De-Amalgamation in Action: The Queensland experience

J of App Econs and Policy

2016

While the bulk of the empirical evidence shows that municipal mergers do not improve the performance of local authorities, Australian policy‐makers nonetheless continue to impose council amalgamation, as illustrated by the current New South Wales Fit for the Future local government reform process. This paper first critically examines the empirical evidence employed by the Independent Local Government Review Panel on the impact of the 2004 council mergers. We argue that this evidence is flawed. We then provide an empirical assessment of the municipal mergers, which occurred over 2000–2004 with our sample drawn from Group 4 councils in the New South Wales variant of the Australian Local Government Classification System. Group 4 councils represent a group of significant regional cities and town councils with similar operational activities. We demonstrate that merged councils have not performed any better than their unmerged peers over the period 2004 to 2014. The paper concludes with some brief policy implications for local government reform in New South Wales and elsewhere.

Section: Municipal Mergers In Australiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning from Experience inNSW?

Bell

Dollery

J of App Econs and Policy

2016

“…Opponents of the amalgamation accused the state government of trashing their democratic rights, threatened litigation, and appealed to the Prime Minister to intervene (through plebiscites designed to embarrass the state government; Moore 2007)). In addition the political opposition promised to allow de-amalgamations in the event that they were later able to form government -a promise that ultimately resulted in four de-amalgamations in January, 2014(De Souza et al 2014. Thus, whilst proponents were able to execute all of the amalgamations they planned, the programme cannot be considered an unmitigated success due to the legacy costs borne.…”

Section: Queensland Forced Amalgamationmentioning

confidence: 99%

How losers can turn into winners in disputatious public policy: a heuristic for prospective herestheticians

Australian Journal of Political Science

2018

The study of heresthetic is a quest to explain how potential political losers might become winners. Local Government amalgamation is invariably a controversial and hotly contested political decision. It thus represents the ideal context to locate a pedagogical discussion regarding how clever herestheticians might act to bring about unlikely political success. Specifically, we extend the heresthetic literature by drawing attention to the costs (opportunity, contingency and legacy costs) inherent to various strategies, the need to carefully evaluate the heresthetic potential of different dimensions according to which amalgamations might be argued, and the importance of ensuring that the rhetorical seasoning is appropriate. This leads us to propose a heuristic that we argue has the potential to turn losers into winners on the vexed matter of local government amalgamations. We conclude by considering the implications of our heuristic for both prospective herestheticians in other public policy areas and for the wider heresthetic research agenda.

“…The SSS program sought to examine the operational efficiency and financial sustainability of the local councils in Queensland to assist the LGAQ in identifying those councils that were not sustainable or efficient compared to a range of indicators, and then to make recommendations on appropriate policy responses (De Souza et al. ).…”

Section: Queensland Amalgamation Processmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, only five were examined by the Boundaries Commissioner and just four councils were allowed to proceed with de‐amalgamation (Noosa, Douglas, Livingstone and Mareeba) (De Souza et al. ). Referenda were conducted for each of the four councils on 9 March 2013.…”

Section: Queensland Amalgamation Processmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do Municipal Mergers Improve Technical Efficiency? An Empirical Analysis of the 2008 Queensland Municipal Merger Program

McQuestin

Dollery³

2017

Aust J Public Adm

Municipal mergers remain an important instrument of local government policy in numerous countries, including Australia, despite some concerns surrounding its efficacy. We consider the claim that amalgamations enhance the technical efficiency of the merged entities by examining the 2008 Queensland compulsory consolidation program that reduced the number of local authorities from 157 to 73 councils. To test the claim, we conduct locally intertemporal data envelopment analysis over the period 2003-2013 inclusive. Our evidence suggests that (1) in the financial year preceding the mergers, there was no statistically significant difference in the typical efficiency scores of amalgamated and non-amalgamated councils and (2) 2 years following the mergers, the typical technical efficiency score of the amalgamated councils was well below the non-amalgamated cohort. We argue this may be attributed to increased spending on staffing expenses, although comparatively larger operational expenditure also served to diminish efficiency.