It is more than timely that the good people of Launceston gave their collective futures something more than a second thought. In this 21st C, our worlds have changed and are changing but it is no surprise to find that in our aspirational First World mindsets people wish to cling to as much of what they know, the status quo, as they can.
Nonetheless, holding up what was as a kind of measuring stick for what could be, what should be, against what ‘is’, and what is likely, is delusional and it is especially so when it comes to local governance.
Metaphorically, the ‘imaginings’ that have attached themselves to local governance can be likened to the barnacles, other opportunistic marine growth, and all the periphery dross and detritus that has become attached to the good ship ‘Local Governance’. The vessel as we have come to know it is no longer truly functional nor fit for purpose. Somehow local governance’s fundamental purpose has been lost sight of and it has been overwhelmed by all manner of detritus.
Currently, the big questions seem to be:
• ...Can ‘the vessel’ be restored?
• ...Should it be restored?
• ...Should it be kept as reminder of what was and then sidelined?
• ...Is it, in its current state, or even its restored state, of any value whatsoever beyond its inherent curiosity value?
Each one of us will have different answers relative to our cultural reality – and rightly so. Whatever, it is highly unlikely that there will be any level agreement among ‘the governed’ about a one size fits all, cum common denominator, level of some mutually shared understanding. In every aspect of humanity’s development as the evolved ‘top predator’, the management of, and the control of ,‘a place’ has been increasingly important, and progressively complex – and it remains so.
Currently, the ‘governed’ – locally, nationally and internationally – are disparate and clearly definable ‘community networks’ and ‘cultural realities’ that have strived to establish their own, and variously understood, precincts are quite often contested and contestable, along with different and divergent understandings of their ‘placedness’. Migratory behaviour, and indeed wars, are largely to do with all this.
Ultimately that ‘uniformity’ that ‘Empire builders’ hoped they might achieve has invariably been unreal, out of reach, and relatively short-lived in terms of humanity’s cultural diversity and the variousness of the places we have found ourselves, or chosen to make our homes in.
Empire builders have always been less than welcome no matter how benign they claim to be. Empire builders are typically seen as a threat to the security we have invested in our ‘placedness’. This is rarely discussed relative to local governance, and it needs to be.
Fundamentally, place defines culture and culture defines place. Local governance by extension is all about the shaping and the making of places – nothing else in reality.
It turns out that humanity constructs, and shapes cultural landscapes in alignment with perceived needs and aspirations. Consequently, local governance plays a critical role. In the vernacular, it is where the rubber hits the road. Also, it is increasingly evident that our cultural landscapes are complex and diverse places in every aspect yet sadly, and ultimately, this by-and-large is not on many elected representatives’ agendas apparently.
Arguably, in a 21st C context Indirect Representative Democracy (IRD)has outlived the relevance it once had in ‘placating the masses’, in essence, as an outcome of the Industrial Revolution. This evolutionary cum revolutionary event, with all its deeply embedded consequences and its unanticipatable outcomes has impacted everywhere, all the time and it continues to do so.
What has been avoided by the empowered political class is Direct Deliberative Democracy (DDD) largely based on an assumption that it shouldn’t be allowed to replace IRD – or in other words allowed to disrupt the status quo. Given the revolutionary ‘Information Technologies’ currently available to an ever increasing populous the relevance of IRD shrinks exponentially almost hourly. Consequently, the status quo needs to be challenged at every available opportunity.
Relying upon the status quo in a 21st C context, and at any level, is quite delusional. Any assumption that it can be overturned by stealth or persuasion is also a folly. In fact, it is very likely that ‘change agents’ are going to need to be audacious and even then, they will experience formidable resistance. The status quo benefactors have far too much at stake. Arguably, this is why the French revolutionaries took the powerful to the guillotine in an attempt restructure powerfulness. .
In a social context local governance is needed but not by necessity in its current context in Tasmania, or indeed much of the Western World, given its ever diminishing social and cultural relevance.
Between the wish and the ‘wished for’ the world waits on expectantly. We make ourselves up and we fuse what we are with what we wish we might yet become if only this or that. We seem to be oblivious as to why it is so, yet it is. We need to know and acknowledge this.
In governance, we might well think about the benevolence of wise kings, and we might even wish we had done more to prepare ourselves for the benevolence we might well wish for. However, is our world capable of delivering our aspirations in the context of the status quo we seem all too willing to tolerate much less than we might.
Fundamentally we want to look at our lives for ourselves –but we are not allowed. We are punished for our wishing for anything beyond the status quo. We are worn down on the tread mill of conventions – the status quo. Thus, the aspirations of the governed are typically a long way down the list of expectations and the self-interests of powerful governors and those they empower around them tasked with preserving their power.
Comparing local governance with the corporate world is quite inappropriate. Using the corporate world as a yardstick to measure sustainability, well it is both absurd and irrational. ‘Sustainability’ is almost always mirage where the closer it seems to be the further away becomes. Nonetheless, in ‘placemaking’ we might well develop environments with life supporting ecologies. However, hierarchies are typically antithetic to the complexity of ecosystems and the intense caring for they demand.
We may wish to see sustainable local governance that is transparent, accountable, and fundamentally engaged with the community it serves. Unless and until the first principles of purposeful local governance – placemaking and placeshaping – are in place these things are ever likely to be mistaken aspirations.
For a Council’s purposefulness to be fulfilled in a 21st C context, and all the while being ‘rusted on’ to the Indirect Representational Democracy (IRD)mode of governance, as opposed to a Direct Deliberative Democracy (DDD)model of governance, ‘the governance’ is highly unlikely to be fit for purpose. IRD was not understood as ‘democracy’ in Ancient Greece, democracy’s birthplace, as DDD was seen as being fit for purpose. IRD is but a compromised machination of DDD.
First World aspirations to resist the disruption of the status quo are there to be seen and it is somewhat perverse to witness IRD being lauded as democratic ideal when it requires an army of bureaucrats to sustain it. Even more troublesome is the fact none of these bureaucrats are in any real way accountable to the constituencies they are there to serve. Moreover, it is concerning when it is realised that they are virtually insulated against being subjected to any kind of meaningful scrutiny.
Therefore, talking about ‘sustainable’ IRD local governance and not exposing all aspects of it to purposeful accountability and transparency tests is nothing but hollow rhetoric.
For example, using ratepayers service payments as some kind of ‘rubbery public purse’ available for an invested in, risked in, some entrepreneurial endeavour is loaded with the possibility of negative unintended consequences –and they are a legion. Public servants are not entrepreneurs, it is not why they bare there. Similarly, ‘elected representatives’ are there to placemake not to be investment brokers. Nonetheless, they might well engage with their constituents in placemaking enterprises – out in the open and exposed to an atmosphere of incisive critical deliberation that is not shrouded in secrecy.
Moreover, local governance is empowered to generate income, operationally, and thus it charges fees for services such as fees for the use of public property, parking fees, fees for the disposal of what is assumed to be ‘waste’ and the disposal of the dead even plus the levying of fines for errant civic behaviours. The inherent danger here is when revenue collection best serves operational salaries without the social and cultural dividends flowing to constituents.
Rate demands must mirror the equitability of local governance’s cost centres as they are exposed to the fiscal pressures in the current First World social and cultural realities – however that is it imagined, ideologically. .
Local governments’ constituencies need to and want to see their councils meet their financial commitments and enabled to do so in an ongoing and sustainable way. However, if a cfouncil sets out to generate income other than via fees for required services, they must garner their constituency’s approval and there are proven ways to do that.
Open deliberation in public forums, proactively via social media and the press, and around the decision-making table would be ‘best practice’ in order to counter any corruption implications – and they are there.
Generational investment, wise investment, in the future is ever likely to be subjective, speculative, and highly contested. Wisdom is but one tree in a forest of ideas. It can grow stronger if nurtured, sturdier if tested, and in time become undeniable. It is alive in every forest if only we are quiet enough for long enough and then listen hard enough for it to reveal itself. A Council might well detect wisdom well away from its offices. By looking and listening its outcomes may well be deliverable.
Similarly, proactive placemakers might well be found well away local governance’s offices. They will be competitive, networkers, entrepreneurs, investors, homemakers, and many other things. They will be driven by self-interest and cultural imperatives. They will also dedicate their time, and their resources to vitalising the urban precincts and cultural landscapes within which they have a deep and abiding sense of ownership.
How can any of these placemakers be enlisted by local governance? Well, in the end it always comes down to determining the policies and adopting the strategic plans that do not stifle diverse and unanticipatable aspirations within the network of communities councils are there to serve. That is, policies and strategies that foster the realisation of the realisable and the attempt to do so in ways that are unhindered by status quoism.
Given the increasingly obvious impacts of environmental degradation cities everywhere, like Launceston, need look to their ‘urban green spaces’. These spaces, precinct by precinct, need to be monitored, preserved and expanded upon but that is not entirely up to local governance, but it is where councils need to proactively engage with their constituent community networks.
Similarly, the need to address homelessness and housing stress is an issue where local governance needs to be proactive. Importantly, it needs to be acknowledged that this ‘housing stress’ is by-and-large brought on by an underlying and deeply embedded commitment to the status quoism by every level of governance.
By-and-large the benefactors of status quoism are investors et al and homemakers are out competed by design.
If someone is elected as mayor in the Indirect Representative Democracy mode of local governance, mayors are there to ‘represent’ their constituency in all its diversity. In the most part that means ensuring that sound decision making relative to placemaking goes on. This means setting agendas and ensuring that transparent and accountable policy making, and strategic decision making is facilitated, fostered, and then implemented as intended.
Importantly, a large part of the mayoral role is to do with ensuring that strategic policy making is firstly consultative and secondly quite separate to the implementation of policy determinations as that is managements role.
Ultimately, the ’standard’ that mayors need to be a part of setting is to do with the maintenance of and the assiduous adherence to, acknowledging that the primary 'placemakers' are those who invest their lives in a community – the constituencies that put local governance in place. How a mayor addresses this issue in the current Indirect Representative Democracy model is the issue to hand.
All this should be a given and already etched in stone but sadly it apparently needs the reiteration.
Some wise commentator somewhere has observed that change is brought about because ordinary people can do extraordinary things if given the opportunity.
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