Local councils are now facing threats from all sides.  Most insiders agree decades of under-funding is the prime cause but in some cases so-called investments in dodgy financial products has also seen millions of ratepayers’ dollars simply evaporate and place the spotlight firmly on their precarious financial position.

Infrastructure, such as sub-standard drainage systems, inadequate sporting facilities and pot holed ageing roads, is the root of councils’ problems.  Crumbling infrastructure, decades past its use-buy date, is creating enormous financial pressures on our out-dated institutions which already have overstretched resources and few politically acceptable options to boost income.

Council administrators are acutely aware that ratepayers, numbed by non-stop media coverage of the global financial crisis and the prospect of sharply rising unemployment figures, are unlikely to welcome any upward pressure on rates as they take whatever steps they can to secure their own family’s immediate future.

Paradoxically the GFC may provide some relief for hapless councils, with ‘infrastructure’ becoming the centre point of the Rudd government’s $42 billion package to boost economic activity in this country.

Of course this temporary relief may move focus in the short term from the more fundamental question: do we have the right model for local government in a globally competitive new world?  And do we really need three levels of government in a country with six states, two territories but only just over twenty million citizens?

President Barack Obama has recognised that the climate is right to re-examine policies and strategies that have seemed set in stone in past US administrations but which are now seriously out of step with the new realities of the 21st century. Hopefully the global meltdown will compel our federal government to once and for all seriously examine our model of public administration which in years gone by has usually ended up in the ‘too hard’ basket. 

The opportunity is there.  Seize the moment Mr Prime Minister.

Firebugs, not terrorists, are the real menace

It is hard to imagine a single crime, other than the deliberate lighting of a bushfire, which has such a potential to cause needless loss and suffering. What’s more, barring mental illness or extreme youth it is hard to conceive of any plausible circumstances that can possibly explain this offence.

I can only assume the relevant authorities seriously examine the motivations of firebugs but, given their appearance year after year, have not been able to come up with any simple answers.

Legal authorities have stepped up penalties in Victoria where arsonists now face up to 15 years in jail, increased from two years, and 25 years for fires that claim lives, but any proposed firebug register would have to be a national, rather than a state,  program because history tells us arsonists move across borders.

The fires in Victoria over the weekend are some of the worst on record with a death toll exceeding Ash Wednesday and with tinder dry fuel conditions, temperatures in the 40s and high winds the fire season still has a long way to go.

Most people realise living in this country has many advantages, in fact more than just about anywhere else in the world I know, but at this time of year our land and weather do come together in a dangerous mix of accelerants where even the smallest unplanned ignition, such as a carelessly discarded cigarette butt, can trigger a catastrophic fire.

Given the troubled 21st century globalised world we now live in we should not only be striving to help as many others overseas as we can in 2009 but keeping our own backyard in order by making the catching of firebugs our No.1 national concern.