Homepage

The Australia Local Government Association (ALGA) will work with a federal task force to mitigate the impacts of bank branch closures on rural communities. The Regional Banking Task Force will “bring together banks and other key stakeholders to ­assess how bank branch closures have impacted local businesses, industries, and communities, and work collaboratively to identify+

Natural disasters will cost Australia $73 billion by 2060, even under a low emissions scenario, a new business roundtable report suggests. The Australian Business Roundtable for Disaster Resilience and Safer Communities says the $79 billion forecast is “significantly higher” than the $39 billion by 2050 cost it estimated in 2017. The Roundtable’s latest report on+

The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) is urging the Commonwealth to invest more to improve telco services in regional and rural areas. In a submission to the Regional Telecommunications Review 2021, the agency said the government should: provide grants and other investment incentives to promote a wider range of services; standardise mobile coverage information that is+

Telstra will have to provide greater detail on whether it is meeting its Universal Service Guarantee (USG) under proposed new licence conditions. The new rules being considered by the federal government will require Telstra to include more information on the services it delivers under the USG, which updates the long-standing Universal Service Obligation (USO). Telstra+

The Dungog Shire has become one of the first NSW local governments to declare that people using its facilities must be fully Covid-vaccinated. In a media release this week, the Hunter Valley council said: “In order to visit some of our facilities, customers aged 16 years and over must now be able to show that+

The Shire of Wyndham East Kimberley has been awarded a $7.57 million grant from the Commonwealth to complete airside upgrades at its Kununurra regional airport. The Round 5 Building Better Regions Fund (BBRF) grant will allow the shire to strengthen taxiways, build a new apron and improve other airside infrastructure at the East Kimberley Regional+

The Australian Local Government Association (ALGA) has published its Implementation Plan for the National Agreement on Closing the Gap. The historic agreement – to which ALGA, the Commonwealth, state and territory governments, and the Coalition of Peaks are all signatories – sets out four agreed priority reform targets and 16 socio-economic targets to improve life+

Low economies of scale continue to drive high regional airfares, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said this week. Regional airports can also struggle with low economies of scale, the national competition regulator said. “Air services fulfil an important role keeping regional communities connected with the rest of Australia,” the ACCC said in its+

Climate inaction at the state and national level may end up costing local governments as much as $54 million annually, a new report has warned. Some coastal councils are already paying more than $1 million to fix eroding beaches or protect beachside property or infrastructure, and the collective bill for remediation could top $54 million+

The rising work-from-home trend has benefitted workers and could potentially increase the nation’s productivity, a report published this week says. Up to 40 percent of employees have been forced to work from home during the Coronavirus pandemic, according to the Productivity Commission report – and that a result of not having to commute to work,+

Cybercrime reports to the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) in 2020-21 were up nearly 13 per cent on the previous financial year. Commonwealth, state, territory, and local governments accounted for 35 percent of these incidents, ACSC said in its annual Cyber Threat Report released this month. About one-quarter of reported cyber security incidents affected critical+

Regional and remote areas of Australia will get new or expanded recycling facilities after $7 million in new federal funding was announced this week. The grant funding will be made available through the Recycling Modernisation Fund and will be additional to the 23 projects that have already been identified in regional and remote Australia through+

Commonwealth funding partnerships with relevant jurisdictions are needed to improve road infrastructure, a federal parliamentary inquiry has said. The report from the inquiry into the importance of a viable, safe, sustainable, and efficient road transport industry published last week also said the federal government should: Establish a national fund to assess, maintain and upgrade freight+

Commonwealth efforts to identify regions where people face difficulties accessing GPs will be re-evaluated to address emerging local pressures. Federal Minister for Regional Health David Gillespie announced the review of the Distribution Priority Area (DPA) classification system this week. “I have heard the concerns that the current approach is not capturing current or emerging local+

Council-run early childhood education and care centres affected by Covid-19 restrictions are set to receive additional Commonwealth support. Under a new package announced last week, childcare services in Commonwealth‐declared hotspots of Greater Sydney will be eligible for payments of 25 percent of their pre‐lockdown revenue. ALGA President Linda Scott last week wrote to the Federal+

Thermochemical technologies able to help realise a circular economy for plastics in Australia are not being fully exploited, the national science agency says. A new report by the national science agency says mixed, multi-layer, flexible, or contaminated and other hard-to-recycle plastics could be readily turned back into food-grade recycled plastics or other products using chemical,+

New and easily deployed technology able to extract value-added materials from problematic waste streams is about to be trialled on the NSW South Coast. Dubbed “micro-cycling science”, the novel technology was developed by the University of NSW’s Sustainable Materials Research and Technology (SMaRT) Centre with support from the Australian Research Council. The technology is deployed+

Three north-western NSW councils will take part in a research project to address their long-standing health workforce shortages. The Glen Innes Severn Council and the Gwydir and Narrabri Shire councils will work with a research team to establish, fund, and manage a health workforce recruiter and connector (HWRC) position in each of the three LGAs.+

The Federal Government is allowing childcare centres in any area declared a Covid-19 hotspot for more than seven days to waive gap fees. In line with new arrangements introduced on 19 July, council-run early childhood education and care services affected by recent stay-at-home orders can opt-in to waive gap fees to parents to try to+

Infrastructure resilience can be enhanced by looking not just at assets themselves but how they contribute to societal resilience overall. In two new advisory papers published this week, Infrastructure Australia (IA) recommends a whole-of-system, all-hazards approach to resilience planning focused on strengthening an infrastructure asset as well as the place, precinct, city, and region that+

A federal parliamentary inquiry has called for a national homelessness strategy recognising the vital role played by local governments. The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs report on homelessness in Australia contains 35 recommendations, including that the Commonwealth develop and implement a 10-year national strategy in consultation with state, territory,+

The Australian Council of Recycling (ACOR) will develop a national accreditation/certification scheme to support resource recovery and the circular economy. The project will receive funding from the federal Department of Agriculture, Water and Environment (DAWE) and be aligned to key targets in the National Waste Policy Action Plan. Those action plan targets include reducing total+

Regional airports nationwide have been awarded nearly $30 million in grants under Round 2 of the Federal Government’s Regional Airports Program. The 89 projects awarded grants include: Charters Towers Regional Council for airstrip, fencing and other upgrades at Charters Towers Airport in Queensland ($400,000); Kempsey Shire Council for fencing to reduce wildlife intrusion at Kempsey+

Nearly six in 10 local government CEOs say the financial sustainability of their councils was negatively impacted by Covid-19, a new survey shows. However, the survey also shows the pandemic has provided the impetus for many councils to “think outside of the box” about how to maximise revenue, keep costs down, and “sweat” their assets+

Testing of Australia’s redesigned fire danger forecasting system has begun in north Queensland, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory. The operational trial of the Australian Fire Danger Rating System (AFDRS) program began on 1 July and will be extended to southern Australia in October when the fire season begins. In the most southerly areas, the+

Over 200 dangerous crash sites on NSW, Victoria, SA, Tasmania, and WA roads will get Black Spot Program fixes in 2021-22. Program funding of $86.9 million was announced this week, with the biggest share set to flow to councils in Victoria and NSW. Queensland Black Spot funding of $20.8 million to improve 67 dangerous crash+

Many local governments and communities lack the resources to identify appropriate solutions to local telecommunications problems, a new issues paper says. Published as a prelude to the 2021 Regional Telecommunications Review, the paper canvasses issues around adequacy, opportunity, and awareness of telco services in both rural, regional and remote areas of Australia. Public consultations for+

The City of Cockburn will install a fringing reef off a beach south of Fremantle in what it is describing as a unique coastal management trial. Engineered reef modules totalling about 100 metres in length will be anchored 50m offshore at the northern end of C.Y. O’Connor Beach in early 2022 to break down wave+

The Federal and Queensland Governments have agreed to invest $20 million each in the Recycling Modernisation Fund (RMF). With Queensland industry set to match that $40 million amount, there will be combined $80 million available through the RMF to fund new plastic, glass and tyre recycling infrastructure upgrades across the state. Deputy Premier and Minister+

National shortages of civil and transport engineers, urban and regional planners, landscape gardeners, and construction project managers are forecast to last well into the future. The 2021 Skills Priority List compiled by the National Skills Commission and released last week also reveals a national shortage of surveyors, arborists, childcare workers, aged or disabled carers, and+

Local government road managers will be able to assess up to 1000 bridges, roads and culverts after a $12.1 million funding announcement this week. The new Commonwealth money will go to support a second phase of the Strategic Local Government Asset Assessment Project (SLGAAP). Established by the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) in 2019 with+

Communities in areas badly impacted by the 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires can apply for a share of a new $280 million federal grants program. The Black Summer Bushfire Recovery Grants program is prioritising recovery and resilience projects, and has been enabled by a lower-than-expected take-up of programs under the $2 billion National Bushfire Recovery Fund.+