EXPOSICIÓN DEL TEMA

The term ‘public’ can be subdivided into users of services, taxpayers and citizens (Boyne et al. 2002), all of whom may have differing requirements. At local government level ‘public stakeholders’ will be the actual end-users or service recipients (or their representatives) of goods and services while some will also be fund providers. They are all part of the local community.

Section 1A of the Victorian Local Government Act (1993) states ‘local community includes: people who live in the municipal district; people and bodies who are ratepayers; and people and bodies who conduct activities in the municipal district’. Accordingly, in the current study, four main stakeholder groups with an interest in infrastructure assets are selected as falling under the ‘public’ category. They are: ratepayers, users of infrastructure assets, community special interest groups and local media. A brief explanation of each of these ‘public’ stakeholders is given below.

4.3.1.1 Ratepayers

Ratepayers are viewed as involuntary resource providers and are or expect to be recipients of public goods and services (Taylor & Rosair 2000; Gomes & Gomes 2009). They are responsible of electing councillors who, in turn, oversee processes and decisions of the

councils (Pilcher & Dean 2009). According to ABS (2012, cat. No. 5512.0), 35% of the local

government revenue is earned by taxes/rates paid by the owners of properties and businesses. Consequently, the LGAs need to be accountable to the ratepayers, which is one accountee group in Sinclair’s (1995) concept of ‘public accountability’. This is already evidenced empirically, by prior research (Kloot & Martin 2000; Taylor and Rosair 2000; Pilcher and Dean 2009). However, PWC Report (2006) states that anecdotal evidence suggests that many

ratepayers are not aware of the large volume of local and regional infrastructure and essential

services provided by LGAs.

4.3.1.2 Users of Infrastructure Assets

These are predominantly the recipients of public goods and services, in this case the users of infrastructure asset. Taylor and Rosair (2000) in their attempt to identify accountees in achievement of outputs, assert that this user group compose most of the citizenry or general public. They further state the users are less likely to have a right to obtain accountability information from a government department, unless they succeed in a specific claim for access to information under freedom of information legislation. Most users will also be local and national tax/ratepayers, businesses and voluntary organisations (Boyne et al. 2002) who have an array of relationships with LGAs. Users of services will probably have a particular interest in issues of quality and effectiveness of services being provided (Pollitt 1989). Determining this appropriate level of service depends on understanding the expectations of the users. In

order to obtain the expectations of the users all LGAs are required to carry out a comprehensive customer satisfaction survey during the financial year.

4.3.1.3 Community Special Interest Groups

Many prior studies related to stakeholder identification and salience have considered special interest groups or lobby groups in different industries as one of the stakeholders (Gago & Antolin 2004; Cordano et al. 2004; Henriques & Sharma 2005; O’Higgins & Morgan 2006;Cummings & Guthrie 2007; Boesso & Kumar 2009 a,b). The development of infrastructure assets requires long lead times, reflecting the significant planning required to ensure the community is appropriately consulted, and needs are prioritised in accordance with funding constraints (Engineers Australia 2005). To this end, the community special interest groups can be highly influential in decisions made by LGAs with regard to infrastructure assets. In addition, the community special interest groups can become active and persuasive during a deprived situation including natural catastrophe such as floods or bushfire.

The influence of the community interest groups was clearly publicized when the Baillieu government's Planning Minister Matthew Guy announced his intention to rezone a 24-hectare site at Ventnor near Cowes, citing housing affordability as the justification: (Millar & Lucas 2012).

Mr Guy's intervention sparked a furious community response and backlash from within the Liberal Party. Hollywood starlet Miley Cyrus bought into the row, her tweets about the threats to Phillip Island making the Ventnor issue international. Mr Guy was forced into an embarrassing backflip within days of his initial decision (Millar & Lucas 2012, p. 3).

Planning Minister Matthew Guy, has been forced into a humiliating backflip over a controversial land rezoning at Phillip Island after some of his own Liberal colleagues lined up against the proposal with local Bass Coast property owners, holiday homers and councillors (Millar & Lucas 2011, p. 2).

4.3.1.4 Local Media

Local Media is also often considered as a stakeholder in prior literature in relation to stakeholder identification and salience in the private sector as well as in the public sector (Kuratko et al. 2004; Gago & Antolin 2004; Henriques & Sharma 2005; O’Higgins & Morgan

2006; Parent & Deephouse 2007). According to Cheng (cited in Pilcher 2005, p.176) ‘…media has an increasingly adversarial stance against government, questioning the role of government and the effectiveness and efficiency of government programs’. According to Gomes and Gomes (2010) the local media is able to scrutinise the decision making since it has control over the critical resource of public information. Pilcher (2005a) claims that media is a stakeholder who applies conflicting pressure in LGAs and provides the following illustration:

During 1999/2000 a LGA (C31) considered the 80-year life of their roads as unrealistic. An engineer of the LGA indicated that a 25-year life was more appropriate, particularly given that a high degree of maintenance was not being expended on their rural roads. The LGA was named in an article appearing in a major Australian newspaper due to its very large operating loss of $3.94M. Facing political pressure, the LGA revised its allocated useful lives of the road assets back to the original life nominated – despite engineering evidence to the contrary (Pilcher 2005a, p. 176)