There are “growing opportunities for direct co-operation between the Federal Government and local government”, according to the Prime Minister, John Howard.

Addressing the Australian Local Government Association, Howard reiterated his view that “my philosophy and the philosophy of the Government is very much that we’re not going to be hidebound by a particular model or a particular framework of relationship between another level of government, but rather as we demonstrated in the attitude we took to our programme of providing funding for local roads that if the better outcome, the more efficient outcome, the more economic outcome was to deal directly with local government and to bypass state governments we would be willing to do so.” [Read more…]