This is the personal blog of Ian Ker, who was Councillor for the South Ward of the Town of Vincent from 1995 to 2009. I have been a resident of this area since 1985. This blog was originally conceived as a way of letting residents of Vincent know what I have been doing and sharing thoughts on important issues. I can now use it to sound off about things that concern me.

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Monday, February 17, 2014

If Local Governments Were Companies…

A company seeking to take over another company is required to give "security holders and directors" of the 'target' company "enough information to assess its [the takeover proposal's] merits" ('A Guide to Takeovers in Australia' by King & Wood Mallesons).

Contrast this with the lack of information in the Barnett/Simpson proposals for local government amalgamations. And it is not sufficient to claim that information has been provided to Councils (if indeed it has - which I doubt), as the Corporations Act requires that information be given to securityholders as well - the 'securityholders' of local governments are surely the ratepayers and electors.

So not only don't these proposals comply with the Local Government Act, they also don't comply with the requirements of analogous legislation in a similar area of governance.

Why are the requirements for takeovers relevant? you might ask. The answer is that Col Pot and Homer have deliberately framed all except the G7 as takeovers by one local government of all or parts of others in order to try to avoid the Dadour poll provision of the Local Government Act.

3 comments:

  1. but they are not companies.big difference
    if they were they would be accounable for their actions

    ReplyDelete
  2. True - they are not companies - but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be accountable for their actions.

    ReplyDelete