Started to read this, but didn't get much further than "However, in recent years councils have more and more chosen to use their planning powers to ... impose their personal world view on the rest of us." I don't know about Victoria, but in NSW this is absolute drivel. Increasingly councils are beholden to State planning directives. Regional Environmental Plans (REPs), State Environmental Planning Policies (SEPPs), planning panels (stuffed with State-appointed yes-men), "calling in" of developments, declaring of tinpot developments to be "State significant" (and hence exempt from local approval processes), special development zones (like the Redfern-Waterloo Authority area), "planning reforms" like the NSW Housing Code (removing council development powers) etc etc.

This article has no substance and is just a handful of cherry-picked anecdotes strung together. It bears little relationship with the way political power is really wielded in NSW (and elsewhere I expect).

Richard, Nanny State left when the child of competition policy was still born and her position filled by Ms Logocracy.

Use of the expression "Nanny State" by writers and radio shock jocks is a sure sign that ignorance is on the way. Richard Allsop proves that he is no exception.
The Victorian Gambling Regulation laws specifically require councils to be involved with pokie regulation. All applications for new or additional pokies must be run past local councils who have a right to object. And the act goes further, effectively excluding members of the public from appealing blatantly wrong decisions of the gambling regulator unless the local council takes the initiative.
Furthermore, in 2006, prior to the last state election, the Victorian Government encouraged more local council participation. Local Town Planning Schemes were amended to take account of the banning of new pokie venues in shopping areas. Unfortunately, the pokie industry (particularly Woolworths - Australia's largest pokie operator with near 11,000 pokies) is trying to run around even that requirement by either hosting market days in their car parks or (as in Bright) building a Woolworths supermarket around an existing pokie pub.
So let's forgive Mr Allsop for his ignorance and hope that he does a better job when researching his PhD thesis.
Now to reality....
There is an absence of effective state action to deal with the enormous problem of the harm that pokies impose on Australia. Nothing is done by state governments to actively discourage pokie gambling. Rather than holding venues accountable for the harmful nature of their pokies, instead, gamblers are told to gamble 'responsibly'. Gambling Help services are under-resourced. The situation in Logan City where more pokies are being proposed by Woolworths in an already stressed region is a disgrace. While I have already blogged about my disagreement with the proposals of the Moreland and Casey (http://blog.pokieact.org/2009/06/local-governments-pokie-addiction.html) at least they are having a go at a solution.
Local government should be applauded for stepping in where the state governments appear to be more concerned about protecting their vast amounts of pokie taxes.

The Constitution of the Commonwealth says in S 77 (i) that the Parliament of the Commonwealth may make laws to define the jurisdiction of any federal court except the High Court. Menzies was annoyed about that and asked the High Court to define its own jurisdiction, something neither he nor the Parliament could do, so that it was no longer a Federal Supreme Court. This was the Order 58 rule 4 Subrule 3 of the High Court Rules 1952, and was the beginning of the nanny State.

This was not really a problem when it happened, because unless you lived in the now Roman Catholic State of South Australia every member of the Commonwealth, still had a fully functional democratic Supreme Court, and if a Council, or a State got out of line, they could be called to account in a grass roots political meeting, convened in answer to a writ of summons.

Gradually the noose around our necks was tightened, as New South Wales nationalized its Supreme Court, in 1970, and made it part of the Executive Government, Victoria in 1986, Queensland in 1991, and the last to go were Tasmania and Western Australia after 2000. The State through its Local Councils was now like a strangling fig tree in a position to kill democracy completely. At the same time they have strangled free enterprise, caused 100,000 homeless, given the banks free reign, and allowed the centre of Sydney to become the home of some of the biggest law firms in the world.

The Federal Court of Australia has never been much use, because it has always just been an extension of the Australian Government Solicitor, and a pretend court, called a Court, but never having been constituted since its inception with a civil jury. The Australian Government regards the Federal Court as an extension of Cabinet with good reason. It never has to face an election, and it never lets anyone else except a lawyer effectively participate in its processes. It now matters, that S 77 (i) Constitution has been abrogated, by those entrusted with its integrity

Richard, it seems to me you are labouring under the misaprehension that Local Government is not government at all. Rather you believe it used to be, or want it to "return" to simply being a service agency. Pick up the bin, fix the road, don't think, shut up.

Maybe you have only just woken up to the word "government" there. Council have the power to tax (ie to legally take funds off us in a form which may not equate to services delivered), to prosecute us (if narrow and often linked with State powers) and in some instances even to compulsorily acquire property. None of these powers are new. They also have the power to think - and as with other governments - to make dumb decisions.

I am incredulous that you have just noticed. Don't express surprise, get involved, local decision making is far more exciting than that controlled by sterile party politics at State and national level. It's raw, makes a difference, warts and all - people trying to do good things in communities. Great stuff.

And Cheryl - I'm looking out my office window in Adelaide at all the development the economy will handle and at one of the most liveable cities in the world - and I can't see one bit of tumbleweed. Don't mistake developer whinging that they can't bend the rules to make $1 more profit for facts!