Wimmera council amalgamation impacts reviewed 25 years on

The move saw 210 councils dissolve and more than 1600 elected councillors sacked, creating 78 new councils through amalgamations.

The Wimmera Mail-Times spoke to Wimmera leaders about the impacts amalgamation had on the region.

HORSHAM Rural City Council was formed in 1995 by the amalgamation of the City of Horsham, most of the Shire of Wimmera and Shire of Arapiles, and part of the Shire of Kowree.

The former Shire of Wimmera shared a council chamber with Horsham City Council.

"If you walked into the building, there would be the Horsham City Council offices and on the other side was the Shire of Wimmera offices," former Horsham Mayor Hugh Delahunty said.

"The former Shire of Arapiles had boundaries around Haven and the Horsham Golf Club, so the Horsham City Council only a very small hub in the middle."

The Shire of Arapiles had its offices at Natimuk.

FORMER Horsham Rural City Council chief executive Kerryn Shade was involved in local government for 45 years before he retired in 2010.

He worked at six councils during this time, including the Shire of Arapiles and Warracknabeal Shire. Between 1995 and 2010 he was chief executive of Horsham council.

"The Kennett government put me in an acting role as chief executive after they sacked all the councillors. There were three commissioners who rule for two years and they had the same powers as councillors," he said.

Horsham's commissioners were former Member for Mallee Peter Fisher, Tony Gregson and Max Dickson.

Mr Shade described amalgamation like a "divorce".

"You had to split up all the assets and liabilities of councils, and bring them into one council. All the staff didn't know if they still had jobs and had to reapply. It was a pretty anxious time; even I had to reapply for my job," he said.

However, he said there were a number of positive changes.

"There were less councillors - we went from having more than 30 to just seven. We also streamlined the operations of the council. One of the biggest successes was changing to have just one planning scheme which got rid of a lot of red tape," he said.

"Horsham also achieved a rate reduction of 16 per cent. The government also brought in competitive tendering where 50 per cent of services had to be put up for tender. They were services that used to be performed by council staff."

Mr Shade said he thought the Horsham amalgamation had been a success.

"Horsham was able to become more of a rural centre. A strong Horsham means a strong Wimmera," he said.

He predicted more amalgamations would happen over the next 20 years.

"I think the Wimmera's borders are okay for the moment, but population decreases and economic strains will make them start thinking about restructure again just to get services," he said.

FORMER Member for Lowan Hugh Delahunty has a unique insight into amalgamation, having been involved with Horsham council both before and after restructure.

He was a councillor and Mayor of the Horsham City Council before amalgamation, then took on a commissioner role to help form Mildura Rural City Council. When Mr Delahunty returned to Horsham in 1995 he was elected to the newly formed Horsham Rural City Council, also becoming its first mayor.

"There was a lot of optimism in the air. It was a fairly good fit," he said.

"Most people would feel they are better served by the council that is there now, rather than what was there before. I can't think of anything that I would change."

He said the newly formed council faced challenges.

"You need to make sure that the services you provide - whether they are in Horsham, Natimuk, Pimpino or Jung - are as compatible as can be so you can get an equal service across those towns," he said.

"However, the amalgamation also helped make the running of council more efficient, which meant we were able to provide people with more services."

Mr Delahunty said there wasn't a lot of farmland in the Horsham City Council boundaries, however that changed after amalgamation.

"Coming up with a rating structure was always difficult and we started allowing differential farm rates. The issue is still ongoing with what we saw last year," he said.

"Trying to provide fairness with rates is a challenge for any council when you have residential, industrial, commercial and farming.

"As a whole, Horsham Rural City Council has been a leader for not only their community, but also the region. They have worked very well with their adjoining councils with the Wimmera Development Association."

DARRYL Argall, who served on Dimboola and Hindmarsh Shires from 1990 until 2008, said he was in favor of more amalgamations.

He said the commissioners' decision to base the new shire in Nhill left ill feeling in Jeparit, which took time to subside.

"Jeparit really felt their throats were being cut. They thought taking the administration and jobs away was going to kill the town," he said. "Jeparit hasn't gone forward, but I think that's more due to Lake Hindmarsh being dry than anything else."

Mr Argall said he was in favor of more amalgamations.

"I think Kaniva and possibly even Yarriambiack could have been included in the new shire," he said.

"They're all based on farming and small communities, so why do we need three or four different managements to run the thing? I could see the benefits in another round of amalgamations, to be honest. You'd need only one CEO, as opposed to the three in place across those shires, and with a bit of vision I think it could lead the state in agricultural pursuits."

WEST Wimmera Shire Councillor Bruce Meyer was part of Kaniva Shire Council prior to amalgamation. He said internal modelling showed it would have been more costly to put Kaniva, Lowan and Dimboola in the one council than to leave them as three separate entities.

Kaniva Shire ultimately joined with Kowree Shire to create the West Wimmera municipality. Mr Meyer said population did not impact on the efficiency running of a shire, and that he did not support further mergers.

"If you stretch it out to try and boost the numbers, you add more area in - and the further away the boundaries get from the centre of administration, the more inefficient it is," he said.

"The current West Wimmera configuration can only work while there are administration centres in Kaniva and Edenhope, otherwise the whole shire would implode into a big unworkable mess."

GWENDA Allgood was part of Ararat City when it merged with Ararat Shire and parts of Mortlake and Stawell shires to become Ararat Rural City Council. She said prior to mergers, the urban and rural areas worked in isolation.

"Ararat City was like the hole in the middle of a doughnut," she said.

"We had a city office and a shire office two blocks apart, and there were so many staff with identical roles. It didn't make a lot of sense. If we wanted to work on a road bordering the city and the shire, we had to agree to do half each."

She said there were initially plans for a wards system in the new municipality.

"But because the population was all in Ararat, to get an even number of residents represented in each area most of the borders crossed schools and bakeries in the city," she said.

Related:

"The city would have virtually taken over the shire anyway."

THE heads of two bodies advocating for five Wimmera councils say more amalgamations would not resolve the problems local governments face in providing services.

Wimmera-Southern Mallee Regional Partnership chairman David Jochinke said councils were the tier of government that did the most on-the-ground work in regional areas, but had the least resources.

"There is a lot of work to do around how the other levels of government sustainably fund councils, identifying what core activities councils should be delivering and governance," he said.

"You can't dilute these problems (by amalgamation) in areas with little capacity, but you can get better co-ordination between the councils."

Mr Jochinke highlighted the Rural Councils Transformation Program as an example of Wimmera councils working together to save costs and improve service delivery.

He said eight councils, four of them in the Wimmera, had recently applied to the state government for funding to establish new shared communications systems and records management, aimed at saving all involved money.

Northern Grampians and Ararat municipalities have also submitted an application under this program in partnership with Southern Grampians and Glenelg shires.

Wimmera Development Association acting executive director Mark Fletcher said it was unlikely further Wimmera mergers would save money.

"Some vehicles in councils' fleets are quite large and are given a workout given the massive infrastructure and kilometres of roads to maintain," he said.

"Whether council boundaries change, you would need the same amount of equipment to main those assets to a reasonable standard."

While you're with us, you can now receive updates straight to your inbox twice weekly from the Wimmera Mail-Times. To make sure you're up-to-date with all the news from across the Wimmera, sign up below.