Furthermore, it has nothing to do with amalgamations, Mr Proctor says.

During an open forum address to the Goulburn Mulwaree Council last Tuesday, Mr Proctor said greater coooperation between councils would achieve savings.

“Council reform is needed, but there are many options for doing this,” he told the meeting.

“I was in this room four years ago when a workshop was addressing proposed council reforms. One of the options canvassed was for individual councils to form cooperatives or groups with other councils. The Joint Regional Organisations would be an opportunity to follow this model.”

Goulburn Mulwaree is a member of the Canberra Region Joint Organisation of Councils and prior to that, SEROC.

But Mr Proctor said these should be taken to the next level, sharing administration, planning, engineering, utilities, plant and equipment, workforce and community services.

In so doing, a “larger, stronger council” would provide services to smaller, adjacent ones: 

“This would provide significant savings due to economies of scale, and enable more efficient utilisation of resources.”

Mr Proctor argued this was a far better solution than amalgamations that did not address the core issues.

He said both levels of government and representative organisations were “poorly managing” reform. While the state was taking a “dictatorial approach,” many councils were standing firm.

“These attitudes will not provide an effective outcome for the reform of local government that is required to provide a structure for the 21st century,” Mr Proctor said.

He told councillors that while he was happy Goulburn Mulwaree was promoting reform, he was disappointed that merger options were put above cooperative strategies.

“Merging of councils will not resolve the problems that the State Government wants fixed, and indeed may directly lead to other problems arising,” he said.