Page 925 - Week 03 - Thursday, 28 February 2013

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I would like to go back in time to where we were before Labor got into power in 2001 and wrecked the good work that had been done to establish a more powerful region. An article from Local Government Focus from 1998—it really is going back a while—entitled “Moving forward in regional cooperation and community planning” states:

In May 1996 sub-regional partners consisting of the ACT and NSW Governments, NSW councils of Yass, Yarrowlumla, Gunning, Queanbeyan and Cooma-Monaro, and the Commonwealth commenced a strategic planning project to develop a Framework for improved co-ordination of planning and provision of human services in the ACT and Sub-region .…

Kate Carnell, the ACT Chief Minister and Chair of the Forum, said that the Community Planning Framework will assist the Sub-regional Councils in developing their Social or Community Plans.

So Kate was doing this 16 years ago. Again from the Focus, but this is now in 1999:

Chief Minister, Kate Carnell, said that her Government is keen to promote the national capital in the context of the broader region. “We are committed to the sustainable development and management of the Australian Capital Region,” she said.

The Australian Capital Region (ACR) comprises the ACT and the surrounding 17 Councils.

And they are listed. It continues:

The ACT works closely with the Commonwealth and New South Wales Governments and the 17 local Councils to achieve sustainable development goals.

“It has been interesting to watch the change as the Councils and the ACT Government began working together,” Kate Carnell. “Initial apprehension has now been replaced by mutual trust, with the ACT seen as a regional leader.

Well, we can imagine what has happened to that trust over the intervening 12 years of the Labor government. It continues:

A key mechanism which enables government leaders in the Australian Capital Region (ACR) to meet regularly to consider issues involving the management and development of the region is the Regional Leaders Forum (RLF).

What happened to that? It continues:

Meeting three times per year, the Forum provides a means for exchanging ideas and facilitates common decision making in the areas of regional development, resource management and environmental management. Chaired by the ACT Chief Minister, the Forum comprises Mayors of the surrounding seventeen Councils.


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