The Changing Role of Local Government in Australia: National Survey Findings

This research project investigates how Australians view the changing nature and roles of local government in Australia. Traditionally sitting at the bottom of Australia’s federal hierarchy, the roles played by Australian local governments have typically been restricted to the administration of a relatively select number of services to property, which accounts for local government’s association with the ‘Three Rs’ (Roads, Rates, and Rubbish). As a result of this, local government has frequently been viewed in Australian politics as the mere administrative arm of higher tiers of government rather than as a sphere of important political debate and decision-making in its own right.