For years our local councils have been battling to balance the books, and battling to deliver essential services to communities.
Yet recent RedBridge polling shows most Victorians want councils abolished, or are even unsure of what they do.
This reflects the challenges councils – particularly in rural and regional areas – now face.
The polling also suggested more than half the people surveyed supported even more council amalgamation.
Local Government faces an uphill battle, with regional councils responsible for assets across thousands of square kilometres – for example, the Rural City of Mildura is more than 22,000 square kilometres and more than double the size of greater Melbourne.
Our councils are also being forced to do more with less, as the Andrews Labor Government shirks its responsibilities by pushing more costs from the state to local government.
And it’s ratepayers who are footing the ever-increasing bill.
While councils deliver essential services such as roads and rubbish, they are also responsible for incredibly vital community programs such as childcare.
Regional communities are already struggling with childcare waiting lists that continue to increase, and in too many smaller communities the locals are left with no services at all.
This is having a direct and seriously detrimental impact on attracting new families to towns to fill an increasing number of job vacancies.
It is a domino effect that is beginning to threaten the viability of more and more small regional communities.
We are also seeing the results of Labor’s funding cuts – including its axing of the Country Roads and Bridges Program – on our dangerously crumbling local roads.
Many regional councils maintain thousands and thousands of kilometres of roads and hundreds of bridges in their local government area.
The Country Roads and Bridges Program meant local councils could plan necessary projects such as bridge renewals and resurfacing unsafe roads on which the community relies.
Labor’s disregard for the role of local councils has left a bitter taste in Victorians’ mouths, and the polling shows it.
Confidence in councils will only come from a financially responsible state government, rather than one that passes costs – and the buck – to local government.
Peter Walsh
Member for Murray Plains
Shadow Minister for Local Government
