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."