By MICHAEL SLOVANOS
A NSW government regulator has blocked an attempt by North Sydney Council to increase its rates by 87% over two years, forcing the council to cut $25 million from its budget for the coming financial year.
We’re not crying and neither are North Sydney ratepayers. Cairns News suggests every Australian council should be slashing their bloated layers of corporate bureaucracies, who squander ratepayer funds not only on their own corporate salaries but on things like multicultural festivals, environmental surveys, arts festivals, welcome to country ceremonies and diversity seminars.
These are the same councils that will come together at the 2025 National General Assembly of Local Government (NGA) in Canberra from June 24-27 to whinge and whine to the Federal Government that they haven’t got enough money to cover their “increased responsibilities”.
It’s the same problem across the Tasman in New Zealand, but probably worse, where former local councils have been amalgamated into larger district and city councils overseen by regional environmental councils.
Australian and New Zealand councils, like the the state and federal bureaucracies above them, are afflicted by corporatism i.e. layers of management overseen by CEOs on enormous private-sector-equivalent salaries starting at around half a million dollars.
At the state and federal levels of government, within the Senior Executive Service, the median salary is $506,528. However federal and state Band 3 SES officers, for instance departmental secretaries in 2022-23, earned a median salary of $858,279, according to The Mandarin newsletter.
Another Sydney council, Northern Beaches, which was pushing for a 40% rate rise, was found to have been spending $171 million on a staff of 1800 people including 111 managers, directors and executives earning a combined $25 million.
The management layers of local government bureaucracies are well “looked after”, as are mayors and councillors. A “change manager” (whatever that entails) at Brisbane City Council in 2023 earned $127,986 per annum, a “team leader” $99,397 p.a. and “regional co-ordinator” $101,162 p.a.
Brisbane City librarians, who come under the “social science” category, earned from $70,300 to $82,600 p.a. Those down the ranks are represented by the Australian Services Union, formerly the Australian Municipal, Administrative, Clerical and Services Union, which is currently harassing councils across Queensland over what they are calling “inadequate” wage rises.
They may have a case for those council workers at the bottom of the barrel, but the reality is that most employees in any government job in Australia, especially those in the higher ranks, are well looked after.
Councillors and mayors in Queensland do quite well too. The outback, rural and regional councillors earn $60-$78k and the city councillors rake in from $100k to $166k. Mayors earn from $119,400 (rural) to $279,300 (Gold Coast). We assume Brisbane’s Lord Mayor is higher than that.
Nationally, government bureaucracy is a bloated, self-serving monster, sucking the lifeblood out of the nation, that is, the real wealth created by our farmers, miners, manufacturers (what is left of them) and the businesses that service them.
Councils and other bureaucracies are notorious for licensing. You want to sell ice-creams from your van? Well you better go to your council and pay the “fees” to allow this to happen, in addition to your food vendor licence annual fee.
The Queensland State Government has eight pages of information on how your local council calculates fees to “allow” you to run a food business: The fee may be based on administrative costs of recording details of mobile food businesses into the state register; administrative costs associated with recording and issuing the licence; professional costs for assessing the application; professional costs for undertaking inspections; professional costs associated with investigating complaints; administrative costs in maintaining a register of licensed food businesses.
So you who want to do business selling food, the bureaucrats from Big Brother Council want a slice of your pie even before the ATO gets their slice of your hard-earned money.
The debt-ridden state of Victoria is a lesson in government largesse bankrupting a state. That state government is attempting to drain what lifeblood is left in rural communities with a monstrous so-called fire services levy increase of 189%.
The pampered hordes of what we used to call the public service, are insulated from all of this and we are seeing the nation devolve into a two-tiered society of haves and have-nots. We already see the lower end of the latter in the homeless tent communities springing up in city parks across the nation.
Meanwhile in Melbourne’s notorious Labor-Green dominated councils like Darebin, we see multiple millions of dollars being squandered on “arts” and/or “cultural festivals” by councils who think it is their role to provide culture to their communities.
Darebin’s FUSE program boasts: “In our program, you’ll find everything from large community-gathering celebrations to smaller, intimate new experiences, with all manner of artist-led, risk-taking creativity in between. FUSE moves in step with the times, our communities and the rhythm of the seasons to inspire, connect, inform, entertain, gratify and provoke.
“At FUSE, we believe that art is for everyone. That’s reflected in the bold and diverse programs that we offer. No matter who you are, you’ll find something to love: something that speaks to you, connects you with others, or transforms your worldview.”
This council, and no doubt others in the Melbourne metropolitan area, has a 44-page “Darebin Creative Cultural and Infrastructure Framework”. It contains gems such as the following: “Understanding the spatial distribution of creative industries can provide insights into the conditions that are required to make creative communities flourish. These conditions may be physical or non-physical. For example, a physical condition could be the provision of a space while a non-physical condition could be the provision of funding.”
This is typical of the bollocks and baloney being peddled by big councils and their bureaucracies that is literally costing ratepayers and state taxpayers millions of dollars. Since when has it been the role of a council to provide “artist-led, risk-taking creativity” or to “transform your worldview”?
