Address to the Local Government Grants Commission

KRISTY MCBAIN: It’s a real pleasure to be able to join you remotely today as you go about your work and I want to start by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the lands of which you’re meeting on and pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging.

I was actually in Tassie last week in Launceston and Devonport and attended the Local Government Association Annual Conference, so it’s a real shame that I can’t be there today, but as a former Councillor and Mayor, I can absolutely tell you I valued my time in that sector very much.

I really want to see councils front and centre of so many of the services, the projects and the programs that are being delivered and to make sure there’s a really clear path and role for councils in the work that both the State and Federal Government does, which helps to make the country fairer as we deliver services and infrastructure across the country.

I want to take this opportunity to thank you for the work that you do every year in helping us to deliver the financial assistance grants more equitably across our jurisdictions.

You obviously have a great deal of knowledge in the work that you’re doing and I know so many of you travel far and wide across your states and territories to speak directly with local councils about some of the issues they’re facing. This is so you can have changing criteria in mind, to make sure that distribution continues to be equitable.

Like so many Councillors and Mayors, I often wonder at the work that the Grants Commission does. I’m sure you are no stranger to hearing, “How come one council doesn’t get more money?” You all take that in your stride as you go about your travels, delivering the dollars right across the country.

I also want to acknowledge the work of your teams in assisting you do your role. For example, my Department does a hell of a lot of work for me and I greatly appreciate the work that goes on behind the scenes, to allow us to do our jobs in our respective roles.

As many of you know, bring forwards of Financial Assistance Grants has been a problem for a little while now. I have no doubt you’re hearing a lot about that as you go about your business. We’ve obviously sought some grant advice from the Commission about the impact that bring forwards have on local councils and the impact that it has on different jurisdictions as well.

We’ve heard loudly and clearly that it creates an uncertainty for councils, which they can’t rely on. The timing of things is critical to financial planning. We’ve also heard that those bring forwards bring with it significant administrative challenge as well. I have no doubt that they are words we’ll continue to hear.

You’ve asked us to consider the distribution of money in a way that increases equitable access across jurisdictions, in a way that gives you more flexibility under Financial Assistance Grants National Principles, making sure that the equalisation of those funds is done a little bit better.

You’ve also asked us to have a think about the cumulative impacts of bring forwards on councils and we know that that is significant at this point in time.

I don’t think I need to go through the objectives of the Financial Assistance Grants for you. You’re well aware of that in your everyday work, and I think we would all agree that the broad principles of the Financial Assistance Grants framework and legislation is exactly where we need it to be.

There are some changing paradigms and changing goalposts, over time, that probably weren’t anticipated back when that legislation was formed in 1974. The fact that councils are now front and centre in disaster response and recovery is becoming a big financial burden on so many councils across the country.

The roles that local councils are now fulfilling have significantly shifted since 1974. Councils at that point did not deliver a lot of services. We have some councils now involved in helping us to deliver the NDIS, or working in childcare and aged care across different parts of the country, which also impact the ability of those council areas to do some more of their core work.

There’s also been shifts in population, shifts in demographics. The way people live and work in our cities and our regions has dramatically changed over time. All of those things need to be taken into account when we’re talking about the allocation of funds across the board.

Capability and capacity of our local councils is a rapidly changing dynamic and we have, right across the country, workforce shortages hitting our councils.

A lot of those professional skills are hard to attract, outdoor workers are hard to attract and retain. I don’t think I go to a council who doesn’t talk to me about the importance of grader drivers, for example.

Over the last few years there’s been global disruption, which has impacted councils in a particular way as well. It’s important that even though the principles of financial assistance grants are sound, the way our councils work has changed significantly over time.

We should continue to strive for those principles though, and equitable access to funding from the Federal Government right across the country. We should continue to make sure that the work that you do delivers a sustainable and fair allocation of funds across the country.

It’s really important that we continue to work together and see where there are opportunities to align principles. I interestingly note from Minister Street, a little bit earlier, his comments around the desire for financially sustainable councils, considering they are delivering so much across the board. That becomes harder as we see those demographic shifts and population shifts. The reliance on grants now more than ever to run a range of programs and services, and to deliver the structure that perhaps wasn’t the same level back when Financial Assistance Grants first came into play in 1974.

We will continue to work with the Grants Commission to see how we can work together on what equitable looks like going forward. In our Local Government Ministers’ Meeting, which we have every quarter, we talk about some of the big issues right across the country. I think some of them would be familiar to you, such as financial sustainability. But something else that we’re looking at is how we can compare councils across the country, so that we are all using the same data.

Do we need to come up with a standardised version of asset management or asset maintenance? Do we need to make sure that auditing across the country is done in the same manner so that we can compare a council in New South Wales to a council in WA, for example?

Every Local Government Minister across the country is turning their mind to how we can work more collaboratively together, to make sure that we are measuring our local councils for the same reasons in the same metrics. It’s really important that we look at how we can standardise some things, so we are comparing apples with apples, when we’re looking at our councils from a rural, regional and metropolitan sense as well.

I also wanted to make sure that your voice is heard as part of the Local Government Ministers’ Meeting. At our last meeting in August, we spoke about the need to work more closely with the Grants Commissions across the country. We are obviously doing our work in government across the country, but it’s also important for us to understand what the Grants Commission is doing as well. It’s really important that our collaboration does work. At the end of the day, we’re all after the same outcomes.

I know that the next couple of days are going to be really important for you to come together, to talk about the things that are happening within your states and territories. There are going to be some clear alignments, but there obviously going to be some clear divergences as well, where we are seeing things play out differently in different jurisdictions. Over the next couple of days your conference is going to go through a range of different things.

You’ll be able to learn from each other because of the similarities that are happening in your jurisdictions. The interesting part is going to be when we see some clear divergences across the jurisdiction. I’m really looking forward to the collaboration that we can have together following the conclusion of this, working with our Local Government Ministers from across the country. It is a vital sector for the Federal Government and state governments to deliver services and infrastructure into every town and village across the country.

No matter where you live, you have a local council close and at your disposal. It’s really important that we empower those local leaders to put in place the priorities that they have for their own communities. We don’t want to see a top down approach to local councils. We want to empower them to be able to pursue the goals of their own communities. One of the clear ways that we can assist them doing that is through the equitable distribution of funds. Financial Assistance Grants obviously being the largest grant fund going to every council across the country.

We need to make sure that our councils have the capacity to deliver for their communities and spend those taxpayer dollars wisely in those communities, to the benefit of all community members.

You have a really difficult and challenging job, I am under no illusion about it. The finite amount of money being delivered to every corner of the country. Every council will have a different set of reasons for why they should be getting more than others, but thank you very much for the work that you do in defining those characteristics for the delivery of Financial Assistance Grants, and I look forward to continuing to work with you into the future.