An Evaluation of Amalgamation and Financial Viability in Australian Local Government

Title
An Evaluation of Amalgamation and Financial Viability in Australian Local Government
Publication Date
2013
Author(s)
Dollery, Brian E
Grant, Bligh
Kortt, Michael A
Type of document
Journal Article
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
Southern Public Administration Education Foundation, Inc
Place of publication
United States of America
UNE publication id
une:14102
Abstract
Like numerous other local government systems in developed countries, Australian local government confronts daunting financial problems, perhaps most acutely evident in the emer-gence of a severe backlog in local infrastructure maintenance and renewal. Australian local government policy makers have relied to an unusual and extreme degree on compulsory coun-cil consolidation as the main policy instrument to tackle the financial crisis. This paper sets out the dimensions of the financial crisis and the attendant heavy reliance on forced amalgamation and then goes to consider the efficacy of compulsory council consolidation as a means of improving financial viability in Australian local government through the prism pro-vided by eight national and state-based public inquiries into financial sustainability in local government over the past decade. With one exception, these inquiries are skeptical of the abil-ity of forced amalgamation to improve local authority financial viability.
Link
Citation
Public Finance and Management, 13(3), p. 215-238
ISSN
1523-9721
Start page
215
End page
238

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