Voluntary Regional Co-operation in Australia

Abstract

Municipal consolidation was a major feature of local government re form across both Canada and Australia during the 1990s. In Canada, Ontario, Quebec, and most of the Atlantic provinces imposed, or encouraged, the amalgamation of municipalities. Australia' s capitals escaped the mega-city mergers of Toronto, Quebec and Halifax, bur slate-wide amalgamation programs were equally as extensive. Over the five year period 1992 - 1997, Tasmania reduced the number of its local authorities from 46 to 29, South Australia from 118 to 72, and Victoria from 2 10 to 78. Queensland undertook a more modest exercise involving nine amalgamations. As Dollery and Crase (2004: 265) observe, the long dominant perception that 'bigger is better' in the structural re form of Australian local government had changed little . Indeed, it still continues , though with somewhat diminished force. In the course of 2004, New South Wales' 172 councils were forcibly cut back to 152.2.