Perth / Western Australia

Oh wow yeah! I hadn't read about the backstory for Coolgardie.

Theres definitely cross-over between our predispositions. Mine is to always increase democratic representation where able, and never decrease. My problem with the Barnett government's plan was there was a clear decrease in democratic representation proposed, for vague promuses of efficiencies. If its more efficient to have less councils, then ipso-facto its even more efficient to have one council. By this argument the most efficient forms of governance is surely oligarchy/dictatorship.

Except this isn't whats borne out with those systems, and theres plenty of evidence of those systems around the world.

Those forms of government are only, arguably, efficient for delivering on the needs of an inner-circle/primary population. So the whole efficiency argument rests on a premise that goes against the fundamental theoretical structures (Liberal Democracy) that Australia is built on.

So without a requisite increase in democratoc representation in some other effective way, the case for council mergers is highly problematic for me.