Efficiency has remained a primary theme for higher tiers of government within Australasia when addressing issues of local government performance.

This report provides a literature review of current and past research on local government. It constitutes Volume 2 of the report Consolidation in Local Government: A Fresh Look.

A recurrent theme in local government reform, in Australia, New Zealand and overseas, has been the issue of municipal amalgamation and the various benefits which are assumed to flow from it. There have been many commissions and reports aimed at reforming local government in Australia and almost all have had as a major focus the question of optimum size and efficiency. This mirrors experiences in a number of overseas jurisdictions.

The reports of these enquiries, together with the academic research in Australia, New Zealand and internationally, represent a huge body of literature, sometimes contradictory, often heavily focused on economic arguments to the exclusion of other issues – such as the importance of good governance and effective local democracy and representation – and rarely inclusive of any evaluation of the post-reform experience. It is little wonder that proposals for amalgamations or other forms of consolidation keep recurring, when there has not been a robust meta-analysis of the data to give governments more guidance in their policy making.

This project sought, to a modest extent, to redress that imbalance. Its aim was to provide a fresh
view of issues relating to municipal consolidation by:

• Reviewing the available local and international literature.
• Conducting a series of ‘on ground’ case studies  in areas which have recent experience with consolidation, in both Australia and New Zealand.
• Interviewing key opinion-makers who have recent experience in consolidation.

Written Chris Aulich, Melissa Gibbs, Alex Gooding, Peter McKinlay, Stefanie Pillora and Graham Sansom.