This paper examines recent local government reform in the Northern Territory from two perspectives. The first is a quantitative perspective on population and finances, which focuses on the mixing of diverse interests in the recent changes. The second is a more observational perspective gained from working with one pre-reform local government and now the new larger local government that has replaced it. The paper argues that the recent changes are generational in nature in a number of different ways. It also argues that the greater challenge for the new local governments may be their vast geographic scale, rather than their mixing of diverse interests.

Keywords: Local government reform, Northern Territory Government, remote Indigenous communities

ISBN: 7315 4978 3

ISSN: 1442 3871