Local Government Law Journal update: July 2015

*Please note that the links to the content in this Part will direct you to Westlaw AU.

The latest issue of the Local Government Law Journal (Volume 20 Part 2) contains the following material:

Articles

New Zealand community boards: History, effectiveness, future prospects – Richard M Fisher

The potential of community boards to promote more effective community engagement has been explored in recent Australia-New Zealand collaborative research. Community boards were created in New Zealand by amendments which occurred in 1989 to local government legislation. Presently, more than half of the country’s 67 territorial authorities have at least one community board. This research summarises the legislative background of community boards, and how they have been used with varying degrees of effectiveness to promote better community-level governance. It also assesses the impact of recent local government reform, including Auckland amalgamation, and the refocus of local government’s purpose upon core services and quality infrastructure. Both have had impacts on local government throughout New Zealand, and provide a timely opportunity to benchmark the value of community boards as a tool to promote better practice in community engagement.

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What role should the practice of comity play in the determination of matters in classes 2 and 3 of the Land and Environment Court’s jurisdiction? – Guy Dwyer

This article considers the role the practice of comity should play in the determination of proceedings brought in classes 2 and 3 of the Land and Environment Court’s jurisdiction. In the process, the article also comments on a recent decision of the Land and Environment Court which has offered further analysis of the practice of comity as it operates in that court. Consistent with the views expressed in an article published earlier this year in this journal by this author, it is argued that comity should play a much more limited role than it currently appears to play in class 2 and class 3 proceedings.

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