Brisbane City Council
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The Brisbane City Council is the governing council for Brisbane, which is the capital of Queensland, Australia. Unlike councils in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, where the local councils are generally responsible for relatively small areas of those cities, the Brisbane City Council administers the larger part of the Brisbane metropolitan area and has a larger population than any other Local Government Area in Australia.
The Council is the combination of the local cities, towns and shires that merged together in 1924 (see history section). The main offices for the Council are at the Brisbane Administration Centre or "BAC", a 20 floor tower behind the Brisbane City Hall, although some of these will be moving to the Brisbane Square development upon its completition in 2006. The Brisbane City Hall houses the Council chamber, the offices of the Lord Mayor, meeting and reception rooms and the Museum of Brisbane.
Council's structure
Brisbane City Council has an unusual structure with power divided between a powerful executive Lord Mayor, a parliamentary-style Council of twenty-six councillors representing single-member wards of approximately equal population, and a Civic Cabinet comprising the Lord Mayor and the chairpersons of the six committees drawn from the membership of Council. The six committees are:
- Community Services Committee
- Environment and Sustainability Committee
- Finance Committee
- Transport and Major Projects Committee
- Urban Planning and Economic Development Committee
- Water and City Businesses Committee
- Brisbane CityWorks
- Brisbane Transport
- Brisbane Water
Seventeen councillors are members of the Australian Labor Party while nine councillors and the Lord Mayor are from the Liberal Party. The current Lord Mayor of Brisbane is former civil engineer Campbell Newman who belongs to the Liberal Party and who is only the second Liberal Lord Mayor of Brisbane. The current Deputy Lord Mayor and the Majority Leader of Council is David Hinchliffe, who belongs to the Labor Party. The day-to-day management of Council's operations is the responsibility of the Chief Executive Officer who is currently Jude Munro.
Elections are held every four years with ballots for the Lord Mayoralty and the individual councillors being held simultaneously. Voting is compulsory for all eligible electors. The most recent election in March 2004 resulted in the unusual situation of a Liberal Lord Mayor co-existing with a Labor majority on Council, resulting in remarkably few conflicts over civic budgets and Council policy.
The Brisbane City Council and its unique structure is incorporated under the City of Brisbane Act 1924, while other local governments in Queensland are bound by the Local Government Act 1993.
Council meetings are held at Brisbane City Hall every Tuesday at 2pm except during recess and holiday periods. Meetings are generally open to the public.
City emblems
The motto of Brisbane City Council is Meliora sequimur, Latin for We aim for the best. Its corporate slogan is Dedicated to a better Brisbane. The city's colours are blue and gold. Its corporate logo was introduced in 1982 in preparation for the Commonwealth Games hosted in Brisbane that year. It features a stylised version of Brisbane's City Hall which opened in 1930. The city's floral emblem is the poinsettia and its faunal emblem is the graceful tree frog.
History
Brisbane City Council was formed in 1925 from a forced amalgamation of twenty smaller councils. These councils were:
- Cities:
- *Brisbane
- *South Brisbane
- Shires:
- *Balmoral
- *Belmont
- *Coorparoo
- *Enoggera
- *Kedron
- *Moggill
- *Sherwood
- *Stephens
- *Taringa
- *Tingalpa
- *Toombul
- *Yeerongpilly
Councillors and wards
As of October 2005, the twenty-six wards, their councillors and their party affiliations are:
| Ward | Councillor | Party |
| Acacia Ridge | Kevin Bianchi | Labor |
| Bracken Ridge | Carol Cashman | Liberal |
| Central | David Hinchliffe | Labor |
| Chandler | Adrian Schrinner (due to by-election) | Liberal |
| Deagon | Victoria Newton | Labor |
| Doboy | John H. Campbell | Labor |
| Dutton Park | Helen Abrahams | Labor |
| East Brisbane | Catherine Bermingham | Labor |
| Enoggera | Ann Bennison | Labor |
| Grange | Maureen Hayes | Labor |
| Hamilton | Tim Nicholls | Liberal |
| Holland Park | Kerry Rea | Labor |
| Jamboree | Felicity Farmer | Labor |
| Marchant | Faith Hopkins | Labor |
| McDowall | Norm Wyndham | Liberal |
| Moorooka | Steve Griffiths | Labor |
| Morningside | Shayne Sutton | Labor |
| Northgate | Kim Flesser | Labor |
| Pullenvale | Margaret de Wit | Liberal |
| Richlands | Les Bryant | Labor |
| Runcorn | Gail MacPherson | Labor |
| The Gap | Geraldine Knapp | Liberal |
| Toowong | Judy Magub | Liberal |
| Walter Taylor | Jane Prentice | Liberal |
| Wishart | Graham Quirk | Liberal |
| Wynnum Manly | Peter Cumming | Labor |
External links
- [Brisbane City Council online]
- [ourBrisbane - Brisbane City Council's Community Portal]
- [Brisbane City Council's Organisational Structure]
- [Brisbane City Enterprises]
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