09-07-2025
North Burnett Regional Council record rate rise prompts MP's call for change
A federal MP has called for an overhaul of Queensland's local government legislation in the wake of a record-breaking rate rise handed down by a council this week.
Member for Flynn Colin Boyce called for a review of the state's Local Government Act following Monday's announcement by the North Burnett Regional Council that it would raise general rates by 25 per cent in its 2025–26 budget.
Mr Boyce said the "exorbitant" rates rise was caused by the costs of complying with increasingly complex state government regulations outpacing growth in rates revenue.
"The bureaucracy has doubled itself in size and the bureaucratic process has taken its toll financially on these councils," Mr Boyce said.
North Burnett Regional Council chief executive Craig Matheson said while costs had increased by 10 per cent in recent years, the ratepayer base had only grown by 1 per cent in the past decade.
Depreciation, or renewal of aging buildings and equipment, was another significant cost burden.
"If council does not seek to properly fund the cost of depreciation of its assets, it will continue to be reliant on uncertain grant funds and using cash reserves to fund the replacement of community assets," a council spokesperson in a statement.
As a consequence, the council had delivered a surplus in only three out of 18 budgets since it was formed in 2008, Mr Matheson said.
A state government audit for the 2024–25 financial year found 68 per cent of councils were not bringing in enough revenue to cover their operational costs, and 73 per cent were not spending enough on maintaining aging infrastructure.
Queensland Minister for Local Government Ann Leahy said the government was already working on changing the law.
"The Crisafulli government is working on reforms to the Local Government Act to reduce red tape and cut costs for councils," Ms Leahy said in a statement.
"Rates are a matter for individual councils, but ratepayers would rightly expect them to reflect service and infrastructure delivery."
As a member of the Standing Committee on Regional Development, Infrastructure and Transport, Mr Boyce took part in a parliamentary inquiry into local government sustainability, which released its interim report in March.
Mr Boyce said the inquiry showed the Local Government Act in its current form was making local governments "simply not sustainable".
"I'm advocating that all these councils go back to the state government … and reassess the whole Local Government Act since it was changed … 20 years ago," he said.
"Make the act more flexible so that these small rural and regional councils can have enough flexibility to be able to operate sustainably.
The interim report said there was a widespread perception among local governments that federal and state governments had sought to cut costs by offloading responsibilities onto councils.
"Stakeholders indicated that many new roles and responsibilities are a consequence of the practice of cost shifting," the report said.
Compliance with environmental protection legislation and the increasing costs of maintaining aging infrastructure were among the themes impacting on councils' financial sustainability identified in the report.
A review of the federal government's grants program for local government was called for by "a significant number" of submissions to the inquiry, the report said.
Many regional and rural councils said the current distribution of funding did not properly account for their smaller ratepayer base, while delivering funds to more affluent metropolitan councils that they did not need.
Local Government Association of Queensland (LGAQ) chief executive Alison Smith said along with this "flatlining" of grants funding, a review was needed into the allocation of taxation revenue.
"While rivers of gold flow to the Commonwealth when we all pay everything from income tax to fuel excise to the GST, the level of government that provides most of the things communities use most often — your council — gets the least," she said.
"Only through fair funding to councils will Queensland communities secure the livability they all deserve."
