Origins and Development of Local Government Systems in Australia: An Overview

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of the origins and development of Australia’s different local government systems. It documents and compares key milestones in this development, including dates when Indigenous peoples were first dispossessed of their land by European settlers, the granting of the status as colonies independent from NSW, the introduction of representative and responsible government, and the introduction of permissive and comprehensive systems of incorporation. We draw upon an earlier generation of scholars, arguing that the history of local government in Australia can be viewed as the tension between “constitutionalist” and “State-interventionist” systems, and trace this tension through the development of the individual jurisdictions. We also argue that what we are portraying as “the history wars” in Australian local government studies reflects the central question of local government, namely: Is local government self-government, or is it a creature of state? Conceived of as such, our understanding of local government shifts from one grounded in administrative practice to one that views local government principally as a political institution.

Appendix 1

Notes for Table 2.1 Australia: Placing Colonial, State and Local Governments.

¹The settlement at Sorrento under Lieutenant George Collins in 1803 was abandoned in that year (see Turner 1973, pp. 24–76). The date for the ensuing settlement is marked as 1836/37 due to the fact that the colonial government in Sydney named Port Phillip District in 1836 (DEEWR 2013f) while the first Resident Magistrate was appointed 29 September 1837 (Quick and Garran 1995, p. 52).

²1841 marks the election of the Botany Road Trust on 28 January of that year under the Parish Road Trusts 1840 and as such pre-dates the Sydney Corporations Act 1841 (see Larcombe 1973, pp. 53–55; Power et al. 1981, p. 10).

³The first Corporation of Adelaide ceased to exist in 1843 but was restored in 1852 (Robbins 1981, p. 575).

⁴The First Sydney Corporation enacted in 1842 was replaced by the Second Sydney Corporation from 1850 to 1853, which was in turn replaced by the Sydney Commission in 1854. The Commission was abolished and elections successfully held for a new Sydney Corporation in 1857 (For a discussion, see Larcombe 1973, pp. 79–178, 1976, pp. 3–30).

⁵The first municipal incorporations in both Victoria and Queensland (Melbourne and Geelong in 1842 and Brisbane in 1859) were created under NSW legislation written specifically for these purposes (see Larcombe 1973, pp. 130–197). While these incorporations did not occur under the legislation of the later constituted colonies it is common practice in the literature to list these as the first municipal corporations in the geographic area, particularly as it denotes a degree of voluntarism by the citizenry and especially in the case of Melbourne and Geelong (see, for example, Larcombe 1973; Bowman 1981).

⁶1825 marks the first of four failed attempts to establish a permanent settlement in the area now within the jurisdiction of the Northern Territory (see Powell 1988, pp. 48–84). Following from other comparative accounts (see, for example, Aulich 1999 ; Marshall 2008), and in recognition of the fact that local government is constituted under Commonwealth law and was constituted far later than in the other jurisdictions, the history of local government in the Northern Territory is not separately discussed in this chapter. For concise accounts, see Michel (2015) and Sanders (1996, 2006).

⁷In Table 2.1 “consolidation” principally refers to the initial modernisation of the acts in the individual jurisdictions and the merging of two or more acts such that local governments generally (although not exclusively) fell under the one Act. The dates for these are primarily taken from Power et al. (1981, pp. 23–24). However, within the literature the term “consolidation” is also used to mark the introduction of broader stability in local government in that jurisdiction. For instance, Halligan and Wettenhall (1989, p. 79) mark “the passing of the last compendious, comprehensive Local Government Act in South Australia in 1917 and the establishment of the unified city of Greater Brisbane in 1925” as the consolidation of legislation in those jurisdictions and as such those dates have been included here. For his part, Tucker (1981, p. 382) argues that, following the recommendation of the 1896 Royal Commission, “under a unified local government code three classes of local authority need to be retained: cities, towns and shires” and that “[t]his basic structure was later included in the unified local government code (Local Government Authorities Act of 1902)” (emphasis added). As such this date has also been included. Bowman (1981, p. 243) argues that it was “[d]uring the last quarter of the nineteenth century [that] the local government system for Victoria was consolidated”.

The capital cities of Adelaide , Brisbane , Melbourne and Sydney and the regional Victorian city of Geelong were historically incorporated under their own acts and this remains the case (City of Adelaide Act 1998 (SA) (South Australian Government 1998); City of Brisbane Act 2010 (QLD) (Queensland Government 2010); City of Melbourne Act 2001 (Victoria) (Victorian Government 2001 ) City of Greater Geelong Act 1993 (Victoria) (Victorian Government 1993); City of Sydney Act 1988 (NSW) (NSW Government 1988 ). Hobart and Launceston were incorporated under one act, the Hobart Town and Launceston Municipal Corporations Act 1852 and later in the 1850s under separate acts (see Chapman 1981, p. 713). According to von Stieglitz (1958, p. 103) under the consolidation introduced by the Local Government Act 1906 (Tas) ‘the cities of Hobart and Launceston were left unchanged’. Presently both Hobart and Launceston fall under the Local Government Act 1993 (Tas) (see, for example, City of Hobart, n.d.). The City of Perth Act 2016 (Government of Western Australia 2016) received Royal Assent on 3 March 2016 with the new boundaries coming into effect 1 July 2016 (DLG&C [WA] 2016).

⁸The first incorporation in what is now the Northern Territory was the District of Palmerston in 1874 under South Australian legislation, the District Councils Act 1858 (SA ). Following from the Commonwealth accepting control of the Northern Territory in 1911, the District of Palmerston was replaced by the Darwin Town Council in 1915 (Museum of Australian Democracy, n.d.c). In 1935 the council resigned in protest at Commonwealth interference and the Commonwealth installed a mayor and four councillors in 1931. This council petitioned the Commonwealth to assume control of town and it did so in 1937, despite protests. In 1957 the Municipality of Darwin was incorporated under the Local Government Ordinance 1957 (NT) enacted by the Legislative Council in that year (Museum of Australian Democracy , n.d.c). As such, the three dates of 1874, 1915 and 1957 have all been included to mark the introduction of the first incorporations under South Australian and Commonwealth legislation.

⁹In Row 6 the three dates for the Northern Territory refer to the first incorporations under the District Councils Act 1858 (SA); legislation providing for the Darwin Town Council in 1915 and incorporations under the Local Government Ordinance 1957 (see Museum of Australian Democracy (n.d.c); Sanders (2006, p. 1)).

¹⁰In row 7 the three dates for Northern Territory refer to the introduction of permissive systems under the District Councils Act 1858 (SA); the Local Government Ordinance 1957 and the Local Government Act 2008 (NT).

¹¹Arguably, it was only with the introduction of the Local Government Act 2008 (NT) (see Northern Territory Government 2008a, b) that a compulsory and consolidated system of local government was introduced in that jurisdiction.