael Betts whether the state would introduce an elected mayor to break a perceived power vacuum at City Hall.

Mr Wynne said if the serving councillors wanted “continuity with leadership'' they had the ability under the Local Government Act to select a mayor for two years.  Mayors in Geelong have traditionally been selected for one-year terms by fellow councillors.  “And then if they are happy with the performance they can vote them in for another two years,'' he said.

Carrying the can

The Queensland government has been reorganising councils and their businesses for some time now.  Most recently the 10 SEQ councils have given up their water businesses to create three new water utilities.  Prior to that there were a number of Council amalgamations.  Councils apparently believed that the government would underwrite the costs of council amalgamations.  Now it appears that belief was misplaced.  Logan Council (in the south) and Sunshine Coast Council (in the north) are two Councils who have been advised to find the additional costs out of their own budgets.

Too many rules?

SOME call it the rise of the nanny state: the growth of well-intentioned but irksome regulations that infuriate citizens and swell the coffers of governments.  Often the targets of citizen rage are local councils, with their fines for transgressions such as littering, lopping trees without permission, having unregistered pets and playing music loudly.  But now councils are furious, too, The Age reports. They say excessive regulation is often not their fault and they are pointing the finger at state and federal governments.

Victoria's 79 local councils are planning to audit laws that they say are duplicated, contradictory, redundant and unnecessary. They complain they are being swamped by demands to police regulations issued by the two more powerful tiers of government.  Municipal staff, they say, are at crisis point struggling to meet compliance demands, police minor infringements, monitor health and safety regulations and process licence and permit applications.

Their umbrella organisation, the Municipal Association of Victoria, accuses the state and federal governments of buck-passing and cost-shifting by making local government responsible for implementing hundreds of new regulations each year.  ''Local government delivers services on behalf of other governments, but where the real costs rise faster than funding, councils have to make up the shortfall, which usually means increasing rates,'' said association president Bill McArthur.  ''It is layer upon layer upon layer of legislation and regulations and they are often in conflict with each other.''

According to the Attorney-General's yearly report on the infringement system, just over 4 million fines were issued in Victoria in 2007-8. (Figures for last year are not available.)  The fines were generated by more than 100 different agencies including police, state government departments, local councils and some non-government bodies such as universities and hospitals.

More than 1500 new laws and regulations have joined Victoria's statutes since 2000, with 283 passed last year.  The Commonwealth registered 394 new laws and regulations last year and has introduced a total of 3631 since the year 2000.  No statewide statistics are gathered on the number of fines issued for violations of local government bylaws.

Queenscliff mayor Bob Merriman says councils would be more efficient and responsive to their communities if they were free from the unreasonable demands of state and federal governments.  ''There's acres of duplication,'' he said. ''Any consultation before these demands are made of us is sadly missing and there is no explanation at all as to why they are needed.  'We are required to fill in miles of paperwork and send it off to Spring Street where I am not so sure it doesn't just sit in the bottom drawer.''

The tipping point for the councils has come with the new local government legislation, which will impose tougher compliance standards following last year's Ombudsman's report into misconduct at the Brimbank City Council.  ''It is putting increased pressure on council budgets, particularly in the area of staff resources,'' said City of Monash mayor Charlotte Baines.

According to Nicole Rich, director of policy and campaigns at the Consumer Action Law Centre, the worst regulations are inefficient ones.  ''In Victoria we have laws to deal with the problem of energy supplier salesmen who go door to door, but they are not properly enforced.  There are the standards around product safety, where we put more and more complicated product labels on items we should just say are dangerous and should be banned.''

Accountability in Geelong

It seems that former  Geelong mayor Bruce Yarwood may be up for a bit of accountability himself.  He was recently featured on accountability in this blog.  Now it seems there’s a push to make the position of Mayor of Geelong popularly elected.  Just what Bruce needs.

The Geelong Advertiser reported that The Committee for Geelong has called for the creation of a special taskforce to push its agenda of a popularly elected mayor.  Committee officials met with Premier John Brumby last week where they again mooted the idea.  The committee has been calling for a directly elected Geelong mayor to be legislated for about six years.

Committee executive director Peter Dorling said it was time to open the debate fully to the public after a Geelong Advertiser Your City, Your Say survey showed 74 per cent, or three in four residents, wanted to vote on the city's top leader.

The City of Melbourne is the only Victorian council to have a popularly elected mayor.  Mr Dorling said the committee had asked that a broad-based taskforce be set up as part of regional development policy.  The City of Greater Geelong council, however, continues to elect its mayors on an annual basis.

Former mayor and current deputy mayor Bruce Harwood said that if he had to choose he would stick with the current system because it allowed for a strong diversity of candidates.  This comes despite saying publicly when elected in 2006 that he would lobby for such a change.  He said the publicly elected system would narrow the field to those who could run a large campaign those who were politically connected, already a high-profile community person or had their own finances to back their campaign.

Cr Harwood said, however, that continuity of leadership was good for delivering a vision and suggested an alternative would be to have a separate ballot sheet on election day that residents could chose who they wanted from a pool of candidates who sought the position. He said that result could then be used as a guide for councillors when deliberating their choice.

More costly water for the old?

A sharp rise in water rates would deal a vicious blow to pensioners already struggling to cope with rapidly rising electricity prices, says a lobby group for the elderly in late January.  Australians will be paying hundreds of dollars more for water because state governments are heavily investing in desalination plants, The Australian newspaper had reported the previous weekend.

But Frances Nord, Queensland president of the Australian Pensioners and Superannuants League (APSL), said last September's pension rise had already been gobbled up by sharp increases in rates and electricity prices.

"It's terrible," Ms Nord told AAP.  "We are not going to be able to keep up with it."

Water Services Association of Australia, representing most of the urban water utilities nationally, estimated water providers would use up to four times as much electricity as they moved from dams to desalination.  "The cost of building desalination plants will be reflected in water prices across Australia," executive director Ross Young told The Australian.  "Electricity prices are only going to go upwards, so operational costs are probably going to climb steadily.  In places like Melbourne in the next four years (water) prices are going to double."

They could always increase the pensioner subsidy, I guess, something their water billing software should handle with ease.

Western Australia “The Rubbish State”

A new report has shown that West Australians produce the most waste per capita in the nation but recycles the least, ABC News reported Saturday.  The State of the Cities report by Infrastructure Australia provides a snapshot of the 17 largest cities in the country with the aim of improving the liveability, sustainability and productivity of each one.  The report found that Western Australia produced almost 2500 kilograms of waste per person.  It also found that Western Australia has the worst recycling rates in the country with just 33 per cent of total waste being recycled from 2006 to 2007.

Bill Mitchell from the WA Local Government Association says the data does not provide an accurate representation of household recycling in WA which he says is the best in the country.  He says the state's construction and demolition industry has the worst rate of recycling in the country, and that drags WA's average down.  "About a third of the household waste, or just over a third is recycled, and that saves in excess of a million tonnes a year going into holes in the ground, whereas in the construction and demolition industry only 15 per cent is recycled," he said.

Geoff Cooper from the Master Builders Association says recycling building waste has been difficult in the past due to a lack of appropriate facilities.  But he says that is slowly changing.  "There's a lot of successful waste recycling facilities now available and there's also a lot more interest from large commercial and residential builders in recycling," he said.

Some careful and not so careful planning in NSW

The Local Government Performance Monitoring Report, released in late February, identified 21 Councils in NSW with an ‘extreme processing time’ of more than 100 days.  However, the good news is the processing time for the 2008 to 2009 period, on average 107 days, was 10 days less than the period before.  The report, compiled by NSW Planning with information supplied by councils, found general improvements in processing times across most councils.

Last year:

• Ballina Shire Council processed 682 applications worth $90.8 million with an average processing time of 58 days
• Lismore City Council processed 562 applications worth $65 million with an average processing time of 54 days
• Richmond Valley Council processed 395 applications worth $59.5 million with an average processing time of 67 days
• Byron Shire Council processed 662 applications worth $143 million with an average processing time of 95 days
• Kyogle processed 163 applications worth $9.8 million

The State average for processing of applications was 74 days, while the 56 best performing councils turned around their applications in under 50 days.  The best performing councils were:

• Temora Shire Council, north of Wagga Wagga, where the average turn around was just nine days
• Urana Shire Council, west of Wagga Wagga, averaged 10 days
• Berrigan Shire Council, south west of Wagga Wagga, averaged 11 days
• Hay Shire Council, averaged 16 days
• Cootamundra Shire Council took 17 days

Across the State 71,638 applications were approved, valued at $18.5 billion.  The report showed 59pc of all applications were for new single dwellings or residential alterations.

Another big new tax (sorry, make that old beat up)

The Local Government Association of Queensland (LGAQ) has accused business groups of scaremongering over land valuation laws due to be debated in State Parliament according to ABC News.  The Government says the changes are needed to stop commercial landowners getting large discounts on their rates and land tax.  But the Property Council and Shopping Centre Council have called them a "sneaky new business tax".

LGAQ president Paul Bell says the changes are needed to fix a discrepancy identified by the courts.  "There's nothing new in this - there's nothing that's going to cause people to lose jobs," he said.  "There's no way this provision's going to affect other residents, ratepayers or taxpayers.  That is very much scaremongering by the Property Council and the Shopping Centre Council - those accusations aren't correct.  Everything's back to normal - we just think that this is really not a new tax.  We just think this is just really the responsibility of the State Government and we support the State Government in its activities."

Planning in Victoria – who shall we blame?

The Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV) is campaigning against what it says is the erosion of the role local government plays in the planning system, according to ABC News.  It says proposed changes to the Planning and Environment Act will override councils' planning policies.  MAV president Bill McArthur says residents want to have a say in neighbourhood planning.

He says the proposal threatens the community's involvement because the Victorian Government will be given more power.  "It's a real threat to remove community involvement and add uncertainty and cost to Victoria's planning system," Mr McArthur said.  "It's a major concern and communities should be concerned because any erosion of councils' role in the planning system means less community input to the decision making process."

Five-star dining

South-East Queensland restaurants and food outlets will have their food safety and hygiene standards rated and their scores displayed on front doors in a system designed to give diners more information about where they are eating.  The EatSafe program, which will kick off in Brisbane and extend to other local government areas, will rate any establishment with a food license.  Scores under the star system will voluntarily displayed on the premises.

Food safety inspectors will give scores between one and five - five being for best practice.  Financial penalties - in the form of higher licensing fees - will be meted out to those who score lowest.  Outlets who score between four and five stars will have their license fees discounted and rewarded with fewer safety inspections.  Lord Mayor Campbell Newman said while operators would not be forced to display their scores to customers, he expected the rating cars would become "a badge of honour" among the city's 6000 eateries, including bakeries and takeaway outlets.

"It's a bit carrot and stick," he told brisbanetimes.com.au this morning.  "One star and you're pretty much out of business, we'll shut you down; two stars is just over the line; four to five and you're doing well.  It is a scheme which is designed to give consumers more information about the establishments they are eating in as well as helping operators improve in a very positive, incentivised way."

Cr Newman, who is expected to announce the scheme and a timeline today, said the EatSafe program had the full backing of industry bodies including the Queensland Hotels Association and Restaurant and Catering Queensland.  "I was very clear with council officials who put this up quite a while ago that we will not do this without the support of the industry," he said.

Logan City Council, which is also expected to announce its scheme soon, flagged the concept early last month and used the example of a similar rating system used in Los Angeles County.  It cited a 13 per cent decrease in food poisoning cases in the first 12 months of operation and an average 5.7 per cent revenue increase for those businesses which secured the highest score - in their case an A,B,C grading system.  Other international cities using a "scores on doors" scheme include New York, London and Singapore.  "Grading provided incentives for operators to strive for high standards and was used as an effective marketing tool to win and retain customers in a competitive market," city officials told councillors in a briefing note on January 6.  "Significant declines in food borne illness in Singapore have occurred since the introduction of food grading."

A Logan City Council spokeswoman said the scheme would likely be in place by the end of the year, possibly as early as September.  While participation will be voluntary, she said the council was calling on the Queensland government today to make it mandatory.  Food safety standards are set by the state government, however, in Brisbane, breaches of the legislation are prosecuted by the council.

Cr Newman said the total amount of money raised by Brisbane City Council under its current restaurant licensing scheme would not change under the star-rating system.  However, there would be a redistribution of fees based on food safety performance.  He stressed the rating system would be no reflection of the quality of food served or service standards.

Queensland Hotels Association head Justin O'Connor said Brisbane City Council had spent 12 months consulting the industry on the program and operators were keen to see whether "the theory is borne out in practice" in terms of raising safety standards across the board.  However, he was was much less keen to see the scheme forced upon operators.  "We are prepared to give it a go because it is relatively rare for state government, local governments, or even federal governments for that matter, to introduce a system of incentives for doing good," he said.  “Normally, it's a one-size-fits-all, 'shut up and pay your fees' approach.  They are trying to improve an existing regulatory system and ensure good operators are rewarded."

Going to the dogs

Last October New Scientist magazine published an article “How green is your pet” which left readers under no illusions – ownership of a pet dog is not an eco-friendly act.  And the latest story out of NSW on the subject of dogs really should put the nail in the coffin of dog ownership - “At least eight dog attacks a day in NSW” screamed the Sydney Morning Herald on, of all days, Australia Day.

Me?  I’d have them all put down.

Water restructuring

Both Tasmania and Queensland are restructuring their water utility operations.  In SE Queensland the three new bodies are Urban Utilities (out of Brisbane and Ipswich City Councils), Allconnex Water (an unfortunate name as any recent Melburnian would know) (Gold Coast, Logan and Redland Councils), and Unity Water (Moreton Bay and Sunshine Coast) where former Brisbane Lord Mayor Jim Sorley has recently been named Chairman.  In Tasmania however the dust hasn’t quite settled, according to Opposition Treasury spokesman Peter Gutwein, who says he has discovered that the government is conducting a major review of the three regional water and sewerage corporations.

e-Waste still controversial

Two months after the Federal Government announced a national recycling scheme local councils across Australia are split on whether to ban curb-side collection of electronic waste to keep toxic chemicals out of landfill.  It's an issue that has divided a city and now looks like dividing the nation. Sydney's Pittwater Council, under the Shore Regional Organisation of Councils (SHOROC), was the first in the country to put a ban on the collection of e-waste including televisions, computers and other electrical equipment. Its decision comes ahead of federal legislation that will see hundreds and possibly thousands of recycling depots installed across Australia.

As a result residents in the region, on the northern side of Sydney Harbour including Manly, Mosman, Pittwater and Warringah, now must “take the initiative” and either dump their e-waste at one of 20 recycling depots or hold onto their equipment until a designated council recycling day, the first of which will be held late next month.  SHOROC said the decision was taken because toxic e-waste chemicals like lead, cadmium and mercury cost more than $1500 per tonne to dispose of safely.  Computerworld Australia has the full story.

The dead are not to blame

Litchfield Shire Council is confiscating blocks of land from members of the English aristocracy who have been dead for more than a century, the NT News reports.   The Council will auction off 12 properties in the rural area to recover more than $230,000 in unpaid rates.  But council president Mary Walsh said it was not the fault of the owners - they had been dead for more than a century. "The English gentry bought these parcels of land, sight unseen, back in the 1800s," she said.  "They are likely to have been passed down through six or seven generations since then.  They have been tied up in estates and the owners don't know that they own them."

Ms Walsh said many of the properties were from Southport.  "It was a thriving town in its day because the boats would come down."  When the council was formed in 1985 the owners of these blocks were obliged to pay rates.  These unpaid rates, plus more than 20 years of interest, have added up to more than $20,000 for each property.  "It's not like we are kicking anyone out of their homes," Ms Walsh said. "This is a piece of our history".

The council now plans to use powers in the Local Government Act for force the sale of the land to recover these rates. Last month, it published legal notices naming the dead owners - giving surviving descendants one month to come forward.  Otherwise, the remaining funds will go to the Territory Government's general revenue.

"Now we get all our rates returned," Ms Walsh said. "We always realised the price would only go up. We knew we would get our money back eventually."  The council also plans to deal with another 82 properties by mid next year.

West Australian confusion

The WA Minister for Local Government John Castrilli has hit back at Opposition claims he has created confusion surrounding council amalgamations, the ABC reports.  The Shires of Yilgarn and Westonia are among two of nine councils which have volunteered to amalgamate.  The State Opposition says Mr Castrilli has rejected the merger, leading to confusion amongst other councils.  Mr Castrilli says he never intended to created confusion.  "I haven't rejected the proposal, I support the proposal," he said.  "Basically the two shires want to amalgamate, I've accepted that, I appreciate it."

Mr Castrilli says he has not rejected the merger.  "All I merely asked the two shires to do, was say to them, thank you for amalgamating, is there a possibility of a larger pool?" he said.   "Just to consider it, that's all it is, just a consideration. If it's not then more than happy with the two."

Allowances: South Australia

Local government representatives are no longer able to set their own allowances in South Australia, ABC News reports.  From 15 January, allowances will be set by an independent tribunal.  SA Local Government Minister Gail Gago says the Remuneration Tribunal will make its decisions after consultation.  "The tribunal will take into consideration the size, population and revenue of the council, as well as any relevant economic, social, demographic and regional factors," she said.  "At least one public hearing is required by the tribunal before it sets allowances."

This is in contrast to NSW, where the Daily Telegraph reports that Councils have frittered away millions of ratepayer dollars on themselves - spending up on junkets, Blackberries and souvenirs.  Council expenses are now so out of control they are, in some cases, nearly double councillors' pays.  Clover Moore's Sydney City Council amassed $598,595 of expenses - almost twice its councillor wage bill of $309,260.

Dr Johnston in Tasmania?

The 18th century scholar Dr Johnston once remarked “a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”  We have come a long way since then, to the point where in Tasmania a group from State and Federal Governments, the Local Government Association, and the Australian Local Government Women’s Association says there are now more women in councils across Tasmania.

Women’s Association president Cheryl Fuller has told ABC Local Radio that in 2007 there were 66 female councillors out of a total of 281.  Today there are 77 and she says many more are interested in nominating.  "We had 130 ladies that came along to five functions that were held around the state including King Island so out of those 130 people they were at a range of stages as far as their nominations were concerned," she said.  "There was a group of women that had already decided to stand, some were perhaps toying with the idea because they'd come in to contact with council recently, they were at a range of stages."

Ah yes – women are ladies but men are men.  The old shibboleths die hard.

The cost of waste

A Daily Telegraph investigation has found mulching garden waste boosted state-owned waste corporation WSN Solutions' profit by 94 per cent.  State government-owned waste dumps and councils are making millions,charging twice as much to recycle organic waste than it costs to dump it.  The waste company made a $25 million profit from recycling last financial year - up from $12 million the year before.  The NSW Government earned an $4.8 million dividend from WSN Solutions.  The profit comes from the fees ratepayers are charged to recycle green waste - from backyard grass clippings to tree branches.  A home organic waste bin costs between $90 and $130 on top of the standard annual council fee.  Taking rubbish to Sydney's tips has also jumped 38 per cent - from $158 to $219 - in two years, making it cheaper to throw plant matter into landfill rather than mulch it.

Red tape? Moi?

Councils have dismissed a survey by NSW businesses which suggests they’re the most disliked administrators of red tape.  Of 400 business owners who took part in a recent NSW Business Chamber survey, a quarter said red tape from all levels of government was preventing their businesses from growing and creating more job opportunities.  A further 33 per cent expressed concern about future growth.

“(The) survey shows that the costs of red tape on NSW businesses are growing not shrinking,” NSW Business Chamber CEO Stephen Cartwright said in a statement.  Local Government Association of NSW president Genia McCaffery said it was a common misconception that local government was an obstacle to business.  “Local government is only responsible for a small proportion of the requirements that new small businesses need to address,” she said.

Losing water

Specialised sound- testing equipment will be brought in to “listen” to pipes in the Tweed Heads area to detect any water leakage this month, the Tweed Daily News reports.  Tweed Shire Council has called in contractors to pinpoint any significant leaks as part of a plan to fix damaged pipes in the area.  According to the council, 11.5 per cent of all water produced every year on the Tweed “disappears”.  This equates to approximately 900 mega litres per year out of a total of 8700 mega litres.

Council’s water manager Anthony Burnham said water loss figures could be better.  “While that figure of 11.5 per cent is comparable to water loss in other local government areas, it certainly falls short of the target of seven per cent we are aiming for,” Mr Burnham said.  He explained that not all water leakage was due to leaks in the pipes.  “Other possible causes are uses such as firefighting and water theft,” he said.  “We have always checked for leaks, how-ever this is part of an intensified suite of strategic actions to ensure we have good integrated water cycle management in the Tweed.”

Accountability

Accountability, it seems, hurts.  Bruce Yarwood, the long-term mayor of Geelong, is yelping about it in an opinion piece in a recent Geelong Advertiser.  According to Bruce, elections are the main form of accountability, and it seems that all those social networking tools that allow constituents to spy on their Councillors are nothing more than opportunities “to record and express an opinion regardless of any examination of the facts”.  (Opinion pieces in local newspapers must be something else altogether).  Bruce is attempting to influence the direction of State government legislation on the subject and is miffed that “the Opposition didn't exactly do local government any favours here either”.

Meanwhile in Queensland new integrity laws came into effect on 1 January.  Lobbyists must be registered, and they can no longer receive success fees.  The Queensland Local Government Association (LGAQ) says councils will have to comply with the new integrity measures.  LGAQ spokesman Greg Hallam says local governments support the changes, but are awaiting detailed guidelines.  "There is certainly in the new Integrity Act some missing pieces as yet and there is yet to be a public sector ethics regulation that'll affect all councillor and employees and that could well go to the matter of how they deal with property developers," he said.