Just a bigger bureaucratic pyramid

MUCH has been said and written about local government problems. Bad management, councillor squabbling, money squandering, debt and high rates. Rates bills create food poverty for some as much as power bills. Some say these problems could be solved by amalgamation. No way is the only solution abolition, with really necessary services, for example roads, managed centrally and done by tender and contractors. Bigger does not stop squabbling. Glenorchy is bigger than Huon Valley which is the amalgamation of Cygnet, Esperance and Huon. Nor does it save money. Before amalgamation, the council rates on an average home at Esperance were about twice the federal minimum wage but they are now about six times that.

For many, away from a town centre, the road service is to scrape over a dirt road every year or so, with potholes filled in winter. If you live on a public road which the council doesn’t maintain or a state highway, you get nothing. Amalgamation would be a greater cost to rate- payers, a bigger bureaucratic pyramid with more directors, managers, co-ordinators and whatever fancy titles would be invented to keep all shiny bums in place. If 29 councils were amalgamated into one, does anyone believe 28 general managers would get the sack? Pigs might fly. Meanwhile, the average senior council bureaucrat gets more in add-ons to their basic wage than the yearly income of a ratepaying pensioner couple.