Government Should Lead By Example

Not my words, this time - but you've seen the arguments here before.

The Minister in supervising local governments, and to establish a standard of proper conduct, ought to perform his own functions under the LG Act not only properly, but in a manner that is exemplary.

By lodging the 12 proposals, apparently crafted to avoid multiple district abolitions in all except the western suburbs (where no amount of subtlety or ingenuity could avoid it), the question could be asked as to whether the Minister has performed his function properly.

Given the example the Minister’s conduct must provide to local governments as to proper performance of their functions, the Minister ought to have insisted that the proposals prepared for him were, on their face and by their effect, honest, forthright, fair and not calculated to abort a critically important democratic guarantee which the Parliament has embedded in the LG Act.

…for the Minister to initiate a change to local government boundaries affecting 27 of the 30 metropolitan local governments without ensuring in advance that the radical changes would be fully funded, would in ordinary circumstances be seen as very bad governance.