A normative model of local government de-amalgamation in Australia

Ongoing local community dissatisfaction in some newly amalgamated local government areas resulting from the 2007 Queensland forced amalgamation program has raised the prospect of de-merger in that state. One catalyst has been the Opposition's commitment to de-amalgamation should it acquire government. Apart from some descriptive discussion of actual de-amalgamation episodes, almost no prescriptive analysis exists on the optimal form any de-merger process may take. Using two documented cases of de-amalgamation in metropolitan and regional settings, this exploratory paper seeks to address this gap in the literature on local government by presenting a ‘stylised’ approach to de-amalgamation designed for Australian local government conditions built around five generic principles.