The Palaszczuk Government should recognise that Queensland’s democratically-elected indigenous councils need to be at the centre of decision-making in any reforms to the delivery of services to remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island communities.
The Local Government Association of Queensland reaffirmed the importance of ensuring the involvement of local councils in response to a landmark Queensland Productivity Commission report urging major changes to the way investment and service delivery is managed in remote communities.
LGAQ chief executive Greg Hallam welcomed the report, saying it showed that service delivery and health and well-being in remote indigenous communities could only be improved when local councils were truly involved in funding and investment decisions.
“As the Productivity Commission found, despite more than $1.2 billion invested by the State Government each year in these communities, their well-being lags far behind other communities in Queensland,’’ he said.
“We wholeheartedly support the report’s view that the key to sustained improvement is for the communities to come up with their own solutions rather than have them imposed from the outside.”
“That is why ensuring that local councils _ elected by their own communities and living in their own communities_ help drive any change is crucial.”
Mr Hallam said he endorsed the commission’s view that such change should not spark the establishment of more bureaucracy.