How your council actually works

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How your council actually works

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Episode one. Before any particular decision, here is the machine: your council runs on three levers — rates, planning and works — and everything else you are angry about belongs to a government that is not your council. Why councillors set policy but cannot direct staff, why your rates bill rises even where a cap applies, who really controls the planning scheme, what a council genuinely cannot do, and how to get something done — on the agenda, inside the window, against the criteria.

General information about how local government is structured in Australia. Arrangements differ between states. Not advice about your own situation.

This episode was produced with AI narration and scripting, with human editorial review.

Sourced from the public record — council agendas, minutes and published notices, attributed every time.

A Talking Labs production.

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