Tell a coherent story
from the ground up
When local leaders focus on WHAT matters not just HOW much money they need everything changes...
Our approach
To rebuilding our federal system of government from the ground up
A Renewed Federalism...
In 1971, Gough Whitlam unveiled a new federalism that he said would rest on a national framework for the establishment of investment priorities and a regional framework for participation in all those decisions which most directly determine the quality of our lives. It's time to confront the fact that we only ever realised half that vision and Whitlam's self-confessed 'centralist' approach was fundamentally opposed to returning power to the people as he claimed he was going to do. Put simply, he created a national bureaucratic machine... but we've never cultivated the local democratic organism, the vital complement, the other half of our federation: the bottom up to counter the top down... the BIG bureaucracy.
A Big Business With a Difference...
Nick Greiner made it clear to all in his campaign for the 1988 election that he intended to run NSW like a 'big business.' But three decades on, it's time to recognise that a business only stays big if it delivers something of value... a bureaucracy stays BIG and gets BIGGER because it has the power to impose increases in taxation even if people are unwilling to pay for them. It's time to adopt a new business model: Peter Drucker wrote that there is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer. How does that apply to local government? It's about willingness to pay. We're convinced that our communities will never be willing to pay more in rates... but maybe we've been telling the story wrong: we've focused on how much more money council needs to be 'financially sustainable' not how we need to be able to sustain the functions our local communities need like our local road networks and local water utilities.
Hawke's new form of government...
In 1983, Bob Hawke unveiled what Paul Kelly described as a 'new form of government,' one where stakeholders agree on common goals and how to reach them. The Wage Accords he led consensus on were the exception that proves the rule: we've lost the ability to agree on such goals at the national level... we need a new form of Hawke's new form of government where local leaders agree on common goals for things like local road networks and local water utilities AND agree on how to achieve them, understood as consistent performance measures by which we can not only establish expenditure need (key to achieving a redistribution of grants) but we can also give our communities more confidence that we're delivering value for money for their rates (crucial to the conversations about being able to sustain functions, and willingness to pay to gain assurance that we'll do so)
The Common Thread Framework
It's not enough to focus on financial sustainability... it's not even enough to focus on service delivery, being able to sustain the functions our local communities need... our civic and executive leaders need to practice sustainable community leadership. The Common Thread Framework is a set of tools to help and we're here to help you to use them. It's a different way of leading, thinking and behaving... it's not complicated (it's far simpler than the way we do things now!) but it is fundamentally different and that's why we're planning the Destination 2036 event in Dubbo to spend a couple of days introducing the #Shire-folk to this new way of working.
What makes us different...
Local government's problems are complex. We need to tackle this from different perspectives
Ben Lawson and David Gourlay couldn't be more different... A systemic scientist and a people person. A local government engineer from regional NSW and an organisational psychologist from Scotland. No wonder it took them a decade to work out WHAT the #@*% the other one was talking about! The fact that they stuck at it reflects their shared conviction that neither of them had (or has) all the answers. That's not what we're offering you, either: we're offering to help you to ask better questions...
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Reach out to find out more about how to do local government differently...