There is one major difference between JWH and Peter Beattie. Overt the past few weeks Howard's behaviour has become increasingly irrational. First he accuses Bracks and Beattie of plotting against him with the connivance of Kevin Rudd, then he begins to behave in an
increasingly megalomaniacally fashion, trying to take over every arm of Government, local and state. The man is becoming increasingly dangerous because he's obviously losing his marbles.

Good article James. I pretty much agree with all that you have written.

So, are there any current or recent state or federal governments that you can support, or are they are they all similarly flawed, just to differing extents? Have any of these governments achieved good things without a heavy-handed approach? Or in the absence of heavy-handedness can they be deemed to be weak-willed and thus just as culpable regarding issues such as maximised mining exports, manic human expansion and various others that you and I agree are gravely bad aspects of our political philosophy?

Can any government significantly move in the direction that it thinks it should without undertaking strong moves that are against the wishes of the majority?

Would you complain about a similar style of governance if Beatty, Howard or whoever were to strongly move away from maximised coal exports, the facilitation of rampant population growth, privatisation, etc, and towards genuine sustainability?

Don't you think very strong quite dictatorial governance would be necessary in order to direct our society towards sustainability within the timeframe necessary to avoid economic and social disaster?

Is it the political direction that is really the problem rather than the methodology?

Times are changing and the day of the small council run by a few local interests (usually vested interests) are over.

Even after Peter Beattie's amalgamations there will be small councils where there is one councillor to 500 people. However to take the case of Brisbane, a major metropolitan city with all of the complexities that go with that, there is one councillor to 20,000 people.

On the face of it, who can see any reason why some citizens should have to support (or demand) a ratio of 1:500 councillor to rate payers when others do well enough with a ratio of 1:20,000? Do sheep vote to make up the numbers?

Yes, Peter Beattie is trying his hardest to get change, but the real story is attempted government by media outlets.

Media outlets are into sensationalism in total disregard of their role to inform and be independent. The role of some of the media outlets in this is just as counterproductive (and reprehensible) as during the debate about Toowoomba's water, where shock jocks, certain papers and commercial TV kept referring to the recycling of sewage, not water. Ethics come a distant last where profits are concerned.

The shock jocks and nay-sayers have their day and later the ill-informed taxpayers pay for lost opportunities.

You little ripper James! You have just hit a six for Australia, off the bowling of John Howard, bowling with the new ball from the southern end of the Gabber.

You are providing proof of intent on the part of the Federal government to hold a referendum concurrently with the upcoming Federal elections no matter what. No matter that at this time it appears that such a referendum may be held for only certain Queensland local government areas, the intention is clear: hold a referendum, a referendum on anything, at any cost!

Don't you know it, you are confirming, through the exposure of this opportunistic and gratuitous foray into what is a State matter, everything said in relation to the "Method in the Proposed Referendum Madness" set out in several posts in the "Vote against four year Federal Parliamentary terms" thread at: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=881 in the General Discussion area of the forum.

Its all just 'good cop, bad cop' stuff.

The "Dictatorial Conduct" of Peter Beattie is nothing more nor less than being provocative such that those who want a referendum, any referendum, with the next elections can convince government backbenchers that they are on a winner with John Howard's proposal. The electors of Australia decisively rejected the idea of elevating local government by according it formal recognition in its own right under the Constitution in a referendum held in 1988, rejected it in every State with the record lowest "Yes" vote in the history of Federation. Now we all see Peter Beattie be first deliberately dictatorial to help put this issue on the agenda again, then pull his head in promptly to make John Howard appear as if he is on a winner with his half-baked Federally resourced "referendum" proposal. Bad cop, Good cop!

Why do unidentified interests want a referendum, any referendum, with the Federal elections? Could it be to effectively negate the much touted recent changes to the Electoral Act, changes that were intended to reduce the scope for fraudulent or manipulative activities to influence electoral outcomes?

Local government is for the most part inept, riddled with corruption, and run by self important conservative wanna be politicians.

Beattie is as right as Kennett was - local government is in the constitution, it is established by acts of State Parliaments who have always overseen the operations of local councils.

Do people care ? Even in a push poll people gave mixed responses to the questions, and online polls are for the click happy hacks with nothing better to do.

I believe the first poll so far (and the likely reason Beattie has stopped opposing) showed the real picture - 75% of people didn't vote.

James, This is a ridiculous situation. Howard intervenes in a local government issue for one reason only. Not to defend democracy as he has both failed to do that previously (Kennett for one case) and he has done exactly what Beattie has done. Many times. One example is the terrorism law that punishes anyone who tells anyone that they were or are being interrogated as a suspected terrorist. And family are equally liable to such punishment. Yet Haneef is run by Howard through the media. I see no difference between that law and Beattie's. Both insane.

He keeps legislation secret from the public and the Opposition until the day he wants it pushed through. Squashing any debate on these issues. You name it Howard has done it or is about to as he grows increasingly more desperate.

If you think about it you have to ask is Beattie acting undemocratically on the council issue. He held a 2 year period aside for councils to act on their initiative. Of the 150+ councils only 4 acted. So he did. But he did have a supposedly independent group make decisions on the issues. Agrument about independence but still it was considered by a separate group to government.

So once Howard intervenes Beattie reacts badly and creates foul laws. He hasn't acted on them, and won't now. That legislation will disappear in March as it has a sunset clause.

Howard of course had and has no interest at all in what the people in these councils think or say. the amalgamations are already law. In fact the actions by Beattie except those draconian punishments were normal. To suggest there be a referendum on a matter decided by a democratically elected State government to me is undemocratic.

Ludwig asks what government we can support. To me, none of the current ones and none being proposed by any Oppositions of Labor or Coalition branding.

Until we can change MP's loyalty from Party to electoratethat so thet MP's answer directly to their electorates we do not have democracy at all. We have oligarchy.

Ludwig, you ask "Would you complain about a similar style of governance if Beatty, Howard or whoever were to strongly move away from maximised coal exports, the facilitation of rampant population growth, privatisation, etc, and towards genuine sustainability?"

Firstly, giving more dictatorial powers to the likes of Beattie and Howard would only make our environmental situation worse, and not better.

Occasionally dictatorial heavyhanded governments get it right whilst popular will gets it wrong. Examples include the Trujillo the dictator of the Dominican Republic and his successor Belaguer who acted dictatorially, and often brutally, to protect the forest in their country (see chapter 11 of Jared Diamond's "Collapse") and the Chinese govenment's urgently necessary "One Child" policy. However, far more often it is the other way round, and I would rather put my trust in democracy than in a dicatator who may or may not be enlightened.

---

I see unfounded comments which assert that 'reform' is automatically necessary without any reference to the current facts. In regard to Kennett's dictatorial forced amalgamations back in 1994, a resident of the abolished Grenville Shire would beg to differ. She wrote on 31 July (http://candobetter.org/node/119):

"When we were under the Grenville Shire, very ordinary citizens ran it in unison with their fellow residents. Things got done and rates were kept very low despite the fact that Grenville had it's own road maintenance crew and machinery. Since we've fallen under the banner of the Golden Plains Shire, we've had a reduction in some services and unwanted town projects thrust upon us by a shire well out of touch with residents desires.

"Big money has entered the Golden Plains Shire and the untouchable attitude that goes with the money. People in smaller communities no longer have the power to decide what's best for them. Instead, the shire forces major changes which in the end can only benefit land developers and the shire coffers as rates rise to meet the demands of these changes."

For some more factual information, please refer to http://candobetter.org/NoForcedAmalgamations and other places.

James Sinnamon (author)

A poll of 1000 people in Queensland can have little relevance to the question of whether the people of a locality want to retain their local government. The outcome of such a poll will be dominated by the disengaged and dilute city-based vote. Opinions of voters in the big cities are disconnected from local shared experience. Those voters have few opinion-sources outside the barrage of government and commercial propaganda, mostly about growth, dollars, and 'efficiency of scale'. City populations have a high turnover and fragmentation at all levels - family, business, neighbourhood- with diminishing solidarity or knowledge of local conditions.

It is easy, with constant upheaval, transience and land transactions in city localities, to lose control over one's local environment and government. The new neighbours have no memory of what was destroyed by the development they buy into, they are probably of a different social class, and the seriously mortgaged have little time to deal with issues of local governance. The city is increasingly homogenised, anonymous, and commodified.

In contrast some coastal villages remain - such as Rainbow Beach - where residents retain awareness that putting the brakes on growth is not only sustainable and retains delightful natural ammenity, but it actually makes their property values far higher than in the areas that sold out for growth.

In small populations with local governments you can look your representatives in the eye and they have to face you over the consequences of their actions.

Naturally the unelected developers who govern us want to dilute the power such communities may still wield over their own fate.

Big population and big government are a way of diminishing accountability and streamlining the commercialising of everything for a client state where caveat emptor should be the watchword.

westernred raises an important point with the mention of the claim that 75% of people did not vote. That ought to ring a warning bell. Why should not there now be a question as to whether, IN REALITY, there are not routinely far more than the mere 5% or so of electors officially recorded as failing to vote in State or Federal elections?

There is generally much more at stake at State and Federal levels of government, such that there may be greater motivation to both exploit such an opportunity AND HIDE THAT FACT. In this context I would commend a careful consideration of this post: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=252#4596 of last November, Graham Y's response to it, and my second post just a little further down the thread.

westernred states "local government is in the constitution". If s/he means by that the Commonwealth Constitution, then that is dead wrong. It isn't, and a very clear majority of Australians in 1988 said they wanted it to stay that way. The text of that proposal, the Constitution Alteration (Local Government) 1988, can be viewed here: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=884#16233

The point is, that with local government not accorded recognition within the Constitution, John Howard has no business whatsoever proposing AEC-run 'referenda' on local government amalgamations in conjunction with the upcoming Federal elections in Queensland or anywhere else. Indeed, between them, the Governor-General and Governor of Queensland should take whatsoever steps are necessary to ensure that such does not happen. It is most certainly against the spirit, if not the letter, of electoral law, for any State related election to be held on the same day as a Federal general election.

The proper course would be, if he really wants to run the gamut of the electors, for John Howard to get a Bill for a referendum passed in the Parliament and resubmit the 1988 proposal to the people. You know, the one rejected with the record lowest "Yes" vote in the history of Federation.

Forrest Gump casts doubt on the validity of local government as a democratic structure and process by pointing out that it is not specifically guaranteed in the Australian constitution.

Neither is the family, is it? Does that mean that naturally evolved human structures now need formal recognition in order to form a base for local action?

As Durkheim predicted, we live in an increasingly contractual society where voices and functions which once belonged to all are compartmentalised and professionalised. The roles of most citizens in self-government have been infantilised. Dilute and remote Federal and State governments act like distant parents running a separate commercial business whilst the rest of us citizens are confined in a social pre-school, awaiting admission to a legendary final exam whereby we might matriculate to real citizenship.

Like the creatures in Orwell's Animal Farm, many have lost contact with the notion that they have eyes and ears and voices too, and once owned bits of the farm itself.

The Mr Beatties, Iemmas, Sartors, Brackses …and other members of unrepresentative big government have decided to try to keep us all in prep-school forever (and paying huge fees) while the proceeds go to high-caste corporate termites bent on reducing civilisation down to a single streamlined factory.

Doomed never to grow beyond the grub stage, our role to meekly digest the surface of the earth, including all the other creatures, and to excrete vast infrastructures housing a permanently immature caste, confined from birth to believe that their only role is to procreate, construct and consume infrastructure.

At http://www.abc.net.au/stateline/nsw/content/2006/s2008528.htm FRANK SARTOR, NSW Minister for planning elevates pompous religious poohbahs above the electorate: “You have to have some simple threshold criteria that give you a yes or a no, heaven or hell, no limbo, no purgatory. George Pell agrees with this. You must take notice. And the Pope has endorsed it, George tells me. I can't go any higher than that.”

Local government is our last chance to retain some control over our lives. We should be exerting much more power at local level, not less.

Forrest Gump,

At the moment I an inclined to strongly support Howard's plans, also supported by Federal Labor, to hold referenda on the same day as the next Federal election, not withstanding Howard's double standards and his clearly cynical motives.

If this were to help Howard to get re-elected, it would be most unfortunate for the whole country, most of all that very large minority of people the welfare of whom Howard makes little pretence of having any regard for - essentially lowed-skilled workers, people who don't own their own home and welfare recipients. Once again, they will be made to pay the terrible cost for actions over which they have had little control.

It would also be unfortunate even for many those who now look to Howard to save them from the tyranny of the Queensland Beattie regime, for reasons I have alluded to before.

However, instead of trying to run away from these referenda, I believe that progressive democratic-minded people should, instead, embrace the referenda, and strongly advocate participation in them and demand that the Beattie regime respect their outcomes. I believe that is the best way for whatever potential harmful side effects which may ensue from those referenda to be minimised.

Whatever constitutional arguments can be made against holding these referenda, the overriding most important issue is that they will give many Queensland residents a very rare say in a matter which will greatly affects their lives.

---

I can see that various polls and statistics are being misused to illogically bolster Beattie's flimsy case in favour of amalgamations. The AC Nielsen poll of 1,000 the results of which were released last weekend is one example. It purportedly showed that a strong majority of Queenslanders supported council amalgamations. Even if that is true, it is likely to have been the result of misreporting by city newspapers such as the Courier Mail (which is strongly both pro-Howard and pro-amalgamation).

It is likely that a poll of the remaining rump of Yugoslavia would have supported Milosevic's repression ethnic Kosovars in the late 1990's. Would that have made it right?

My apologies I missed a "not", I meant to say local government is not in the constitution, and as one contributor notes was voted down in 1988.

My point is Beattie is acting democratically , he has followed proper procedure by bringing a bill to State Parliament. The fact that predominately conservative-minded local pollies who run councils don't like it is just political theatre for the Federal campaign.

If people don't like that then they can run against Beattie at the next State election.

James, interesting that you choose to comment on your own article but using a nom de plume, Daggett.

Please explain.

RobbyH,

Could you please explain what is wrong with authors reponding to comments made by others about their own articles?

James has no need to explain. He has quite clearly identified himself as the author if you look at his first comment.
Susan Prior - editor

Clearly I have utterly failed to get my point across.

Its all, and only, about electoral mechanics.

The very real issue of dictatorial conduct in suppression of local government, and consequent degradation of local representation, is utterly irrelevant. It is, no matter how reprehensible, nothing but a diversion. The objective of both Howard AND Beattie has been the creation of an excuse for the holding of what will have the appearance of being a referendum concurrently with the upcoming Federal elections.

Many identify the sort of governance Australia is experiencing at State and Federal levels as that of an oligarchy. Well, that oligarchy may well have got effective control of the ballot box itself! Indeed, that oligarchy may have covertly exercised effective control over the ballot box for over a quarter of a century. If that is true, then no amount of arguing the pros and cons of any particular issue will get you out of the woods. A different strategy is required.

There is a very real prospect that serious deficiencies in the capabilities of the AEC to close the electoral rolls in accordance with recent changes to electoral law are about to be uncovered. If such are uncovered, there is a risk (for the oligarchy) that searching inquiry into the structure and operations of that institution will be unavoidable. I believe that that institution, as presently structured, is the key to the maintainance of what many see as oligarchic control of Australian government and public policy.

Never mind the passage, just the holding of a referendum concurrently with the Federal elections offers the prospect of being able to conceal this likely defect in AEC capability from people and Parliament. This concealment is rendered possible if resort can be had to the loopholes in electoral legislation revealed in "The Method in the Referendum Madness" posts on this thread: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=881 . If resort to those loopholes can be orchestrated, the AEC may be able to take as many as six working days to effect a roll closure, negating the intent of electoral legislation.

Forrest Gump,

I have to admit, I don't follow your argument, even though I have read all the material you have provided links to. I do understand that closing off the electoral rolls so quickly after the announcement of the date of the election will almost certainly be to the advantage of the Government. The fact that the AEC may be able to take up to six days to close the electoral rolls may reduce that advantage to some extent.

I don't see why it follows from any of that that it would be bad for these referenda to be held on the same day as the federal election. Would you be able to explain it again, or could someone else who has understood your argument, try?

---

Westernred wrote: "If people don't like that then they can run against Beattie at the next State election."

This is a one-size-fits-all argument that is invariably trotted out when autocratic governments make decisions which harm those in whose interests they are supposedly governing. Those who advance this non-argument usually understand perfectly well that, because of the way our system is manipulated, Governments are unlikely to be held to account for many of their action at ensuing elections.

Look at how the 2004 elections were reported by the newspapers. Everything, but John Howard's supposed brilliant management of the economy was ignored in the last days of the election. His grossly immoral conduct in helping to start the war in Iraq was not raised. Telstra privatisation was barely mentioned even though, or more likely, because it was opposed by the overwhelming majority of electors. Very often, the opposition will refuse to put to electors the choice of repeal of the Governments legislation.

Beazley did not commit Labor to the repeal of the unpopular GST and I expect, in Queensland, the Nationals, who serve the same property developers and land speculators that Beattie serves, are unlikely either to firmly commit themselves to de-amalgamations should they win.

So I trust that those fighting amalgamations will have the good sense to continue that fight now.

James Sinnamon

What pegasus (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6261#90902) writes is typical of how people who should be on the same side have become needlessly polarised against each other. I have read similar letters every day in the Courier Mail.

If you are against John Howard it seems to necessarily follow that you must be in favour of the effective abolition of local government for many Queenslanders.

On the other hand, if you oppose amalgamations, it necessarily follows that you must support Howard and vote against Federal Labor, even though the latter has stated its opposition to forced amalgamations from the outset (of course, not as strenuously as I would have preferred) and the former has shown, at best, indifference to forced amalgamations in other states.

My point about the polices which Beattie has in common with Howard and the notorious propensity of state Labor governments, for cynical Machiavellian purposes, to undermine the election prospects of their Federal counterparts, appears to have been lost.

The apparent public brawl between Beattie and Howard may not be all that it appears to be.

---

pegasus, you are clearly not familiar with the adage that a government will never set up an inquiry without knowing in advance what its outcome will be. If there was ever such an 'inquiry', this was one.

If you don't believe me then I suggest you read Professor Brian Dollery's article "Counting the cost of mergers" of 31 July at http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22159935-27197,00.html and http://candobetter.org/node/120.

Much relevant evidence, including evidence about the failure of forced amalgamations to solve the financial problems of local governments in other states, was ignored and no attempts to either quantify the cost of amalgamations or to evaluate the costs of alternatives to amalgamations were made.

---

westernred, (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6261#90899), It may be true that the majority of Australians tend not to actively participate in politics. Even so, those actively in favour of forced amalgamations would be vastly fewer than those actively opposed to it.

If we were to follow your argument to its logical end, we would not have stopped the Vietnam War or the damming of the Franklin River.

James Sinnamon

Daggett/Sinnamon Thursday, 23 August 2007 9:05:33 AM reminds us how elections no longer give voters a chance to canvas important issues. And neither do the newspapers and television.

It is even worse than that. Day by day more and more vital issues are being taken right off the public agenda and privatised as if they had nothing to do with the rest of us in the client-state.

Policy and practice in population growth and development which affect us all in every way and are primary concerns of democratic government are being quietly taken off the agenda in every state in a manner which seems orchestrated.

Issues which are of vital concern to the commons are being removed to distant State Governments quasi-run by professional developers who behave like feudal kings and queens. They have neither empathy nor conscience of duty towards the rest of us who wish to preserve what we have, incidentally stopping them becoming even more obscenely rich.

These State Government poohbahs want to create planning bodies with existences outside state or federal government, manned by commercial apparatchiks who do the bidding of the developers because there is no independent work left in the construction and development industries.

As Quentin Dempster said at http://www.abc.net.au/stateline/nsw/content/2006/s2008528.htm "New ideas in planning or new ways to fast track development? After a day locked in with the politicians and the planners Stateline reckons it is the later. Will anything stop Frank Sartor's steam roller?"

The Beattie/Howard show regarding amalgamations will have the effect and is almost certainly designed to keep the status quo in power (never mind the label) and preserve State Labor's private/public partnership with professional land speculators and their banking, mining, and forestry buddies, in the creation of a land where the pinnacle of achievement will be the shopping mall.

For this reason, as Sinnamon says, we must be alive to the trickery here and and .... Gosh, what was it that Sinnamon was suggesting should be done to stop Howard and Beattie tightening the noose around democracy and choking it to death?

"Forrest, your mission, should you accept it, is to explain, in the remaining 281 words, that Australian elections State and Federal may be routinely subject to massive unlawful manipulation. You shall then have to explain how such manipulation has resulted in policy and alternative policy that is, in terms of nett effect, effectively the same across the political spectrum. Should you make the slightest mis-statement in so doing, ........."

daggett, I think the last paragraph of Kanga's post says it all. Without any criticism as to your views on this dictatorial conduct, I am merely trying to suggest that your talents may be better employed in a different and more immediately urgent battle. Whether they personally understand why or not, a referendum, any referendum, is what Howard and Beattie both want, and 'the oligarchy', as represented by the so-called independent umpire, the Australian Electoral Commission, needs. Just don't help any of them get one in this context: you will only be playing into their hands.

In saying "closing off the electoral rolls so quickly after the announcement of the date of the election will almost certainly be to the advantage of the Government.", you are just parroting an electoral myth. A central thesis of that submission 161 which you indicate you have read, is that the surge in nett enrolment numbers that was CLAIMED to have occurred in the week's grace after the calling of the 1987 Federal elections looks like it was already in the enrolment accountancy BEFORE that election was called. Whatever the cause was of that phenomenon, it clearly was not one resulting from the actions of hundreds of thousands of electors reacting to an announcement of an election and updating their enrolment particulars. Curiously, that anomalous timing of a surge was accompanied by an enrolment accountancy discrepancy of around 200,000 enrolments on that 1987 occasion.

Such surges are a feature around roll close time under the centralized computerized roll managment system put in place in 1984.

Perhaps this post may help: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6267#91291

Merging "green" Councils like Noosa and Port Douglas is not a smart thing to do - these Councils are leading Queensland on sustainability - doing a much better job than the State.

I think we need to have more local elected representatives - more local Councillors per person. Currently a local Councillor in Brisbane Council represents sometimes 10 suburbs.

Within each Council ward there should also be Citizen Committees that get to take a vote on decisions on funding, development and policy in their local area. Obviously the Councillor's vote would count for more than a citizen member of the committee, but there needs to be more real communty decision making.

Is there any way that local government boundaries and administration etc. could be altered to encourage population decentralisation away from Brisbane?

For example, perhaps the State or Office of Urban Management should be setting limits on the number of residential developments (X bedrooms per year) and commercial/industrial developments (X sqm of floor space) to cap residential growth in Brisbane and encourage employment and residential growth in certain decentralisation "zones".

Tristan,

What is wrong with Brisbane simply capping its building permits (which is the same as limiting population numbers) and doing the same for the hinterland?

Queensland has already pushed its demand on the environment far beyond safe limits. There can be no sane argument for expansion so why give any time to the developer fall-back of 'decentralisation'? All that ever means is getting a foothold on some resort or farmland area which later will be used to spearhead intensification, to the financial benefit of speculative landholders and future corporate owners of water and energy resources.

Australian government gives every sign of having departed from the real interests of the majority and of having morphed into a malignant form which apparently intends to have sway over those who are still in a capacity to resist both Liberal's and Labor's nutty and dangerous pursuit of material excess on pseudo-economics bases which would not fool most children or dogs.

Only the Milgram experiments of the 1970s go some way to explain the strange paralysis of critical thinking in otherwise intelligent humans when it comes to evaluating and resisting State and Federal government madness and superficially 'caring' totalitarianism. The Milgram experiments, as you would be aware, showed how around 50% of humans simply cannot bring themselves to doubt anointed authority sufficiently to save themselves and their peers from obvious danger.

Noosa is NOT a "green" council, it pumps sewage into rivers, does no meaningful recycling and has high rise all along its main beach.

Thanks for all the interesting posts. I can't respond as fully as I would like to right now.

You may have a point, Forrest Gump.

As a “CONSTITUTIONALIST” is John Howard’s grandstanding to pay for a referendum in a State for which there is no constitutional powers. Neither for us all having to pay for what is an internal Queensland matter.
To me, John Howard’s grandstanding about the people have a right to vote isn’t shown where he announces that after all he is not going to have people voting if they do or don’t like to have a nuclear station in their backyard, so to say.
During the Constitution Convention Debates the Framers of the Constitution referred to “centralised government” being the “Federal Government” and “local government” being “State Government”, albeit on the last day of the Convention there was also a reference to “municipal councils” being “local government”.
The Constitution provides for a 2-tier government, being State and Federal Government. How the State conduct their own affairs, such as having another level of Government now generally referred to being the (State legislated) local governments should have nothing to do with the Federal Government.
As my blog at http://au.360.yahoo.com/profile-ijpxwMQ4dbXm0BMADq1lv8AYHknTV_QH makes clear we are conned with the ill-conceived 14-11-2006 WorkChoices judgment. We are conned with having to vote, despite that on 19-16-2006 I succeeded in Court proving there is no constitutional powers to force anyone to vote in Federal elections. Hence, people have to wake up to this rot and accept the following; PEOPLES POWER, reclaim our constitutional and other legal rights and hold judges and politicians accountable!

Tristan Peach has offered one good suggestion for overcoming the problems caused by large scale councils. Another might be to break up Brisbane City Council into smaller councils, but to have some inter-council cooperation which encompasses all of the region now governed by the Brisbane City Council. Yet another could be to have regional governments replace State Governments altogether, but within those regions have smaller local governments. Southe Eastr Queensland or possibly larger region which also comprises the Northern Rivers district of NSW is one possibility.

I think Brisbane provides many examples of how badly oversized local councils can govern. Again and again and again we have witnessed the large size of Brisbane having been manipulated to force local residents to accept environmentally damaging projects that they strongly oppose. The Brisbane City Council has been able to claim a mandate for having done so by claiming a majority of Brisbane residents comprising people in other areas not directly affected support given projects. An example includes the supposed 'consultation' about the Hale Street Bridge project (see http://www.stopthehalestreetbridge.com).

Whilst South Brisbane residents and teachers and students of State High school, and the parents of those students, strongly opposed the Hale Street Bridge, a lot of submissions which appeared to have been orchestrated by the vested interests who wanted to build the bridge were sent from outside the affected areas in 2006. The Labor 'opposition', which, in fact, comprises a majority on the Brisbane City Council and could have blocked the Hale Street Bridge, seized on this rigged consultation as an excuse to backslide away from its original half-hearted posturing against the bridge. Notwithstanding the rigged nature of the survey and the cowardice of the Labor Councillors, this, nevertheless illustrates Brisbane's problems of scale.

Prior to the Hale Street Bridge, the size of Brisbane was similarly used to impose the decision to build the North South Bypass Tunnel (see http://notunnels.org).

Mr Gerrit H Schorel-Hlavka,

I believe that we should not be so fixated on John Howard's motives for appearing to support democracy in Queensland even if it flies in the face of his stance over the earlier forced amalgamations in Victoria or, indeed, nearly all of his record in Government, as I have already noted.

Also, we should not be fixated on convoluted constitutional arguments about whether or not Howard's actions amount to interference in 'internal' Queensland affairs.

Beattie's enforced amalgamations remain an outrageous violation of the democratic rights of many ordinary Queenslanders. He has failed to provide a coherent logical case as to why they should occur. The only conceivable motive is to further take power out of the hands of local communities so that more decisions which favour property developers, land speculators and private tollway consortiums are made by larger councils over which local communities have little control.

Any Federal Government, whether Liberal or Labor, would be wholly correct in doing what Howard is now doing or, indeed, in going considerably further. That is why Kevin Rudd is correct to support John Howard on this question (even if he is wrong on many of his other points of agreement with John Howard such as the question of the Tasmanian pulp mill).

I also very much don't want to see John Howard win the coming Federal election, but simply opportunistically turning a blind eye to such dictatorial behaviour on the part of the supposedly 'Labor' and supposedly anti-Howard Queensland state Government is, at best, a very risky means to achieve this.

Daggett, anyone who is willing to ignore constitutional limitations and/or prohibitions is a fool. The Constitution is our ability to seek to control politicians from misusing powers. The moment you ignore this, merely because you have an interest in some issue then you have lost the plot.
Whatever a State Government may do wrong, if it is a State issue beyond the powers of the Commonwealth then no excuse in the world can justify an unconstitutional intervention.
In the courts, I have often encountered people to argue their rights and the hell with what is appropriately. If they are in breach of rules so what, as long as they can pursue their rights. But, then when the other party is in breach of the rules of the Court then suddenly they are singing a different song, so to say, as then they demand that their breach is not tolerated. Just that the breach by the other party has a more severe consequence!
Now, what this should make clear is that if you support a Federal Government to ignore constitutional limitations it might, so to say, bite you in the bum when the Federal Government were to, albeit unconstitutionally, lay claim on your water and charge you up to the hill!
No good then complaining about this or other constitutional limitations as you supported the breach of constitutional limitations in the first place.
I recall an incident some decades ago where I had been held by the court to have been in breach of the Rules. I did not complain but simply took it in my stride. Then a few months later the same occurred again, albeit now by the opposing party. Only they argued that the Court should ignore it as otherwise they would lose the entire case. The trail-judge, being the same as in the previous hearing, made clear he could not deviate from his previous decision where they had so much made an issue of it and now must suffer the consequences. The moral of the story is that at times accept something going against you as-in-the-long-run-it-might-end-up-in-your-best-interest!

Dear Mr Gerrit H Schorel-Hlavka,

Resepectfully, I fail to see how John Howard's legislation to over-ride Beattie's draconian anti-democratic legislation that would have seen councillors, who attempted to consult with their own communites over the effective abolition of their own local councils, face dismissal and fines, was in clear contravention of our national constitution.

An argument over this would consume bucketloads of ink, metaphorically speaking.

Why not, instead, just take a step back and look at the issue throught the broader and more easily understood principles of democratic rights?

For exactly whom do you believe Peter Beattie is acting? The plans to forcibly amalgamate local governments was not put to the Queensland electors in 2006.

According to former State MLA Cate Molloy, who was expelled from the Labor Party for opposing the Traveston Dam, the forced amalgations were planned in advance by the Property Council of Australia, who considered the Noosa Shire council an obstacle ot their plans to turn the sunshine coast into a wall of high-rise concrete buildings (see http://candobetter.org/node/169).

Since then he has made promises to a number of local govenments that they would not be abolished, only to have ignored those underatikings after the recommendations of his had-picked commission were handed down.

----

Beattie has completely failed since then to put to the public any logical coherent argument as to why the amalagamations are necessary. He hides behind the reccommendations of the Commission as if he did not know in advance what the recommendations would be.

He argues that larger councils automatically equate to greater efficiency, which flies in the face of the evidence from amalgamations in other states from recent years.

In any case, if that is true, then why not follow that argument to its logical end and have just one 'local' government running all of Queensland? Clearly at some point the efficiency of local government will actually decrease rather than increase as the size gets larger.

Neither Beattie nor the commission have presented any case as to why existing local Government sizes were not already large enough, if not too large.

My issue is not the argument if consolidation of councils may or may not be in the interest of local communities. The issue is that it is not an issue concerning the Federal Government. The Constitution was set up that the Commonwealth would mainly deal with federal issues and so also external issues and the states would deal with their own internal matters.
Howard is no more but playing politics and try to use anything for his own political gain and some time later may use this very ploy then to argue that if you accepted his interference with municipal councils then he also then “TAKES” the rights with anything else he wants to interfere with.

It may be deemed to be inappropriate what the Queensland Government may pursue but it does not mean that two wrongs can make it right, and unconstitutional conduct then can be allowed. The difficulty Queenslanders are facing is not a federal issue and should not be born either by tax payers of other States who themselves were forced to have council amalgamations. Like it or not it is an internal Queensland issue and should be addressed as such by Queenslanders themselves.