Local Government Area

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Local Government Area (abbreviated LGA) is a term used in Australia (and especially by the Australian Bureau of Statistics) to refer to areas controlled by each individual Local Government. The generic names of Local Governments vary from state to state; examples include Borough, City, District, Municipality, Region, Rural City, Shire and Town. Many Local Government Areas in New South Wales and some in South Australia no longer possess a classifier such as Shire or Municipality, but are simply known as a Council, e.g. Manly Council or Waverley Council. This is due to the phenomenon in some regional variants of Australian English of referring to the geographic area belonging to a local government as a council, when in other countries this word refers only to the board of elected politicians that administers local government affairs.

The creation and delimitation of LGAs is the responsibility of the state and territory Governments. In all states and the Northern Territory each incorporated area has an official status. The various LGA status types or classifiers currently in use are:

New South Wales: Cities (C) and Areas (A)
Victoria: Cities (C), Rural Cities (RC), Boroughs (B) and Shires (S)
Queensland: Cities (C), Shires (S), Towns (T) and Island Councils (IC)
South Australia: Cities (C), Rural Cities (RC), Municipalities/Municipal Councils (M), District Councils (DC), Regional Councils (RegC) and Aboriginal Councils (AC)
Western Australia: Cities (C), Towns (T) and Shires (S)
Tasmania: Cities (C) and Municipalities (M)
Northern Territory: Cities (C), Towns (T), Community Government Councils (CGC) and Shires (S).

Another term used, especially for the LGA governing bodies is G3 for the third level of Government in Australia. Commonwealth, State, and LGA. G3 is difficult to accurately place in the structure of Australian Government, it is not mentioned in the Commonwealth Constitution, nor in most State Constitutional Law. State Governments are responsible for the legislation creating it, and ultimately for supervision. However recent years have seen State governments increasingly devolving powers onto LGA, as in Queensland where LGA's have been granted the power to independently enact their own (local) Laws, in contrast to the previous system of By-Laws.

The Australian Capital Territory, Jervis Bay Territory and the external territories do not have Local Government Areas distinct from their Territory governments.