One day a fish is out swimming and he runs into two other fish and says “What a great day, isn’t the water great?”. The two fish look at each other and ask “What is water?”.
Many people never have to concern themselves with what a Council is because they purchased a new home in a new estate, the rubbish gets picked up and they purchased a home that meets their needs.
If someone was to ask how great the local Council is, they might simply respond “What is a Council?”.
In a perfect world nobody would ask what a Council is, let alone have to describe it.
If we had to describe what water is, the answer would depend on the audience; telling a fish that water is two parts Hydrogen and one part Oxygen doesn’t help that much; describing what a Council is, is similarly fraught.
In practice an Australian Council is?
Australia has a population of 25 million, is geographically isolated, yet has the most expensive real-estate in the world because Australians invest their lives in a real-estate Ponzi scheme.
Councils are the Franchisors of this Ponzi scheme, home owners are the Franchisees, and renters are the customers.
Gatekeepers of the real-state Ponzi scheme
To build a home on your own land, the land needs to have a Building Entitlement, then you need to apply to the local Council for a Development Application. Once you have Development Consent, you need to apply for a Construction Certificate, and once the house is complete you need to obtain an Occupancy Certificate.
The compliance costs, and council fees can add up to $50,000 to a simple home renovation, and at best the application process is a frustrating exercise; at worst it can be life destroying.
The cost of a new house is not only reflective of the time and money overhead, but the potential of the overhead to be life destroying.
An Occupancy Certificate is for all intents and purposes the Franchise to live in a home on your own land, and Councils are the Franchisors who grant these Franchises.
Councils may also collect the rubbish and maintain the roads, but by law they don’t actually have to provide these services, so the only thing Councils actually have to do is sell the right to live on your own land.
What is an Australian Council technically?
Councils are not acknowledged in the Australian Constitution. They are Corporations established by the State Governments, where their Operating Agreement is a Local Government Act passed by State Government, their Board of Directors is the elected Council, and their day-to-day executive power is shared by the Mayor and the CEO/General Manager.
As long as a Council operates within the Local Government Act, they operate autonomously from the State Government, but even if the Council breach the Local Government Act, it is almost impossible to get the State Government to force the Council to comply with the Act.
Under the Local Government Act the Council is:
- The Authority for various Functions, such as Town Planning, Sanitation, Road Maintenance.
- A Coop that provides optional services such as Libraries and Public Swimming Pools.
- A quasi democracy where residents get to elect Councillors every 4 years to serve the conflicting role of representing the best interests of the Council, being a voice for the rights of each individual resident and representing the community as a whole.
Councils do not have the ability to create Laws, so they cannot criminalise anything or bring criminal prosecutions, instead the staff create Policies, which are debated and passed by the Councillors.
The Councillors rarely read or understand the Policies that they pass, and if they do then end up having to debate their concerns with other Councillor who don’t understand the Policy being proposed, guided by senior Staff who have already decided that the Policy is needed.
In theory the Staff must follow Policy, and as long as they do Councillors are forbidden from interfering with Operational Matters.
Once a Policy is passed, Councillors are also required to support the Policy, even though they may be completely opposed to it.
If a Councillor interferes in operation of the Council, or undermines passed Policy, the Councillor can be subjected to a Code of Conduct inquiry, which is undertaken by empanelled third-party auditors.
A Code of Conduct Inquiry comes at a cost of $10,000 to $15,000 and is undertaken by a consultant who knows that if they don’t make the right findings they won’t get future work.
Council Staff are not familiar with their own Policies so rarely follow them, and only cite them when they think the Policy can be used to their own benefit. When the Policy is to the resident’s benefit, the Policy becomes nothing more than a “Guideline”.
Residents can also take complaints against the Council to an Ombudsman, but the Ombudsman cannot compel the Council to make any change, even if the complaint is upheld.
For all intents and purposes, the relationship between residents and the Council is bound by Common Law, more so than Legislation or any form of inherent Constitutional Right.
For instance, Councils have the right to levy Rates, in accordance with the Local Government Act, and if a resident fails to pay their rates, Councils can levy interest and take the resident to the Civil Courts to get payment under Common Law.
Rates are not technically taxes, because under the Australian Constitution only the Federal Government can levy taxes, so unlike income taxes, the failure to pay rates is not a Criminal Offence.
So what is one to make of all of that?
Well obviously, to return to the fish metaphor, ideally you want to be the fish who don’t know what water is, but if you find yourself at some impasse with the Council you need to know who you are dealing with.
You are dealing with a rogue unaccountable arm of the State Government who has enormous powers, yet no real powers at all.
In theory a Council can take the “Commonwealth” of the Residents, and use that wealth to destroy you, but having wasted that “Commonwealth” over the past decades through incompetence, wastage and corruption, their isn’t much “Commonwealth” left to drag you through the Civil Courts.
The Councillors are for the most-part dimwits, who are only there for their perceived self-importance, and to do the absolute minimum each month to get their pay, and the senior staff are the people who can’t get a better job anywhere else.
In most cases, the Council will just kick every problem down the road, and force you to pay them if and when you need their approval to sell your home to the next resident.