Australia

All the states and the Northern Territory have stablished systems of local government and nacted legislation to confer local government owers and responsibilities. The ACT and Norfolk Island are unitary territories with no local government.

In 2004/2005 the contribution of local overnment to GDP was 2.06 per cent or AUS$18,441m out of $896,373m.

Summary

Local government in Australia is extremely diverse as it is the responsibility of each state or territory. Electoral systems and the organisation of authorities vary considerably across the country. The state/territory Minister for Local Government is responsible for administering the local government act in each state/territory and has the power to intervene. A nationwide trend has been the effort to improve service delivery through the use of performance indicators and comparative data.