The subject of government came up on Facebook the other day, and a person asked me if we have too many politicians in Australia. Good question, which I thought should be looked into.
Australia has approximately 6,325 elected officials across three levels of government (226 Federal politicians, 599 State and Territory legislatures, and 5,500 Local Council representatives). That equates to 1 politician 0ver the three tiers of government for every 4,400 people in Australia.
Other countries have more Federal or State representatives for their population, but fewer local politicians. In other words, Federal and State politicians may be UNDERREPRESENTED in Australia, whereas our local Councillors seem to be OVERREPRESENTED.
The reason for this, could be that Australia has more smaller Councils than many other countries, which tend to have larger Regional Councils.
So here’s a thought. What if we merged the current 537 local councils across Australia into 30-50 larger Regional Councils, according to accepted geographical areas such as New England, Pilbara, and Gippsland.
This would reduce the numbers of elected representatives and allow these larger regional councils the opportunity to become economically sustainable. They would be big enough financially to improve infrastructure, promote sport and culture and attract new businesses to the region.
By Stuart Pearson
