CONSORCIO DE COMPENSACIÓN DE SEGUROS

In terms of structural change, Glenorchy fared poorly over the decade 1986 to 1996, with declines in employment, increases in unemployment and only a small increase in the proportion of high-income households. Its occupational structure was characterised by employment in ‘in-person service worker’ and ‘routine production worker’ occupations, with significant numbers employed in transformative, distributive and social service industries (Baum et al., 2000, p.57).

Then, in 1996 the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2000) ranked areas throughout Australia using a measure of ‘relative disadvantage’ based on population census data. Known as the Social-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA), it included data on the greater Hobart Statistical Division. The SEIFA represents a single measure to summarise a number of socio-economic variables derived from collected census data but did not include all social conditions. Measurements were based on low income, low educational attainment, high unemployment, jobs in relatively unskilled occupations and variables reflecting disadvantage. Geographical areas with the highest disadvantage were found to have high proportions of low income families, high unemployment, low educational qualifications, and low skilled occupations and many households renting public housing. Compared to a national average of 1000, ABS data show that Tasmania registers higher relative disadvantage of 974, and Glenorchy was the second most disadvantaged region in the State. High levels of

unemployment, a lack of skills and education appropriate to new employment opportunities, and low investment in Glenorchy exacerbated dependence upon Australian Government income assistance and people struggled to adapt to the new economic regime.

By the 2001 ABS Census of Population and Housing, Glenorchy was ranked second lowest in the SEIFA for the greater Hobart Statistical Division (Table 2).

Table 2 Socio-economic indicators for areas (SEIFA) (2001) index of disadvantage

Local government areas in the Greater Hobart Statistical Division index of disadvantage

Brighton (Municipality) 829.52

Glenorchy (City) 927.84

Sorell (Municipality) 955.60

Clarence (City) 1,001.28

Kingborough (Municipality) 1,050.24

Hobart (Capital City) 1,065.76

Source Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2001

Until the 1990s, like most other local governments around Australia, Glenorchy’s core business was oriented to ‘roads, rates and rubbish’. Subject to shifts in thinking about government more generally – shifts that have realigned government as just one player in the diverse tasks of (multilateral, multi-stakeholder, participatory) governance – during the 1990s, Council attempted to adopt a broad role to address the changes facing the community of Glenorchy and was influenced in this work by the then Mayor, a left or Labor-aligned candidate named Terry Martin. One of Martin’s primary actions in the early 1990s was to invest public money into quality of life projects in consultation with residents of Goodwood, one of a number of suburbs especially disadvantaged by socio-economic changes (Zwart, 2003) and, perhaps ironically, one of the few suburbs in Hobart that had been designed in the 1920s according to Garden City principles derived from the ideas of Ebenezer Howard (Freestone, 1989).

I was the urban design consultant on that project. It was an innovative process, becoming a pilot project to test how effectively local government could work with

local business and residential community members in developing a range of strategies and plans for a local area’s future. A community liaison committee laboured with Council and appropriate State Government representatives to prepare a staged implementation strategy to ensure community dialogue and worked with members of the Goodwood community to undertake local place-making actions related to traffic calming, tree planting and foreshore redevelopment. The committee met on a regular basis reviewing design concepts and working on issues and priorities. Developing community confidence and skills and providing a safe environment for open discussion in a neighbourhood of high unemployment and low skills, investing in capital works projects proved to be a catalyst for social and economic change for Goodwood and continues today (Smith, 2001, Fukuyama, 1995, Bullen and Onyx, 1998, Rydin and Pennington, 2000, Putnam, 2000, McQueen and Lyons, 2001, Roseland, 2000). Figure 4 shows the location of Goodwood in relation to the municipal boundary and other precinct areas as established through the development of the community precinct model.

Results in Goodwood encouraged Council to focus significant resources and efforts on the potential of local community partnerships (Armstrong and Stratford, 2004, Mackey, no date). Under the banner ‘A Role for Everyone’ Council promoted a new community-Council participation model, the history is worth elaborating upon. In 1995, Council sponsored the Community Services Manager, Lindy Mackey and General Manager, David Lovell to undertake a study tour and attend a local democracy conference in Denver, Colorado, to gather information on successful citizen participation programs. The American terminology ‘citizen participation’ was changed to the Council-preferred term ‘community participation’ which, according to Mayor Martin (Glenorchy City Council, 1998b) more “accurately reflected what was intended in Australian terms”. In doing this Mayor Martin may have weakened the process from the beginning unconsciously by this action, for with the notion of citizen comes responsibility and commitment.

Figure 4 Location map for Goodwood (City of Glenorchy, 2000)

An idea to greatly increase community participation in municipal matters was adopted in principle by Council in November 1996 and outlined to the community at the Council annual general meeting in the December. Council then implemented organisational restructuring to support the program. The new framework was finally adopted in August 1998. Council aimed to involve all property owners, residents and workers in decisions that affect their local area by removing the old Ward system of aldermanic districts and dividing the City into areas called community Precincts (Zwart, 2003, p.142). Precinct committees composed of residents and property owners were formed for the purpose of sharing information and ideas with Council

and community. Operational from 1999, Committees were charged with identifying and prioritising local needs, and with supporting Council’s strategic planning and budget processes. Elected Aldermen and staff were assigned to Precincts as observers to encourage the development of positive relationships between Council and the broader community; the former could not serve on committees in precincts where they were resident.

Aldermanic support for the community-Council program was not universal and discontent increased as the costs to implement the program became public knowledge as being 0.5 percent of Council’s total operating budget in 2002-3 (Zwart, 2003). No other figures are publicly available. The development of Council into a service delivery, “consultative and deliberative organisation rather than one focused on a traditional approach caused tensions in Council and three conservatively aligned Aldermen (one-quarter of the total) were openly more against the new consultative approach” (Zwart, 2003, p.141). In turn, members of the Council staff were undecided, with some unsupportive of the new system, arguing that it added new hurdles to already complex and under-resourced internal administrative processes. They perceived the community in general as ill-informed and precinct committees more particularly as interfering in professional work practices, and some raised concerns with management that the process had been ill conceived and arbitrarily formed.

Others were concerned that the precinct process had been constituted with little regard to Glenorchy’s sense of place or community. Most appear to have lacked interest or awareness in the changes to local government around the world – changes often responding to Agenda 21 and ones that motivated the Mayor and senior staff in the first place (Armstrong and Stratford, 2004, Stratford, 2007).