Reforming Remote Area Local Government in the Northern Territory: Lessons from Anmatjere?

Abstract

The Northern Territory Government is currently committed to a major reform of its local government system with the introduction of shires from July 2008. This is far from the first attempt to reform remote area local government in the Northern Territory. Indeed, from the introduction of community government in the early 1980s, the quest for reform has been constant. Since the late 1980s this quest has generally been cast in terms of the need to upscale and regionalize remote area local governments. In this seminar I want to look back at one past product of these local government reform efforts - the Anmatjere Community Government Council (ACGC) in central Australia north of Alice Springs established in 1993. I want to suggest that the experience of ACGC is instructive of the benefits of regionalization and what can be achieved. However I also want to argue that the experience of ACGC can help us see some costs and limits of local government regionalization. I will argue that, on balance, ACGC has been a successful instance of regionalizing remote area local government in the Northern Territory. However, this success also means that there is something a little ironic about ACGC being disbanded and disappearing into a much larger shire, as foreshadowed from July 2008 in the current reform proposals. Show more