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The Debate on Australian Federalism: Local Government Financial Interrelationships with State and Commonwealth Governments
Author(s) -
Worthington Andrew,
Dollery Brian
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
australian journal of public administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.524
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1467-8500
pISSN - 0313-6647
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8500.00177
Subject(s) - commonwealth , federalism , state (computer science) , local government , neglect , government (linguistics) , public administration , political science , cooperative federalism , economics , mainstream , political economy , law , politics , medicine , linguistics , philosophy , nursing , algorithm , computer science
The nascent debate on Australian federalism has hitherto focused almost entirely on Commonwealth‐state interrelationships to the virtual exclusion of local government. Since Australian local government employs around 156,000 people and spends in excess of $10 billion this neglect is unfortunate. In an effort to at least partly remedy this oversight, the present paper seeks to assess various unsettled questions in local government financial relationships with both Commonwealth and state governments, especially the issue of financial assistance grants and their efficiency consequences.