Opening remarks

Federalism

Local government and federalism white paper: breaking the game open - Dr Bligh Grant, UTS: Centre for Local Government

Bio  Presentation

Any discussion of the future of local government in Australia's federation is bound to stir the assumption that the parameters of the debate will be set by what A.J. Brown (2008) ingeniously termed a 'set piece party-political battle'—i.e.: with Labor advocating the case for the third tier of Australia's democracy, while the conservative side of politics mans the barricades at the 'state's rights' (and anti-republican and anti-High Court) line. However, reflection suggests that the position the local government sector ought to take in this debate ought not to be that partisan and that on the contrary it might be counterproductive for this to be the case. This discussion critically examines the party-political assumption with respect to local government and regional governance in Australia, principally through the lenses of, first, the three attempts at constitutional recognition (Brown 2008; Grant and Dollery 2011) and second, what Kelly et al. (2009) coined as the 'three generations' of Post-WWII policy-making. It is argued that the central point of dispute is as much 'regional-local' as it is 'party political' as in fact it has been historically (Grant, et al., 2012). Further, in this particular exercise size does matter, not for the sake of 'economies of scope' or 'economies scale' but for reasons that understand that the relationship between geography and identity has necessarily altered over time. Finally, given the high probability that any reforms flowing from the White Paper will be incremental rather than radical the discussion re-examines the mechanism for the establishment of new states in the Constitution (Grant and Dollery 2009). Given this extant mechanism, perhaps the question Australian local government should be asking of itself is 'how much change do we really want'?

Planning future towns

Generating evidence

The Learning Community Framework and evaluating impact - Dr Shanti Wong

Bio  Presentation

The Learning as a Driver for Change research project (Wheeler & Wong, 2013), funded by the Australian Centre of Excellence for Local Government (ACELG) explores how learning partnerships between councils, their communities and learning organisations can help improve social outcomes, build community capability and strengthen community governance. The project includes the Learning Community Framework, a practical guide to establishing or developing your learning community. Building on the Learning as a Driver for Change project, an evaluation strategy is being developed for the Learning Community Framework, which can be adapted by practitioners in the field to measure impact. Our central research question for this strategy, Measuring the impact of learning communities, is: What are the approaches used to gather, analyse and disseminate evidence that demonstrate learning community programs are making an impact? Learning community practitioners within local government are required to evaluate their work, but are often time poor and are looking for guidance. Because learning communities work through partnerships, it becomes difficult to attribute particular outcomes to learning community activities. An evaluation toolkit, which incorporates new and existing evaluation tools for the lay practitioner and links to the Learning Community Framework is being developed as an additional resource. This session will comprise: 1. An introduction to Learning as a Driver for Change (also covering the latest international developments in building Learning Cities promoted by UNESCO at the PASCAL International Conference, Hong Kong in November 2013); and 2. A practical introduction to using the Learning Community Framework and the Evaluation Toolkit to assess the impact of your social interventions.

Response from an NT perspective - Dr Michelle Lucas, Desert Knowledge Australia [video link-up]

Bio 

Collective Impact provides a highly defined framework in establishing learning partnerships between communities, corporates, NGOs and the three tiers of government. The approach requires strong rigour and accountability, linked to a common agenda and neutral backbone facilitation. The response to the ‘Learning as a Driver for Change’ session will focus on the key elements of this Collective Impact work and the outcomes as they emerge in connected communities across Australia. A particular focus of the session will be on the transference of the learning communities’ models into remote Australia and the challenges, new thinking and opportunities that exist in this remote context.

Housing

Local government and housing, national trends and issues - Professor Andrew Beer, Director,  Centre for Housing, Urban and Regional Planning, The University of Adelaide

Bio  Presentation

This presentation considers the role of Australian local governments in shaping housing outcomes. It considers which are the most important housing issues for local governments, and how local governments can achieve the best outcomes for their communities. The paper notes that while local governments in this nation have a limited history of direct housing provision, they have long held an important role in the regulation of both ‘standard’ housing and less conventional forms of accommodation. Land use planning and development control are largely government responsibilities administered by local governments and are central to the housing supply and redevelopment process. At the same time, local governments are shaped by the housing system as housing represents both a significant source of rate revenue, and a substantial percentage of outlays. The paper considers how the priorities of local government with respect to housing are changing over time, how future policy agendas will be affected by broader political change, and the emerging research questions for the 21st Century.

The Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program, The good the bad and the ugly of policy implementation - Allan McGill, Former Chief Executive, Department of Local Government and Regions

Bio  Presentation

Governments, more often than not, have good intentions when it comes to the policies they develop but the challenge is to ensure those policy intentions are not diluted, high jacked or the outcomes minimized by internal or external influences, when being implemented. The Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program (SIHIP) was a great example of Government recognizing a problem and developing a policy and program to do something about that problem. It wasn't news that Aboriginal people lived in very poor housing and on almost any indicator were disadvantaged compared to other Australians. Housing, education, health and employment were all areas where Aboriginal people were well below the national measures. SIHIP was developed to upgrade housing and infrastructure, create employment and training, support local businesses in remote communities. There were, in fact , 8 objectives and , although all were well in tensioned , most of them competed with each other making it difficult to achieve the maximum benefits and outcomes. A relatively new form of contract was selected and that in itself created a level of opposition from within Governments. The alliance contracting model, or collaborative contracting, was the chosen form of contract and served to be the superior option as the program was rolled out. The conversion of this policy and program into outcomes was confronted with a range of factors that frustrated efficient delivery and can be seen as the bad and the ugly side of the program. The fact that so much was actually achieved in a short period of time ,despite the frustrations, is the GOOD story.

Cultural innovations

Building cultural competence in the local government workforce - Mike Harrison, Charles Darwin University

Bio 

Increasing and sustaining Indigenous participation in the workforce is seen as an important for business and government especially in the context of regions like Northern Australia, with a large and diverse Indigenous population. Progress in lifting Indigenous employment levels and developing Indigenous people to undertake more senior roles has been problematic. In this paper I argue that a more holistic approach is required. Most literature focusses on the barriers that Indigenous people face in obtaining and retaining employment. Approaches to developing culturally competent businesses and organisations with the capacity to sustain and grow Indigenous workforces are not well understood or researched. I argue that a new framework that brings together Cultural competency models and Workforce planning and development that are place based is required.

Sharing knowledges in cultural innovation in a central Australian context - Dr Edwina Marks, CEO, Barkly Regional Council

Bio 

Shared knowledges – Indigenous engagement in Central Australia local government is a distinct paradigm and, as the closest level of government to community, strives to have a workforce and leadership profile representative of its local makeup. This profile often reflects significant diversity, yet in the NT; local government is unique, owning a profile far closer to that of an Aboriginal corporation, than any other jurisdiction in Australia. In Central Australia the Barkly, Central Desert and MacDonnell Regional Councils all have a workforce in excess of 65% identifying as of Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander descent. In addition to this, the Aboriginal leadership profile (Councillors) is also clearly in the majority. Across much of regional NT people of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ethnicity are the leading influence in the voice of local government. Accordingly, this Territorian approach to cultural diversity and way in which shared knowledges interface is a good reference point for the engagement and leadership for all local government, especially those servicing highly diverse CALD profiles.

Research in local government – why do it? [Facilitated discussion]

This session will flesh out some of the key issues and opportunities for research in a local government context from a practitioner perspective.

• What is research in the local government context?
• Working and doing research
• Being a researcher:
  • Resources for research
    • Librarians
    • Peer networks
  • Publishing – Where? For whom?
    • Open access/Industry Associations
    • Predatory publishers
  • Doing research degrees? Benefits?
  • Going to conferences.

Life beyond the numbers: qualitative research methods for local government

This interactive session focuses on qualitative research and its importance in the context of social research in the local government context. Qualitative research will be presented here not as an adjunct to quantitative research and its reliance on ‘hard data’; instead, the qualitative approach can add richness and human complexity into many social research settings which quantitative research may ignore. Different methodologies commonly used in qualitative research will be discussed. Participants will also be encouraged to discuss and workshop examples of qualitative research topics based on their own experiences and interests. This session will be facilitated by Thomas Michel, and will draw upon his own cross-cultural ethnographic research in the Victoria Daly and Roper Gulf Shires in the Northern Territory.

Adding things up: quantitative data and local government research – This hands-on session will be facilitated by the ABS, and look at how best to use the ABS website to find regional data to inform plans and evaluations.