Manningham News

A lot can be learned about Manningham council, if you ask them what they would like to see happen.

Manningham council actually answers this question every year.

Each year Victorian local governments make a list of 'submissions' to both the Municipal Assocation of Victoria (MAV) and the Australian Local Government Association (ALGA). These 'submissions' are actually a list of requests that the MAV and ALGA then forward to State and Federal governments for consideration.

So what did Manningham and other local councils ask for?

The short answer and long answer is: money, a lot more money.

But first lets look at the little matter of Collusion.

Please see page 1006 of the minutes of 21 April 2015.

The Eastern Metropolitan Regional councils (Banyule, Knox, Manningham, Maroondah and Whitehorse) have banded together and decided that instead of submitting their own requests independently, they will work together and agree beforehand on a list of requests and then submit and endorse only those requests. I suppose they believe there is a greater chance the Federal and State governments will listen if they all agree on and all endorse the same things.

That could be true and it may be a smart move on the part of the councils. The Councils describe their approach as follows: 'to encourage collective support on the motions' (p 1006 1. 3).

But, see point 1.5 on page 1006, "As only one Council can submit each motion...."

The rules regarding the workings of MAV and ALGA seem to be framed to encourage a wide diversity of ideas and requests and also seem to suggest that this type of collusion is not welcome. Manningham council simply ignores this.

The 5 councils listed agree beforehand regarding their requests, so how do they stay within the letter of the requirements?

Well, after agreeing on what the requests are, they split the requests up so that each council submits different requests. They can even submit another council's requests, if necessary, just to make their scheme work (point 1.7 page 1007).

This happens to be the lengths councils will go to to get more money.

Now lets go through their requests.  I have broken this issue up into separate articles, each dealing with one submission. All relate back to the list of submissions Manningham and other councils made to the MAV and ALGA.