A striking feature of local government reform in many Commonwealth countries has been a heavy reliance on structural reform, often in the form of forced local council amalgamation. This paper argues that the long-run success of structural change in local government hinges on several key factors, not least that voluntary rather than compulsory council mergers have a far greater chance of success. A second key ingredient resides in a high degree of local autonomy in both the composition and operation of decentralized governmental functions. A third vital factor lies in ensuring that revenue and tax assignment is sufficient to provide local government with financial autonomy. Finally, adequate powers of taxation need to be accorded to local government and this requires careful consideration of the types of taxes most suited to local government.

This article examines the governance challenges facing Australian local government, which include lack of constitutional standing, intergovernmental dependencies, financial constraints and weak democratic standing. The historical context has shaped the nature and place of local government in the Australian federal polity and has contributed to the tensions created by an expansion of the roles and responsibilities of local government, especially in the provision of services, which is not matched by concomitant increases in financial capacity and local autonomy. These governance challenges are discussed with a view to establishing local government’s capacity for autonomous self-governance in the face of intergovernmental and fiscal dependencies, and the implications of this for local government reform trajectories.

Social exclusion in the North Sydney local government area has increasingly become a matter for concern in the last decade. In 2005/2006 local government community service referrals indicate that there were growing numbers of people living on their own with little contact or engagement with community services and social activities. It was also suggested that older people at risk of social exclusion were living in poor housing conditions and experienced serious health issues. The ABS 2006 census data highlights that the North Sydney Council area has a significantly larger number of people living on their own (33%) compared to the rest of New South Wales (22%). This paper will present a number of different perspectives of social exclusion and consider why people in North Sydney become isolated. It will provide a brief analysis of existing programs designed to reduce social isolation and where they fit in the service system by using case studies of people who have been identified as at risk of becoming socially isolated in the North Sydney area. We will evaluate the case studies and provide several policy recommendations.

The article is based on a study of a local council in Australia where women representatives hold a majority of the seats. How do these representatives understand their role in this context? What is their preferred style of doing politics, and what can explain their political aims and behaviour? What we find is that these women representatives are oriented toward green politics and prefer deliberative decision-making. This case study of a local council in Queensland suggests that the political objectives and style of women representatives largely reflect the specific local context, the electoral system and the political composition of the council, and not just the fact that women hold more than 70% of the seats. However, women representatives do feel that “numbers matter” for their ability to be acting out “who they are” in politics.