City of Brisbane

City of Brisbane
Queensland

Map of Brisbane City in South East Queensland
Coordinates 27°28′S 153°07′E / 27.47°S 153.12°ECoordinates: 27°28′S 153°07′E / 27.47°S 153.12°E
Population 1,041,839 (2011)[1]
 • Density 769.9/km2 (1,994/sq mi)
Established 1924
Area 1,367 km2 (527.8 sq mi)
Lord Mayor Graham Quirk
Council seat Brisbane CBD (City Hall)
Region South East Queensland
State electorate(s) Algester, Ashgrove, Aspley, Brisbane Central, Bulimba, Chatsworth, Clayfield, Everton, Ferny Grove, Greenslopes, Inala, Indooroopilly, Lytton, Mansfield, Moggill, Mount Coot-tha, Mount Ommaney, Nudgee, Sandgate, South Brisbane, Stafford, Stretton, Sunnybank, Yeerongpilly
Federal Division(s) Brisbane, Bonner, Griffith, Lilley, Moreton, Oxley, Petrie, Ryan
Website City of Brisbane
LGAs around City of Brisbane:
Somerset Moreton Bay Moreton Bay
Somerset City of Brisbane Moreton Bay
Ipswich Logan Redland

The City of Brisbane is the local government area that has jurisdiction over the inner portion of the metropolitan area of Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, Australia. Unlike LGAs in the other mainland state capitals (Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide), which are generally responsible only for the central business districts and inner neighbourhoods of those cities, the City of Brisbane administers a significant portion of the Brisbane metropolitan area, serving almost half of the population of the Brisbane Greater Capital City Statistical Area (GCCSA, formerly statistical division). As such, it has a larger population than any other local government area in Australia. The City of Brisbane was the first Australian LGA to reach a population of more than one million.[2] Its population is roughly equivalent to the populations of Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory combined. The Council administers a budget of over A$3 billion.[3]

The City derives from cities, towns and shires that merged in 1925. The main offices and Central Library of the Council are at 266 George Street, also known as Brisbane Square. Brisbane City Hall houses the Council Chamber, the offices of the Lord Mayor and Deputy Mayor, meeting and reception rooms and the Museum of Brisbane.

History

Map of Brisbane at time of amalgamation
Story Bridge and Brisbane River, 2006
Brisbane City Hall in the 1930s
Former council offices, 2010

The Government of Queensland created the City of Brisbane with a view to uniting the then Brisbane metropolitan area under a single planning and governance structure. The City of Brisbane Act 1924 received assent from the Governor on 30 October 1924. On 1 October 1925, 20 local government areas of various sizes were abolished and merged into the new city,[4] namely:

The Council also assumed responsibility for several quasi-autonomous government authorities, such as the Brisbane Tramways Trust.

Governance

The City of Brisbane is governed by the Brisbane City Council, the largest local council in Australia. The Brisbane City Council has its power divided between a Lord Mayor, a parliamentary-style council of twenty-six councillors representing single-member wards of approximately 23,000 voters (roughly equivalent in size to state electorates), and a Civic Cabinet comprising the Lord Mayor, the Deputy Mayor (drawn from the majority on Council) and the chairpersons of the seven standing committees drawn from the membership of Council. Due to the City of Brisbane's status as the country's largest LGA, the Lord Mayor is elected by the largest single-member electorate in Australia. Like all mayors in Queensland, he has very broad executive power.

The seven standing committees of Council are:

The council also owns three business units which are city-owned enterprises managed on commercial lines:

Following local government elections on 28 April 2012, the Lord Mayor and 18 councillors are members of the Liberal National Party while 7 are from the Australian Labor Party with 1 independent. The current Lord Mayor of Brisbane is Graham Quirk of the LNP, who was elected mayor in his own right on 28 April 2012 after having been appointed to the Lord Mayoralty in April 2011 when Campbell Newman resigned to make an ultimately successful bid to become Premier of Queensland. The current Deputy Mayor is Adrian Schrinner of the LNP. The day-to-day management of Council's operations is the responsibility of the chief executive officer who is currently Colin Jensen.

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 election in March 2004 resulted in the unusual situation of Liberal (later LNP after a July 2008 merger) Lord Mayor Newman co-existing with a Labor majority on Council and a Labor Deputy Mayor, though this resulted in remarkably few conflicts over civic budgets and Council policy. The LNP gained a 5.5% swing on the councillor votes in the March 2008 election, resulting in the Liberals taking control of the council as well (Newman won re-election with 60% of the primary vote). Graham Quirk won re-election as Lord Mayor (having been appointed to the position in April 2011) in 2012 with 61.94% of the vote and the LNP gained an additional 3 wards. The next election will be held in 2016.

The Brisbane City Council is incorporated under the City of Brisbane Act 1924, while other local governments in Queensland are governed by the Local Government Act 1993.

Council meetings are held at Level 2, City Hall, 64 Adelaide Street, Brisbane City[5] every Tuesday at 2pm except during recess and holiday periods. This temporary venue is in use due to the restoration work being performed on the traditional venue Brisbane City Hall.[6] Meetings are generally open to the public.

Brisbane City Council aims to be carbon neutral by 2026 via the reduction of emissions and carbon offsetting.[7]

Heraldry

Brisbane coat of arms

The motto of the City of Brisbane is Meliora sequimur, Latin for We aim for better things. The Council's 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 (exotic) poinsettia and its faunal emblem is the graceful tree frog.

Wards

the election on 28 April 2012, the twenty-six wards, their councillors and their party affiliations were:[8]

WardPartyCouncillor
  Bracken Ridge LNP Amanda Cooper
  Central LNP Vicki Howard
  Chandler LNP Adrian Schrinner
  Deagon Labor Victoria Newton
  Doboy LNP Ryan Murphy
  Enoggera LNP Andrew Wines
  Hamilton LNP David McLachlan
  Holland Park LNP Ian McKenzie
  Jamboree LNP Matthew Bourke
  Karawatha LNP Kim Marx
  MacGregor LNP Steven Huang
  Marchant LNP Fiona King
  McDowall LNP Norm Wyndham
  Moorooka Labor Steve Griffiths
  Morningside Labor Shayne Sutton
  Northgate Labor Kim Flesser
  Parkinson LNP Angela Owen-Taylor
  Pullenvale LNP Margaret de Wit
  Richlands Labor Milton Dick
  Tennyson Independent Nicole Johnston
  The Gabba Labor Helen Abrahams
  The Gap LNP Geraldine Knapp
  Toowong LNP Peter Matic
  Walter Taylor LNP Julian Simmonds
  Wishart LNP Krista Adams
  Wynnum Manly Labor Peter Cumming

Sister cities

The City of Brisbane has seven sister cities.[9] They are:

City Region Country Year
Hyderabad India Telangana  India October 2010
Kobe[10]  Hyōgo Prefecture  Japan July 1985
Auckland New Zealand Auckland Region  New Zealand August 1988
Shenzhen[11][12][13] China Guangdong  China June 1992
Semarang Central Java  Indonesia January 1993
Kaohsiung Taiwan Southern Taiwan  Taiwan September 1997
Daejeon Chungcheongnam-do  South Korea June 2002
Chongqing China Chongqing1  China October 2005
Abu Dhabi  Abu Dhabi  United Arab Emirates February 2009

^1 Direct-controlled municipality of the People's Republic of China

In 1995, Brisbane City Council officially severed all ties with its sister city, Nice, France, in protest against the Chirac government's decision to resume nuclear testing in the Pacific Ocean.[14] Brisbane does not have any sister city relationship with any North American, South American, African or European city.[15]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Australian Bureau of Statistics (21 June 2012). "2011 Census QuickStats". Retrieved 3 July 2012.
  2. ↑ Hiroaki Suzuki; Arish Dastur; Sebastian Moffatt; Nanae Yabuki; Hinako Maruyama (2010). Eco2 Cities: Ecological Cities as Economic Cities. World Bank. p. 213. ISBN 978-0-8213-8046-8. Retrieved 12 March 2011.
  3. ↑ Council budget 2010–2011
  4. ↑ City of Brisbane Act 1924 (accessed 23 January 2011)
  5. ↑ "Meeting dates & locations". Brisbane City Council. Retrieved 21 March 2010.
  6. ↑ "City Hall Restoration". Brisbane City Council. Retrieved 21 March 2010.
  7. ↑ "Council's energy aims". Brisbane City Council. Retrieved 27 September 2010.
  8. ↑ "Councillors and Wards". Brisbane City Council. Retrieved 28 May 2012.
  9. ↑ "Facts & Statistics". Our Brisbane. Archived from the original on 14 October 2007. Retrieved 2 January 2008.
  10. ↑ "Kobe's Sister Cities". Kobe Trade Information Office. Archived from the original on 21 April 2013. Retrieved 11 August 2013.
  11. ↑ 友好城市 (Friendly cities), 市外办 (Foreign Affairs Office), 22 March 2008. (Translation by Google Translate.)
  12. ↑ 国际友好城市一览表 (International Friendship Cities List), 20 January 2011. (Translation by Google Translate.)
  13. ↑ 友好交流 (Friendly exchanges), 13 September 2011. (Translation by Google Translate.)
  14. ↑ Thomas, Nicholas (2004). Re-Orienting Australia-China Relations: 1972 to the Present. Australia: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 75. ISBN 0-7546-3245-8. Retrieved 12 January 2008.
  15. ↑ Sister Cities – Brisbane City Council

External links