Councils are invited to join the Bureau of Meteorology’s next free webinar on Thursday 5 March which covers climate and water.
Participants can ask climate experts questions about their outlook for Autumn to help their decision making for the months ahead.
The webinar runs 12-1pm AEDT. Register now via http://ow.ly/2d4a50yr2CU
While Victoria’s recycling system is set to change following an announcement this week by the Andrews State Government, Local Government New South Wales has warned that Australia’s most populous state risks having more of its waste sent to landfill.
Recycling Victoria is a $300m, 10-year plan to create a circular economy through measures including a fourth waste bin (purple for glass), a container deposit scheme from 2023, and a diversion from landfill target of 80 percent.
The decision follows the collapse of SKM Recycling in 2019 and the COAG agreement last August to ban the export of plastics and other waste to countries such as China, which in 2017 said it would no longer accept imports of other countries’ poor quality waste products.
The announcement comes almost 12 months since the Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV) released its five-point Rescue Our Recycling plan that outlined steps all levels of government could take.
“We welcome the State’s commitment to work with local government on the design of the container deposit scheme and to provide funding and implementation support for the roll-out of separate services for glass and food waste,” Cr Ruth Gstrein, MAV Deputy President (Rural) said.
“We are pleased to see the policy acknowledges that councils will need to tailor service models to the needs of their communities, that there is no one-size-fits-all approach.”
Cr Gstrein also said the MAV wasn’t surprised by the Victorian Government’s decision to progressively raise the landfill levy over coming years, adding MAV didn’t want Victoria to become a dumping ground for interstate waste.
“We anticipate that the $129 million funding support for kerbside bin reform will only cover a portion of the implementation costs for councils,” she added.
“More funding assistance will be needed to reduce impacts on households.”
Speaking after the Victorian announcement, LGNSW President, Cr Linda Scott said her association and local councils have advocated for more than a year for the NSW Government to reinvest the NSW waste levy in recycling.
“Councils are still waiting on the long-promised state waste strategy,” Cr Scott said.
“Meanwhile, NSW is generating more waste than ever; household recycling and waste diversion rates are stagnating; and existing regulation and procurement policies continue to stymy innovation and the development of new recycled products and markets.
“With export bans on waste material quickly approaching and stockpiles of recycled resources growing in NSW, it is critical for more effort to be made to support the recycling industry to improve waste management practices and boost markets for recyclable materials.”
LGNSW and NSW councils, renewed their call for the NSW Government to save the state’s recycling system in four ways:
1. allowing councils to develop regional waste plans and deliver priority infrastructure;
2. increase procurement of recycled goods made with domestic content;
3. deliver statewide education campaigns to promote waste avoidance and recycling;
and 4. introduce producer responsibility schemes for problematic materials.
Plastics Summit
These developments come ahead of the National Plastics Summit at Parliament House in Canberra on 2 March that’s been convened by the Federal Minister for the Environment, Sussan Ley.
The gathering will feature several federal ministers, many local governments, dozens of industry groups, school children, and the wider public.
ALGA President and Mayor of the City of Prospect, David O’Loughlin, will speak during the session ‘plastics and our daily life’.
Did you know more than 60 percent of councils spend around 100 hours on processing invoices every month? Or that more than half of councils spend over $10,000 each month on this task?
E-invoicing is a smarter and cheaper way to do invoicing, and Local Government needs to get involved because the way those transactions are done is changing, the Australian Taxation Office says.
Australia and New Zealand are bridging the digital divide for businesses and opening trading borders through a common approach to e-invoicing.
This relies on international standards and common digital services that speak the same language, connecting trading partners and their systems into an open network.
Unlike scanning and emailing of invoices, e-invoicing enables suppliers and buyers to send and receive invoices directly to and from their software.
The result is no manual entry, less paper, scanning errors, phone calls and more focus on things that matter – your community.
The Australian Government is behind e-invoicing and committed to paying suppliers quicker when they use e-invoicing.
The ATO has been granted legal powers to administer the e-invoicing system in Australia and is working with government agencies and businesses to drive adoption.
State Governments are onboard and progressively making practical steps towards Peppol, such as NSW.
The ATO says it’s time for Local Government to get involved and benefit from e-invoicing.
Learn more here and ask your financials software provider about e-invoicing.
16 June 2019
A new study of the media in regional Australia has found fewer local journalists available to report on local government means communities are less informed, leading to public opinion being more easily manipulated by partisan interests, undermining social cohesion.
It was conducted this year by the Public Interest Journalism Initiative, and forms part of the 2019 State of the Regions report released today by the Australian Local Government Association (ALGA).
“The picture that emerges is of a sharp and worrying decline in the amount of local news available to Australians,” guest authors, Margaret Simons and Gary Dickson wrote.
“Given that numerous pieces of research worldwide indicate a close relationship between journalism and the broader civic health of communities, this decline has serious implications for the agency, power and health of citizens in Australia’s regions.”
The study confirms that the broken traditional media model has led to advertising dollars going online to search engines and other platforms, rather than traditional media outlets. Shrinking newsrooms means fewer journalists covering local news for local communities.
The authors noted that regional and rural news media fulfil a need that metropolitan media cannot, and while the ABC makes an important contribution, it cannot address the overall decline.
The writers surveyed media managers employed by Local Government Areas (LGAs) in metropolitan, regional and rural areas.
They found almost half of respondents from the metropolitan and regional and rural areas noted “some decline” or “significant decline” in local news coverage over the past five years.
“If we look at the basic news media function of reporting on local government, more than a third of LGAs reported that no journalists attended local government meetings,” the authors said.
“Although the figures suggest that some journalists follow up without attending the meeting, the indications are that a large part of local government business goes entirely unscrutinised and unreported.”
The authors concluded that fewer journalists means less public accountability of interest groups and institutions.
“Media is likely to become more partisan and selective, and increasingly controlled and manipulated by those who have the skills and interest to do so. This, in turn, is likely to lead to less social cohesion.”
Mayor David O’Loughlin, ALGA President and Mayor of the City of Prospect in Adelaide’s inner north, said he hopes the study can spark a crucial national conversation.
“The authors have done Australians a great service in highlighting a problem that affects the way local communities are informed across the country, but especially in regional, rural and remote areas,” he said.
“There are no easy answers to remedying the decline in journalists, but we need to discuss it and share ideas about possible solutions.”
The 2019-20 State of the Regions: Population, productivity and purchasing power was written for ALGA by National Economics and released at ALGA’s Regional Cooperation and Development Forum in Canberra on 16 June.
Associate Professor Simons from Monash University and the Public Interest Journalism Initiative will be among a panel of experts discussing regional media at the Forum. Media are invited to attend.