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A 'Common-Sense Revolution'? the Transformation of the Melbourne City

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A 'Common-Sense Revolution'? the Transformation of the Melbourne City A ‘COMMON-SENSE REVOLUTION’? THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE MELBOURNE CITY COUNCIL, 1992−9 A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy April, 2015 Angela G. Munro Faculty of Business, Government and Law Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis University of Canberra ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis is the culmination of almost fifty years’ interest professionally and as a citizen in local government. Like many Australians, I suspect, I had barely noticed it until I lived in England where I realised what unique attributes it offered, despite the different constitutional arrangements of which it was part. The research question of how the disempowerment and de-democratisation of the Melbourne City Council from 1992−9 was possible was a question with which I had wrestled, in practice, as a citizen during those years. My academic interest was piqued by the Mayor of Stockholm to whom I spoke on November 18, 1993, the day on which the Melbourne City Council was sacked. ‘That couldn’t happen here’, he said. I have found the project a herculean labour, since I recognised the need to go back to 1842 to track the institutional genealogy of the City Council’s development in the pre- history period to 1992 rather than a forensic examination of the seven year study period. I have been exceptionally fortunate to have been supervised by John Halligan, Professor of Public Administration at University of Canberra. An international authority in the field, Professor Halligan has published extensively on Australian systems of government including the capital cities and the Melbourne City Council in particular. I am also appreciative of the support and encouragement of Dr Selen Ercan, Higher Degree Research convenor. Living in Melbourne, I am indebted to Michael Buxton, Professor of Urban Planning at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University, for intellectual and practical support. That I was able to share post-graduate facilities at the University and enjoy the mutual support of fellow students, made the project possible. I am grateful to Dr Bronwyn Meyrick in particular. During my visits to Canberra I was cared for beyond the call of duty by my friend from childhood, Helen Parkes. My family and many friends have been a source of great support, despite a suggestion that I was ‘barking mad’ to undertake the study. My son Thomas, having completed a v PhD, and friends Dr Jennifer Bryce, Mary Featherston, Bob Northey and Dr Liz Oley were a constant source of advice and encouragement. Amo Rizzuto was a tower of strength in dealing with recalcitrant computer software. Diane Brown copyedited the thesis in accordance with the Australian Standards for Editing Practice, in particular standards D and E, revised in 2013. Finally, I want to acknowledge the generosity and engagement of twenty-three Melburnians, leaders in diverse fields, who contributed their candid recollections and interpretations of the changes made to the Melbourne City Council between 1992 and 1999. Their interviews constitute a remarkable political archive. To Melbourne City Council historian, Dr David Dunstan and to John Young, its former town clerk, as to Professor John Power, Professor Halligan and Professor Buxton, thanks are due for encouraging research in the neglected area of Australian capital city government. vi ACRONYMS ABC Australian Broadcasting Corporation ACTU Australian Council of Trade Unions ALGA Australian Local Government Association ALP Australian Labor Party (Labour until 1912) ASU Australian Services Union (Municipal Officers Association and Municipal Employees Association amalgamated in 1993) BOMA Building Managers and Owners Association (renamed Property Council of Australia in 1996) CAD Central Activities District (redefinition of CBD in 1985 to reflect multiple functions and interests) CBD Central Business District CCT Compulsory Competitive Tendering GBE Government Business Enterprise CFM Committee for Melbourne CFMEU Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union CGRCM Committee for Governmental Reform in Central Melbourne COAG Council of Australian Governments DLP Democratic Labor Party GLC Greater London Council GMC Greater Melbourne Council IAESR Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne IMRA Inner Metropolitan Regional Association IPA Institute of Public Affairs MAV Municipal Association of Victoria MCC Melbourne City Council MCCC Melbourne City Chamber of Commerce (established 1858 and absorbed within VECCI in early 1990s) MLA Member of the Legislative Assembly MLC Member of the Legislative Council MMBW Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works MVA Melbourne Voters Action NPM New Public Management NIEIR National Institute of Economic and Industry Research NIMBY Not in my back yard RAIA Royal Australian Institute of Architects RAPI Royal Australian Planning Institute, became Planning Institute of Australia on July 1, 2002 RACV Royal Automobile Club of Victoria SES Senior Executive Service VCAT Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal VCOSS Victorian Council of Social Service VECCI Victorian Employers’ Chamber of Commerce and Industry founded in 1851 and absorbed MCCC and Victorian Employers Federation in early 1990s VLGA Victorian Local Governance Association VROC Voluntary Regional Organisation of Councils VTPAB Victorian Town Planning Appeals Board VTPPA Victorian Town Planning and Parks Association, became Town and Country Planning Association VTHC Victorian Trades Hall Council vii ABSTRACT The unilateral substitution of an appointed commission for the elected Melbourne City Council in October, 1993 by the incoming, neoliberal Victorian Government, was followed by its disempowerment as a democratic institution before reinstatement in emasculated form in 1996. The resounding defeat of the Labor government, in 1992, coincided with an unprecedented global property collapse whose cataclysmic economic and political consequences in Melbourne were conducive to this marginalisation of the City Council and citizenry. A historic dual conflict over the governance and development of central Melbourne between the Victorian Government and the City Council on the one hand, and between central city property interests and citizenry on the other, was immediately resolved. Whereas efficiencies justified council amalgamations statewide, the Melbourne City Council was subject to separate and extreme centralisation of state government power, deregulation of urban planning and de-democratisation as a micro CBD council. In order to examine how this extraordinary capital city transformation was enabled the historical institutionalist framework of Mahoney and Thelen is applied.1 The institutional change between 1992 and 1999 is thus interpreted in the context of the previous 150 years, rather than as a discrete period. In the seven year case study period, historical analysis of institutional change is grounded by interviews with twenty-three protagonists who had occupied positions of power in enabling, opposing or as experts witnessing the City Council’s change. While globalisation and neoliberalism were universal megatrends, certain historic political and institutional attributes of the Melbourne City Council and its setting (a Victorian paradigm) are seen to have shaped its singular and radical metamorphosis. 1 Mahoney & Thelen (2009). Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency and Power. Cambridge, USA: Cambridge University Press. ix Further, these attributes permitted a rapid evolutionary transformation rather than a commonly perceived revolution in the City Council from 1992−9. This longitudinal perspective also indicates that, insofar as revolutionary change occurred, it was during the previous Labor decade of government (1982−92), including the only democratically elected Melbourne City Council then or since. It is argued that the changes which delegitimised Melbourne City Council from 1992−9 were in part counter-revolutionary in dismantling the democratisation of the 1980s, while harnessing Labor’s centrist, social democratic reforms to neoliberal ends. An extreme ideological commitment to small government and to facilitating the market, belies the claim by then premier Jeff Kennett to have effected a ‘common-sense revolution’ (1995) in Victorian governance. Indeed, the bipartisan interests of state governments and those of the property sector coalesced increasingly in post-industrial Melbourne from the 1970s as a so-called ‘growth machine’. This facilitated the dramatic institutional transformation of the City Council in the 1990s in strategically favourable economic and political circumstances. As a corollary, the delegitimised CBD council entailed the effective disenfranchisement of Melbourne citizens in capital city governance, without institutional recourse. It also represented another lost opportunity for metropolitan governance at the behest of its traditional opponents – state government (notably the Legislative Council) − and property interests. In practice, rather than a dual conflict over the Melbourne City Council, relations between the political and institutional duality resemble a double helix, bound by the imperatives of property. Despite recurrent pressure for democratic city government and for metropolitan government for over a century, the nineteenth century paradigm of central government control of a property-based, central business council was substantially reinstated between 1992 and 1999. x TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ...........................................................................................
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