The Tasmanian government has announced plans to “reform” Tasmanian local government by slashing the number of councillors across the state. The government has put up a discussion paper on the topic, but in short it would reduce the number of elected officials on councils to five, seven or nine members. Across the state, this would remove almost 23% of all councillor positions.
This has been presented as a plan that will provide “efficiencies”, and deals with a supposed problem with Tasmania having a high number of politicians per capita. It would allow for a significant increase in pay for councillors (which is a good thing), but I think they are heading down the wrong track.
Councils play an important role in democratic accountability, and that role can’t be performed if the size of the council becomes too small. That job still needs to be done, whether the council has a population of 10,000 or 100,000.
There are structural reasons why you would expect a small state like Tasmania to have more councillors per capita than a larger state, but if it is a problem, it makes far more sense to deal with it by amalgamating small councils, rather than shrinking the council chamber to a point where it can’t do its job.
Reporting on the government’s proposal focuses on one particular statistic: the number of councillors per head of population. Only the Northern Territory has fewer residents per councillor.
I think this is the wrong number to look at. Tasmania has a small population, and more of the state lives outside of the bigger cities of Hobart and Launceston.
While it is common for more populous councils to have more councillors, the average population per councillor is usually much higher in big urban councils. Council amalgamations can have more of an impact in capital cities. So Tasmania’s low ratio of residents living in Hobart, compared to the proportion of any other state living in the capital city, means that you would expect a lower population per council.
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Councils are much more populous on average in the three big east coast states. All three states have undergone substantial amalgamations, particularly in urban areas.
But amongst the other states, Tasmania is pretty close to WA, and not that far behind behind South Australia.
If you look at the number of councillors on each council, Tasmania again falls somewhere in the middle.
The discussion paper from the state government is very much focused on the costs of representation, and pretty much ignores the purpose of having a decent number of councillors sitting around the council table.
The bigger the council table, the more room it creates for a diverse range of candidates to get elected. It also is crucial for allowing room for opposition and disagreement.
When you shrink councils down to the size of a corporate board, it gets a lot easier to keep everyone on the same page. Council communities are not monoliths – you should expect different councillors to represent different parts of the community, with different interests. Yet there is a lot of pressure in “local government reform” circles to create institutions where everyone is on the same page.
It’s not surprising that mayors and senior council staff like the idea of shrinking councils – councils are less likely to elect members who oppose the majority position. But that’s not good for democracy.
If Tasmania has a problem with finding the money to pay councillors better, it would be far better to amalgamate councils than to leave the council boundaries alone and strip out representation from those councils. A local government review in 2023 recommended an ideal structure of just fifteen councils across Tasmania (down from the current 29), but suggested a focus on merging twelve current councils into seven, thus reducing the number to 24. Late last year, the state government made it clear that they adopted every other recommendation of the review, but not the amalgamation plans.
It is understandable that amalgamations are very difficult, but that is the answer – not turning elected local councils into under-sized boards.