ALGA News

Your Voice, a national charity helping young people to find jobs and learn new skills, wants local government help to publicise a survey of young people aged 15-24. The survey is intended to ascertain how marginalized young people view government services, support, and policy. Your Voice says the national survey will be followed by a+

Tens of thousands of Australians took to the streets in March as part of the #March4Justice events that called for an end to gendered violence. Patty Kinnersly, CEO of Our Watch, a national leader in the prevention of violence against women, said nationwide cultural and systemic change is needed to accelerate Australia towards a gender-equal+

Six online forums will be held this month as part of Commonwealth-led consultations to improve access to public transport for people with disability. The federal Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, and Communications opened consultations on February 12 with the publication of the Reform of the Disability Standards for Accessible Public Transport: Consultation Regulation Impact+

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) is encouraging local governments to apply for a special new round of sponsorship to highlight the importance of drone safety. Applications are now being accepted from individuals, organisations, and airports to support the production and installation of CASA’s standardised national drone safety signage to promote drone safety. With more+

A new federal government program to help organisations improve their energy efficiency and lower power bills will open for applications on 1 July. The $10.2 million Powering Communities Program will fund up to 12 projects worth a total of $67,700 in every federal electorate. Grants of between $5000 and $12,000 will be available to eligible+

More than 100 new road upgrades in NSW local government areas have been announced as part of the Fixing Local Roads Program. Although it is nominally a NSW government program, the Commonwealth committed $191 million to Fixing Local Roads in 2020. Results for Round 2 of the program were announced this week. The successful projects+

Federal and state government assistance to flood-impacted communities in NSW has been widened to include new clean-up programs. The activation of Category C and D assistance through the joint Commonwealth-State Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements (DRFA) will assist households, businesses, primary producers and local councils affected by the floods and will include both insured and uninsured+

A toolkit developed by Blue Mountains City Council will be distributed to councils throughout NSW as a “best practice” approach to asbestos management. It follows an independent inquiry into allegations surrounding the council’s handling and management of asbestos before 2017. The public inquiry, conducted by barrister Richard Beasley, SC, examined the council’s response to asbestos+

An autonomous electric shuttle bus being trialled on the NSW North Coast is about to go fully driverless, the first time this has occurred in Australia. More than 10,000 people have used the “Busbot” in phases 1 and 2 of the trial that began in December 2018. The NSW government is running the trial in+

A further 173 community projects supporting bushfire recovery in NSW are to receive new funding as part of the Bushfire Community Recovery and Resilience Fund (BCRRF). The funding for projects that are designed to promote community wellbeing and build disaster resilience across NSW is being provided via the BCRRF Stream 2, applications for which closed+

The City of Casey Council wants local government’s help in making procuring an enterprise CRM a “shorter, more rigorous process for organisations globally”. “Our goal is to include the evidence-based survey in our requirements phase to ensure anecdotal opinions no longer sway in CRM procurement,” the Melbourne suburban council says. To do this, the council-designed+

The Victorian State Government is being urged to make it easier for people to walk and ride as life slowly returns to normal after Covid. A coalition of 14 bike riding, walking, transport, health and research groups, including We Ride Australia, said transport infrastructure investment needed to be spread equitably across all user groups, including+

The Council to Homeless Persons is looking for contributions for its national publication that explore local government’s response to homelessness. The forthcoming May edition of Parity will be devoted to examining and discussing the homelessness strategies/policies and initiatives that many capital city and inner-city local governments have embarked on in recent years. According to the+

Households that tend their street verges gain extra shade and cooling, privacy, connection to nature, and social interaction, a Perth study has found. Researchers from the University of Western Australia led by Dr Natasha Pauli reviewed the online verge policies of 31 Perth local councils and conducted stakeholder interviews to uncover the benefits and challenges+

Australia’s cities have become like a patchwork of local communities over the past 12 months while experiencing low growth rates, making this an ideal time to review our metropolitan governance structures. Appearing at a webinar discussing new research into the role of local government engagement and coordination in metropolitan governance, Australian Local Government Association (ALGA)+

Local government areas affected by severe storms and flooding in Queensland and NSW are now eligible to receive Federal Government Assistance. They include the Gold Coast, Logan, Goondiwindi, Lockyer Valley, Quilpie, Southern Downs, and Scenic Rim LGAs in Queensland and more than 30 LGAs in NSW. NSW local government areas in and around Sydney that+

Registrations have opened for the 2021 Environmental Biosecurity Webinar Series – Knock Knock, Who’s there? Drawing attention to our most unwanted visitors. The seven monthly webinars and discussions, curated by the federal Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment (DAWE), will focus on the recently released National Priority List of Exotic Environmental Pests, Weeds and+

The Progress in Australian Regions Yearbook has been released as an online interactive dashboard by the Bureau of Communications, Arts and Regional Research (BCARR). The Progress in Australian Regions Dashboard is a statistical resource that shows how regions are progressing against a range of key indicators from the following themes: labour market, infrastructure, housing, economic+

Sustainable cities and communities will be a major focus of the UN and Australia Sustainable Partnerships Forum to be held virtually on 20-21 April. On day 1 of the Forum, sector leaders will discuss the way that the global pandemic has shone a new spotlight on the way cities and communities operate and challenged fundamental+

An Australia-wide local government and climate change survey is underway to inform the development of an updated Australian Local Government Climate Review 2021. The 2018 Australian Local Government Climate Review has been used extensively over the last few years to inform policies, state parliamentary inquiries, and aid decision-makers throughout Australia, as well as for developing+

The Adelaide, Prospect, Townsville, and Sunshine Coast councils have been named as Smart21 Communities of 2021 by the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF). The ICF assesses communities across the world for their strengths in categories such as digital equality, innovation, sustainability, and technological connectivity. Joining the four SA and Queensland local governments in the list of+

NSW mayors and councillors could soon be paid superannuation if legislative changes proposed by the NSW government pass parliament. A Bill introduced this week would allow councils to pay elected representatives superannuation payments from July 1, 2022. Local Government Minister Shelley Hancock said the optional payment would address inequity and encourage greater participation in local+

Maitland City Council has announced five road and infrastructure projects as part of the Federal Government’s $1.5 billion Local Roads and Community Infrastructure (LRCI) Program. The NSW Central Coast council is just one of scores of local governments across the country planning, consulting on, or actively implementing projects funded wholly or in part by the+

NBN Co is inviting submissions from local government associations and other stakeholders on the design of its proposed Regional Co-investment Fund. The $300 million fund is intended to boost connectivity in regional Australia and help communities realise the socio-economic benefits that high-speed broadband can potentially deliver. Towns and localities in rural and remote areas outside+

Bushfire-affected Victorian communities can now apply for a further $15 million in state and Commonwealth funding to help with their recovery efforts. Under the second round of the Local Economic Recovery (LER) grants program, $14.6 million is being made available for grants of up to $2 million to fund projects that support local economic recovery+

A federal government-funded centre of excellence to help develop new product stewardship schemes and expand existing schemes was launched this week. Based in Sydney, the Product Stewardship Centre of Excellence will be operated by the University of Technology Sydney’s Institute for Sustainable Futures and the Australian Industry Group. Rose Read, currently CEO of the National+

Consultations to inform the development of a National Voice have begun, with more than 60 planned between now and May 2021. At the sessions, Indigenous Voice co-design members are gathering feedback on the proposals for Local and Regional Voices and a National Voice. The proposals provide a way for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians+

The Federal Health Department is looking for additional feedback on the National Preventive Health Strategy ahead of its final launch in mid-2021. The strategy has been under development since September 2019 and is intended to help people improve their health at all stages of life, through early intervention, better information, targeting risk factors, and addressing+

Commonwealth grants ranging from $5000 to $150,000 have been awarded to local governments and community groups to support bushfire recovery for wildlife and habitats. Eighty-eight projects in bushfire-hit areas of NSW, Queensland, South Australia, Victoria, Western Australia, and the ACT are being supported by the funding from the Bushfire Recovery for Wildlife and Habitat Community+

The Shire of Wyndham-East Kimberley has extended a landing fee waiver for airlines using the Kununurra and Wyndham airports in a bid to underpin local tourism. It is one of a number of councils forced to continue waiving fees and charges normally applied to offset the costs of running airports. Councillors from the WA shire+

Fourteen Queensland local governments impacted by the 2019 monsoon trough event are eligible to apply for a share of $19 million in resilience and risk-reduction funding. The local governments include Burdekin, Burke, Carpentaria, Charters Towers, Cloncurry, Douglas, Etheridge, Flinders, Hinchinbrook, McKinlay, Richmond, Townsville, Whitsunday, and Winton. The funding will come from both the Federal and+

NSW infrastructure contributions will be reformed after the State Government accepted all 29 recommendations of a NSW Productivity Commission report. The report, which was released last December, described the contribution current system as unnecessarily complex and not properly enabling local governments and the state government to provide the infrastructure required to support development. It also+

Bans on commercial water extraction in the Gold Coast hinterland region have been extended to allow for further study of their impacts on aquifers. The bans were introduced in 2020 after bores in Springbrook and Tamborine Mountain ran dry during a drought; they had been due to expire on 5 March. However, Queensland State Water+

The Federal Government is offering employers, including local governments, another $1.2 billion as it extends a wage subsidy scheme begun last October. Under the program, employers “of any size, or industry, Australia-wide” that take on new trainees can apply for funding to pay for 50 percent of their wages for the first year, up to+