One for all ... and all for one

Two cities, six towns and 12 shires were amalgamated to create the vast enterprise that is Brisbane.

Should Auckland become a single city? Brisbane is about the same size as Auckland and has had a single council for years. Australian correspondent Greg Ansley looks at how the Queensland super city works.

Every Tuesday, the Lord Mayor and the 26 men and women who govern Australia's biggest council file into the chamber of Brisbane City Hall, the magnificent 76-year old seat of government with a a soaring sandstone clock tower that was for years the city's tallest structure.

It is now overshadowed by the 20-storey Administration Centre, where Lord Mayor Campbell Newman and his officers carry out the decisions made in the old building, filtering them down through a workforce of more than 6400 across a fiefdom radiating out 20km from the city centre.

Brisbane City Council is not, as one myth has it, the world's largest local government body. Nor does it, as popularly believed, control a budget bigger that that of Tasmania.

But it is a vast enterprise unique in Australia, embracing most of the nation's third-largest city in one municipality with a single set of regulations, and planning, development and infrastructure policies.

It is also a model for a new move towards amalgamation among other local authorities in Queensland, especially in the booming southeast where the arrival of 1500 newcomers a day is creating an urban sprawl that will soon overtake Melbourne as Australia's second-largest conurbation.

"The assumption is that what Brisbane is doing is a good thing," said Paul Bidwell, of Commerce Queensland. "I don't think anyone is saying 'let's pull Brisbane apart, back to the way it was'."

The council was created by an act of state Parliament in 1925, pulling together two city councils, six towns, 12 shires, and several utilities.

It is now a powerhouse with a annual budget of A$1.63 billion ($1.93 billion), A$1 billion of it raised from rates and utility charges.

It runs six administrative divisions, ranging from customer and community services to major infrastructure and policy and strategy, and four businesses - Brisbane CityWorks, water, transport and City Business.

Councillors' salaries are pegged to those of state parliamentarians, topping A$100,000 for ward representatives and rising to more than A$170,000 plus car and other allowances for the Lord Mayor.

Almost 60 executives are paid A$100,000 to A$150,000 a year, 13 get between A$150,000 and A$200,000 and two, including chief executive Jude Munro, make up to A$250,000. Total employee costs are budgeted this year at almost A$570 million.

The council's priorities are to boost efficiency, cut costs and manage growth.

That growth is furious. In the seven years to last year, the population soared 114,000 to 978,000, rate assessments increased by 15 per cent, water consumption rose 18 per cent, and almost 580km of new sewers were laid.

Dr Patrick Bishop, a public administration expert at Griffith University, believes that while there have been problems, the council is generally doing well.

"The major benefits are co-ordination and economies of scale," he said. "It also delivers benefits in co-ordinating development and general promotion of the city.

"However, until recently Brisbane has not been a particularly good example in the public transport area, and the rail network is still the responsibility of the state Government."

Bishop said the council was focusing on greater efficiency.

He also supported its system of advisory bodies for their ability to attract citizen input into decision-making, and said the size of the council need not dilute democracy or damage ratepayers' interests.

"If you look at it simply as a ratio of votes to representatives, then ratepayers have relatively poor representation," Bishop said. "But the capacity for the larger body to get results for ratepayers is relatively greater."

Queensland Local Government Association policy director Greg Hoffman sees Brisbane as an example of what can be achieved by amalgamations among smaller councils.

"Amalgamation gave Brisbane the ability to co-ordinate and deliver services in a much more efficient way in terms of planning and in terms of the resources available," he said.

"It minimises or eliminates the opportunity for conflict and the problems of co-ordination between different agencies.

"There has never been any movement to suggest that Brisbane is too big and should be split up."