Abstract
In an assessment of representative democracy in Australian local government, this paper considers long-run changes in forms of political representation, methods of vote counting, franchise arrangements, numbers of local government bodies and elected representatives, as well as the thorny question of constitutional recognition. This discussion is set against the background of ongoing tensions between the drive for economic efficiency and the maintenance of political legitimacy, along with more deep-seated divisions emerging from the legal relationship between local and state governments and the resultant problems inherent in local government autonomy versus state intervention.
Highlights
The question of representative democracy in Australian local government has been overshadowed by the debate over the major micro-economic and managerial reforms carried out during the 1990s (Kiss 2003)
The trend away from a property-based franchise and plural voting to one based on residency and one person-one vote has enhanced the representative legitimacy of local government
Shifts towards a proportional method of vote counting in whole-of-council elections have brought about greater representation of different community views
Summary
The question of representative democracy in Australian local government has been overshadowed by the debate over the major micro-economic and managerial reforms carried out during the 1990s (Kiss 2003). As Aulich indicates, attempts to realise economic efficiencies have in themselves hindered representative democracy, and if representative democracy remains the bedrock of political liberty, the autonomy of local government, and thereby the freedom of the community represented, appears under siege In addition to these contemporary Australian concerns, the ongoing question of whether local government should be fully self-governing or subject to the sovereignty of the state has haunted the political theory of local government since its inception. The new invention of grants-in-aid could contribute to municipal liberty insofar as they were given on a ‘block’ instead of a ‘specific’ basis In light of these historically-entwined perspectives on local government autonomy and state intervention, we turn our attention to a discussion of different forms of local representation and their close relation to different methods of vote counting. In a final section we consider the current lack of federal constitutional recognition of Australian local government and its implications for representative democracy
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