We, CLAIR Sydney, have completed the revision of our publication, the “Local Government of Australia and New Zealand” guidebook, which outlines information on the local government system in the two countries. The new updated version will be made available in April. The guidebook, which is written by our staff members (some of which have just returned to Japan), is aimed at Japanese local governments and scholars and as such is only available in Japanese. We apologise to those who would like to read the guidebook in English.
As you may know, the local government systems of Australia and New Zealand have some differences from the Japanese system. Of course, both systems are based on democracy, are independent from the central government, and are sustained by civic engagement. In the guidebook, we have made a point to convey that, 1) “council” means not only a conference or body consisting of councillors, but also an entity of local administration (the Japanese system has different names for a conference and an entity), 2) a mayor is also a member of a council and chairs the conference (the Japanese system adopts a strict distinction between a mayor and an assembly like the US President and Congress relation), and, 3) Australian states are not local governments (Japanese prefectures and municipalities are both recognised as local governments in Japan).
We were also able to update the guidebook with recent topics, such as recent referendums in Australia and amalgamations in NSW.
We are very excited to be able to update this publication to more accurately convey the local governance system in Australia and New Zealand to our Japanese audience. We would like to express our deep gratitude for the cooperation and support we received from mayors, councillors, officers and scholars in both Australia and New Zealand.
Katsunori Kamibo
Director
