The Byron Shire is well known as a domestic and international tourist destination, with over two million annual visitors. Local residents and tourists alike place significant value on the unique character of the area and its lifestyle. The conundrum before Council is how to balance protection of that character with demands for more, and higher...Continue reading
Read the Citizens’ Jury’s Final Report here. In developing its 5-year costed plan, Yarra Valley Water must pair customer and community feedback with their own in-depth knowledge of their water and sewerage networks, and the challenges these services face. Pricing cannot simply be an expert task. Additionally, Yarra Valley Water is faced with the fact...Continue reading
Geelong Citizens’ Jury Final Report | Victorian Government Response to Citizens’ Jury Final Report In April 2016 the State Government acted on the recommendation of an independent Commission of Inquiry and dismissed the Greater Geelong City Council, and committed to consult the community about its local governance model before the next council election....
The Foundation exists with a goal of finding improvements to how we make trusted public decisions – democratic decisions – which represent the informed general will of the people. To do so, we seek to run practical projects in controversial areas of low public trust and where genuine public discourse is impossible as the topic...
The City of Greater Bendigo has a large urban area home to around 85% of the local government area’s population; in turn this is surrounded by an array of rural areas and small towns. In most circumstances this pattern generally leads to a sense that the centre “gets everything” at the expense of the outer areas. We had no...Continue reading
Like many local government areas in NSW and across the country, Eurobodalla Shire Council faces the challenge of having significant infrastructure to manage, maintain and renew as well as having an enormous breadth of services to deliver. Coupled with finite income sources; a geographically, socially and economically diverse community; and a level of existing community...Continue reading
As citizens and voters we all want and value infrastructure. Unfortunately, over the years this has led to the community looking at public decisions about major public investments with a weary cynicism: is this really the project we need, or is this simply a project to appeal to a marginal electorate? This perception is enough...Continue reading
Obesity policy and how to respond is a challenging area for governments around the world. The current situation leads to billions of dollars in care costs borne by the state and its citizens, but efforts to change this rarely survive the test of the daily headlines. Food is at once something we all understand, and...Continue reading
Balancing competing needs in a growing community Penrith City Council is a large, iconic council area and like many local government authorities in New South Wales, it is growing and changing rapidly. That change brings with it both opportunities and pressures on services and finite resources. With nearly $300m of future infrastructure needs already identified...Continue reading
Who Pays? Agreeing Fair Shares in Infrastructure Funding (South Eastern Drainage) Many government decisions fall into the category where all avenues of action are open to criticism from some interested party. This is especially the case where it is viewed that “the government should pay” – and more so when government has historically done so....Continue reading