Council mergers good for growth

Council mergers good for growthNew polling from the Property Council has found widespread and consistent support for council mergers, with more than three quarters of the Tasmanian community supporting a government review.EMRS research commissioned by the Property Council has found 73 per cent of Tasmanians think 263 councillors and aldermen for a population of 510,000 people is “too many”, with 74 per cent agreeing that councils would save money if they merged.Sixty-nine per cent of people surveyed saw a need for council mergers in Tasmania, while 76 per cent agreed that the Tasmanian Government should conduct a review of council numbers. The Hodgman Government has previously ruled out forcing councils to amalgamate, but Hobart’s Lord Mayor Sue Hickey is on the record saying that council mergers in Tasmania were “inevitable”.”Brisbane has 27 aldermen for 1.5 million people, that is two aldermen less than we’ve got councils. We have about 280 aldermen and 29 councils and we’ve only got 0,000 people to look after,” Hickey told the ABC in March.Brian Wightman, the Property Council’s Tasmanian executive director, says the time for action is now.”Since 2010 there has been a continual increase in support for council reform in Tasmania and the figures continue to hold up,” Wightman explains. “The community wants it, the state government wants it and even many of the councils have expressed a desire for it to happen, so it is time for the state government to take action on the issue,” Wightman adds.According to Wightman, investors and developers in Tasmania are forced to play by 29 different sets of rules, making investment in the state “just about unworkable”. “If we want to create jobs and growth in Tasmania, we need to act and we need to see meaningful reform of local government in order to reduce costs and improve service delivery,” Wightman concludes.