Economic development, partnerships & regional planning in Queensland

This paper examines some aspects of the policy and regulatory domain in which land use planning has traditionally occurred at the most decentralised i.e. local government authority (LGA) level in the northeast State of Queensland, Australia. It first outlines the State’s current economic growth strategy and strategic management of economic infrastructure. Second, it highlights previous market failure in optimal development and land use, the slow adoption of remedial statutory planning and evident regulatory failure. There follows, an outline of the rise of regional planning which increasingly overlaps with regional development strategies of government. That is, planning expansively defined on a multi-LGA basis to promote the economic growth and development of regions as variably defined; to manage natural resources; and to enable development of higher level regional strategic and statutory plans e.g. the South-East Queensland Regional Plan 2005-2026 extending across some 18 city and shire councils. The final section applies a competitive government model and Wicksell-Lindahl efficiency in appraising the new political economy of Queensland’s regional planning and development following the mid-2007 unilateral one-half reduction of LGAs by State Government in conjunction with (re)centralised, integrated (re)regulation of the contested cooperative-coercive inter-governmental domain.