President's Report - December 2024

Welcome to the final edition of LGAT News for 2024.

At the start of December, I attended the National Local Roads, Transport, and Infrastructure Congress in Western Australia with Paula and Dion.  It was a fantastic few days where we heard from a range of speakers on regional road issues, active transport and emergency management.

Last week the LGAT General Management Committee (GMC) had the final Premier’s Local Government Council (PLGC) meeting for the year. This is a forum for local government and the State Government to discuss important and topical issues of statewide significance. At the meeting, the Minister for Local Government provided an outline of the Local Government Strategic Reform Program 2024 – 2026, which was recently announced alongside the Government’s response to the Future of Local Government Review. The discussion paper was released a few days ago and LGAT is planning on engaging with councils to gather your feedback.

In addition, we achieved agreement from the Premier and Minister for the establishment of consultation and engagement protocols between State and local government. After the recent debacle of the Development Assessment Panels (DAPs), this is sorely needed.

The other significant decisions at PLGC were the handing over of the Learning and Development Framework from the Office of Local Government to LGAT. While this will require some additional resourcing, I think that it is to our sector's benefit that we will have control over the further development of this framework to support the professional development of councillors.

The other matter I wish to touch on is the significant win LGAT recently achieved for the sector with the defeat of the DAPs Bill in the Legislative Council. This came as a result of some significant public and direct advocacy from LGAT. It was pleasing to see that members of the Legislative Council listened to the concerns raised by LGAT and councils.

I think we can agree that the State Government should be focusing its efforts on completing the planning reform projects that are already underway, like the long overdue update of the Regional Land Use Strategies, rather than tinkering with development assessment processes again.

In closing, I would like to thank the other members of GMC, and particularly Paula, for their support this year. I would also like to thank the team at LGAT for their tireless advocacy and hard work. I encourage you to read more about the work they have been undertaking throughout 2024 in the recently released Year in Review.

I hope you have a very merry Christmas and a safe New Year.