The new Great Ocean Road Authority: who's paying?
The new Great Ocean Road Coast and Parks Authority misses every opportunity.
The concept of one Great Ocean Road Authority was elegant – to improve infrastructure, attract income from outside sources, reduce service costs for ratepayers, and improve the visitor experience.
There’s now no guarantee any of this will happen.
Instead of replacing about 30 authorities, Labor’s GOR Authority simply adds another layer.
It builds the bureaucracy, and gives no assurance that the inevitably increased cost will not fall upon local people.
Member for Western Victoria, Bev McArthur, voted against the Great Ocean Road Bill this week.
“One of the worst features of the new Authority is the lack of a guaranteed mechanism for local input into decisions. Indigenous communities get asked for their views, so does the Minister, but not locals. Like other Quangos, the Authority is inherently anti-democratic. There is no direct accountability to ratepayers and residents at the ballot box. Indeed local councillors are specifically excluded from being Directors of the new body.”
The Bill is not accompanied by a budget, leaving locals such as the Princetown Caravan Park worried its $200,000 income will be syphoned off to other towns and not reinvested locally.
“The GOR needs resources and it needs infrastructure. It does not need another committee.
“There is genuine fear in local GOR communities that the new authority will drain and divert funds to itself for funding offices, visions, strategy documents and partnership agreements.
“Worst of all, local residents may now be on the hook for user-pays charges. The Bill enables the Authority to raise revenue via parking charges, fees for facilities, and other permits. But there is no strong guarantee that residents and ratepayers will be exempted from these charges.
“I am quite happy for charges to be introduced to raise revenue from tourists, but locals should not have to pay to park or use the toilets in their own back yard.”
“I questioned the Minister on this at some depth at the Committee Stage of the Bill. He could give me no guarantee that locals would be exempted – the Bill simply requires that the authority ‘have regard to’ the financial consequences of its decisions on local communities.”
Mrs McArthur believes this was a wasted opportunity to deliver efficiencies, reduce duplication, time losses and waste.
“The Government clearly stated that all staff of existing committees of management will eventually be incorporated into the Great Ocean Road Coast and Parks Authority.
“How is that streamlining?
"The quangos are still in place, the vast duplication remains, and the inefficiencies and waste will go on. The GORA was supposed to create a one stop shop, the go-to for all things GOR. Instead, it is just another layer to deal with.
“I often hear the same complaint – even if a bureaucrat can be found, they do not want to take responsibility for anything that might be someone else’s job. When something needs funding, the buck gets passed too. There is a merry-go-round which exasperated residents and local business cannot escape.”
“This national and internationally significant asset deserves better.
“Instead Labor’s bureaucratic hallmark is stamped over the new Authority in the way of never-ending consultations, shared responsibility, overlapping powers, talk shops, brakes on development and inaction – everything the GOR doesn’t need.”
“Before Parliament had even discussed the creation of the Authority last year, the Premier had announced its headquarters would be located in Torquay in a deeply presumptuous and arrogant act,” Mrs McArthur said.”
“That’s the Labor mentality. It’s created an authority which locals cannot vote out, but which now has the ability to levy charges on their everyday activities to fund its bloated bureaucracy.”
15 October 2021