Chief Minister Gallagher is letting us know about her presentation to the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) today, which we’re sure the State Premiers will really appreciate.
The Chief Minister will today, present a case study in trans-border cooperation, telling the nation’s leaders at the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting that Canberra’s role as a regional centre will increasingly be a priority for the city.
“While we have always played an important role in the region we now need to concentrate on our regional future as a real priority,” the Chief Minister said.
“I believe there is potential for using our significant collective regional scale to get greater value for the ratepayer dollars we individually spend on our separate service-related contracts and separate procurement processes.
I’m not sure the NSW Government is going to be keen to hand any sort of power to the ACT, but if they can pass over some costs they might be up for it.
Of greatest concern to this writer is that there is no democratic institution underpinning this supra-regional grouping the Chief Minister proposes.
The Councils face their voters, as do the NSW and ACT Governments, but to whom will the South-East NSW instrumentality answer?