58-551: The Shire of Kingaroy was a local government area in the South Burnett area of Queensland , Australia , about 100 kilometres (62 mi) northwest of the capital, Brisbane . The shire covered an area of 2,420.3 square kilometres (934.5 sq mi), and existed as a local government area from 1912 until 2008, when it amalgamated with a number of other local government areas in the South Burnett area to become
116-721: A Large Volume Receiver (LVR), e.g. the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital has the postcode 4029, the Australian National University had the postcode 0200. More postcode ranges were made available for LVRs in the 1990s. Australia Post has been progressively discontinuing the LVR programme since 2006. Some places in Australia do not have postcodes. These are typically remote areas with little or no population. The first one or two numerals usually show
174-588: A unitary authority , but the Australian Bureau of Statistics refers to the whole of the ACT as an unincorporated area. The ACT Government directorate Transport Canberra & City Services handles responsibilities that are under the purview of local government in other parts of Australia, such as local road maintenance, libraries and waste collection. Many Canberra districts have community organisations called "community councils", but these are not part of
232-534: A geographic or historical interpretation. The council board members are generally known as councillors , and the head councillor is called the mayor . As of August 2016, there were 547 local councils in Australia. Despite the single tier of local governance in Australia, there are a number of extensive regions with relatively low populations that are not a part of any established LGA. Powers of local governments in these unincorporated areas may be exercised by special-purpose governing bodies established outside of
290-545: A larger workload. The growth of the Regional Organisations of Councils has also been a factor in local government reform in Australia. In 1995, there were 50 such agreements across the country. A 2002 study identified 55 ROCs with the largest involving 18 councils. Local government powers are determined by state governments, and states have primary responsibility for funding and exclusive responsibility for supervision of local councils. Local government
348-549: A number of localities across WA, SA and NT. Three locations (Mingoola, Mungindi and Texas ) straddle the NSW-Queensland border (so same town name and postcode on both sides). Jervis Bay Territory is located on the coast of NSW. It is just south of the towns of Vincentia and Huskisson, with which it shares a postcode. Mail to the Jervis Bay Territory is addressed to the ACT. The numerals used to show
406-403: A shift from 'services to property' towards 'services to people'. Community expectations of local government in Australia have risen in the 21st century partly as a result of wider participation in decision-making and transparent management practices. Recent years have seen some State governments devolving additional powers onto LGAs. In Queensland and Western Australia LGAs have been granted
464-521: Is an inherent problem with spatial representation of postcodes since areas referenced to a specific postal code tend to change over time, as new postcodes are added or existing ones are split by Australia Post for operational purposes. Some mail generating software can automatically sort outward mail by postcode before it is generated. This pre-sort of mail into postcode order eliminates the need for it to be sorted manually or using mail sorting machines . To improve mechanised sorting, each address now has
522-664: Is intended for a specific identity within an organisation, their identity can be prepended on the line above the business name, with c/- prepended to the business name. If addressing a letter from outside Australia, the postcode is recorded before 'Australia', which is placed on a fourth line. Australian postcodes are sorting information. They are often linked with one area (e.g. 6160 belongs only to Fremantle, Western Australia ). Due to postcode rationalisation, they can be quite complex, especially in country areas (e.g. 2570 belongs to twenty-two towns and suburbs around Camden, New South Wales ). The south-western Victoria 3221 postcode of
580-531: Is mentioned in the annotated Australian constitution, as a department of the State Governments, and they are mentioned in the constitutions of each of the six states. Under the Constitution, the federal government cannot provide funding directly to local governments; a 1974 referendum sought to amend the Constitution to authorise the federal government to directly fund local governments, but it
638-447: Is part of a local government area. Unincorporated areas are often in remote locations, cover vast areas, or have very small populations. Queensland and Tasmania are entirely partitioned into LGAs and have no unincorporated areas. The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) has no municipalities. The ACT government is responsible for both state-level and local-level matters. In some countries, such an arrangement would be referred to as
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#1732772753444696-504: Is subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state/territory it belongs to. The functions and practices of local councils are mostly centered around managing public services and land uses at the community level, and are similar throughout Australia, but can vary to some degree between jurisdictions. State departments oversee the activities of local councils and may intervene in their affairs when needed, subject to relevant legislation. For more details in each state and territory, see
754-640: Is the City of Brisbane , the most populous LGA in the country, which administers a significant part of the Brisbane metropolitan area . In most cases, when a city's population statistics are used, it is the statistical division population rather than the local government area. The following table provides a summary of local government areas by states and territories by local government area types as of December 2023: The Australian Classification of Local Governments (ACLG) categorises local governing authorities using
812-648: The Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions share a postcode with the isolated sub-Antarctic island of Macquarie Island (part of Tasmania): There is also a "special" postcode for routing mail sent to Santa: Each state's capital city ends with three zeroes, while territorial capital cities end with two zeroes. Capital city postcodes were the lowest postcodes in their state or territory range, before new ranges for LVRs and PO Boxes were made available. The last numeral can usually be changed from "0" to "1" to get
870-591: The Australian National University (now 2601) to 9944 for Cannonvale , Queensland. Some towns and suburbs have two postcodes — one for street deliveries and another for post office boxes . For example, a street address in the Sydney suburb of Parramatta would be written like this: But mail sent to a PO Box in Parramatta would be addressed: Many large businesses, government departments and other institutions receiving high volumes of mail had their own postcode as
928-546: The Geelong Mail Centre also includes twenty places around Geelong with very few people. This means that mail for these places is not fully sorted until it gets to Geelong. Some postcodes cover large populations (e.g., postcode 4350 serving some 100,000 people in Toowoomba and the surrounding area), while other postcodes have much smaller populations, even in urban areas. Australian postcodes range from 0200 for
986-664: The Local Government Act does not mandate adopting a designation, some local government areas are legally known simply as "council", such as Port Macquarie-Hastings Council , Inner West Council and Federation Council . Some rural areas in South Australia are known as "district council", and all the LGAs in Tasmania that were previously municipalities have been renamed "council". Almost all local councils have
1044-633: The Outback Communities Authority . Victoria has a number of unincorporated areas which are not part of any LGA: Western Australia has two unincorporated areas: Postcodes in Australia Postcodes in Australia are used to more efficiently sort and route mail within the Australian postal system. Postcodes in Australia have four digits and are placed at the end of the Australian address, before
1102-735: The Pastoral Unincorporated Area in South Australia . Local governments are subdivisions of the six federated states as well as the Northern Territory . The Australian Capital Territory has no separate local government, and municipal functions in Canberra and the surrounding regions (normally performed by local governments in other states) are performed by the ACT territorial government. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), however, considers
1160-649: The South Burnett Region . The seat of the shire was the town of Kingaroy , which continues as the set of the South Burnett Region. The shire's name derives from the Wakka Wakka Aboriginal words "king dhu'roi", meaning "ant hungry". While land use was dominantly pastoral in the area's early European history, dairying, beef, small crops and in particular peanut farming became mainstays of Kingaroy's economy. Kingaroy
1218-805: The Top End region, the Northern Territory Rates Act Area and Darwin Waterfront Precinct within Darwin , Nhulunbuy on the Gove Peninsula , Alyangula on Groote Eylandt , and Yulara in Central Australia . In South Australia , 63% of the state's area is unincorporated. Residents in this area – less than 0.2% of the state's population – receive municipal services provided by a state agency,
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#17327727534441276-652: The United States , there is only one tier of local government in each Australian state/territory, with no distinction between counties and cities . The Australian local government is generally run by a council , and its territory of public administration is referred to generically by the Australian Bureau of Statistics as the local government area or LGA , each of which encompasses multiple suburbs or localities (roughly equivalent to neighborhoods) often of different postcodes ; however, stylised terms such as "city", " borough ", " region " and " shire " also have
1334-537: The states and territories , and in turn beneath the federal government . Local government is not mentioned in the Constitution of Australia , and two referendums in 1974 and 1988 to alter the Constitution relating to local government were unsuccessful. Every state/territory government recognises local government in its own respective constitution . Unlike the two-tier local government system in Canada or
1392-683: The (now retired) Australian Military Administrative Districts, however this is incorrect. For example, in that numbering scheme Queensland is 1, and 4 is South Australia. By 1968, 75% of mail was using postcodes, and in the same year post office preferred-size envelopes were introduced, which came to be referred to as "standard envelopes". Postcode squares were introduced in June 1990 to enable Australia Post to use optical character recognition (OCR) software in its mail sorting machines to automatically and more quickly sort mail by postcodes. Australian postcodes consist of four digits, and are written after
1450-479: The automated sorting of mail that has been addressed by hand for Australian delivery. Postcodes were introduced in Australia in 1967 by the Postmaster-General's Department (PMG) to replace earlier postal sorting systems, such as Melbourne's letter and number codes (e.g., N3 , E5 ) and a similar system then used in rural and regional New South Wales . The introduction of the postcodes coincided with
1508-488: The cost of car and house insurance. Transport for NSW uses postcodes to give specific numbers for each bus stop in Greater Sydney . The stop number is five to seven numbers: the first four are the postcode, and the others show the bus stop (sometimes written with a space in between, e.g. "2000 108"). Many companies that produce metropolitan street maps also list the postcodes for each suburb, both in indexes and on
1566-503: The country. Postcodes were introduced in Australia in 1967 by the Postmaster-General's Department and are now managed by Australia Post , Australia's national postal service. Postcodes are published in booklets available from post offices or online from the Australia Post website. Australian envelopes and postcards often have four square boxes printed in orange at the bottom right for the postcode. These are used to assist with
1624-453: The entire ACT as an " unincorporated " local government area, even though it is technically a state-level administrative region . Although all essentially identical in functions and jurisdictions, Australian local governments have a variety of different titles. The term "local government area" (LGA) is used by the ABS to collectively refer to all local government administrative zones regardless of
1682-504: The first half of the 20th century was the provision of physical infrastructure such as roads, bridges and sewerage. From the 1970s the emphasis changed to community facilities such as libraries and parks, maintenance of local roads, town planning and development approvals, and local services such as waste disposal. Child care, tourism and urban renewal were also beginning to be part of local governments' role. These are financed by collection of local land taxes known as "rates", and grants from
1740-448: The first time. Significant reforms took place in the 1980s and 1990s in which state governments used metrics and efficiency analysis developed within the private sector in the local government arena. Each state conducted an inquiry into the benefits of council amalgamations during the 1990s. In the early 1990s, Victoria saw the number of local councils reduced from 210 to 78. South Australia, Tasmania and Queensland saw some reductions in
1798-528: The following settlements: Other notable members of the Kingaroy Council include: 26°05′08.90″S 152°14′21.52″E / 26.0858056°S 152.2393111°E / -26.0858056; 152.2393111 Local government in Australia [REDACTED] [REDACTED] Local government is the third level of government in Australia , administered with limited autonomy under
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1856-415: The following: The Australian Capital Territory is not divided into local government areas, so it is regarded as a single "unincorporated" local government area during censusing . Unlike many other countries, Australia has only one level of local government immediately beneath state and territorial governments. Aside from very sparsely populated areas and a few other special cases, almost all of Australia
1914-501: The government (though they generally receive government funding). They do not have the power to change laws or policies, and their role is limited to advising government. They are effectively residents' associations . New South Wales has three unincorporated areas: In the Northern Territory , 1.47% of the total area and 3.0% of the population are in unincorporated areas. These include the Cox-Daly and Marrakai-Douglas Daly areas in
1972-523: The introduction of a large-scale mechanical mail sorting system in Australia, starting with the Sydney GPO . The first digit for each state's postcode was copied directly from Australian radio call signs . Over time, digits beyond this set have come to be used for PO Boxes etc., for example the 8000 series refers to special addresses in Victoria. It is sometimes stated that the numbering was based on
2030-628: The local legislation, as with Victoria 's alpine resorts ; or directly administered by state/territory governments, such as the entirety of the Australian Capital Territory . The administrative area covered by local government councils in Australia ranges from as small as 1.5 km (0.58 sq mi) for the Shire of Peppermint Grove in the Perth metropolitan region , to as big as 624,339 km (241,059 sq mi) for
2088-404: The maps themselves. Spatial representation of postcodes is also very popular in defining sales and franchise territories. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australian Taxation Office and many other Federal and State government organisations publish a variety of statistics by postcode which extends the use Australia Post four digit code to many business and social planning related activities. There
2146-553: The mayor is elected by the board of fellow councillors . The powers of mayors vary as well; for example, mayors in Queensland have broad executive functions, whereas mayors in New South Wales are essentially ceremonial figureheads who can only exercise power at the discretion of the council. Most of the capital city LGAs administer only the central business districts and nearby central suburbs . A notable exception
2204-400: The name of the city, suburb, or town, and the state or territory: Recipient Name 100 Citizen Road BLACKTOWN NSW 2148 When writing an address by hand, and a row of four boxes is pre-printed on the lower right-hand corner of an envelope, the postcode may be written in the boxes instead. When posting to an organisation, business names can be written instead of a recipient name. If an article
2262-631: The names of LGAs, and today the stylised titles of " town ", " borough ", " municipality ", " district ", " region ", "community government", " Aboriginal council/shire" and "island" are used in addition. The word "municipality" occurs in some states with differing meanings: in New South Wales it is typically used for older urban areas, and the word is used for some rural towns in South Australia . Larger towns and small metropolitan exurban centres in Queensland and Western Australia simply use
2320-649: The number of local governments while Western Australia and New South Wales rejected compulsory mergers. New South Wales eventually forced the merging of some councils. The main purpose of amalgamating councils was for greater efficiency and to improve operations, but forced amalgamation of councils is sometimes seen as a dilution of representative democracy . An increase in the range of services offered by councils, but only minor cost savings of less than 10% have been noted by academics as outcomes after mergers. The council mergers have resulted in widespread job losses and lingering resentment from some whose roles have experienced
2378-619: The part of local governments. There is no mention of local government in the Constitution of Australia , though it is mentioned several times in the Annotated Constitution of Australia. "Municipal institutions and local government" appears in Annotation 447, and "Power of the Parliament of a Colony" appears under "Residuary Legislative Powers" on pages 935 and 936. The first official local government in Australia
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2436-818: The population, the population density and the proportion of the population that is classified as being urban for the council. The classification, at the two-digit level, is: All local governments are approximately equal in their theoretical powers, although LGAs that encompass large cities such as Brisbane and the Gold Coast command more resources due to their larger population base. Unlike local governments in many other countries, services such as police, fire protection and schools are provided by respective state or territory governments rather than by local councils. However, local governments still maintain some responsibility for fire service functions within Queensland and Western Australia. The councils' chief responsibility in
2494-528: The postcode 2750 and Petrie, Queensland has the postcode 4502. Within each region with the same second numeral, postcodes are usually allocated in ascending order the further one travels from the state's capital city along major highways and railways. For instance, heading north on the North Coast railway in New South Wales away from Sydney: Major towns and cities tend to have "0" as the last numeral or last two numerals, e.g. Rockhampton, Queensland has
2552-915: The postcode 4700 and Ballarat, Victoria has the postcode 3350. There are exceptions; the major town of Ipswich, Queensland has the postcode 4305, while Goodna , a relatively small suburb of Ipswich, is allocated 4300. Australia Post prefers envelopes sold in Australia to have four boxes in the bottom right corner of the front of the envelope. Entering the postcode in these boxes or squares, which Australia Post calls postcode squares , enables Australia Post to use optical character recognition software in its mail sorting machines to automatically and more quickly sort mail into postcodes, which also embeds routing information. Postcode squares were introduced in June 1990. Australia Post says that postcode squares should not be used for machine-addressed mail, or mail going overseas. Many other organisations now use postcodes. Insurance companies often use postcodes when working out
2610-425: The postcode for General Post Office boxes in any capital city (though Perth now uses a different range of postcodes for its GPO Boxes): While the first numeral of a postcode usually shows the state or territory, the second numeral usually shows a region within the state. However, postcodes with the same second numeral are not always next to each other. As an example, postcodes in the range 2200–2299 are split between
2668-414: The power to independently enact their own local subsidiary legislation , in contrast to the previous system of by-laws . Councils also have organised their own representative structures such as Local Government Associations and Regional Organisations of Councils . Doctrines of New Public Management have shaped state government legislation towards increased freedoms aiming to allow greater flexibility on
2726-538: The purpose of raising money to build roads in rural and outer-urban regions. Council representatives attended conventions before Federation , however local government was unquestionably regarded as outside the Constitutional realm. In the 1970s, the Whitlam government expanded the level of funding to local governments in Australia beyond grants for road construction. General purpose grants become available for
2784-408: The same administrative functions and similar political structures, regardless of their naming, and retain a particular designation ("shire", "borough", "town", "city") for historical reasons only. They will typically have an elected council and usually a mayor or shire president responsible for chairing meetings of the council. In some councils, the mayor is a directly elected figure, but in most cases
2842-600: The southern suburbs of Sydney and the Central Coast , Lake Macquarie and Newcastle regions of New South Wales. Postcodes with a second numeral of "0" or "1" are almost always located within the metropolitan area of the state's capital city. Postcodes with higher second numerals are usually located in rural and regional areas. Common exceptions are where towns were rural when postcodes were first introduced in 1967, but have since been suburbanised and incorporated into metropolitan areas, e.g. Penrith, New South Wales has
2900-493: The state and Commonwealth governments. They are caricatured as being concerned only with the "three Rs": Rates, Roads and Rubbish. However, the roles of local government areas in Australia have recently expanded as higher levels of government have devolved activities to the third tier. Examples include the provision of community health services, regional airports and pollution control as well as community safety and accessible transport. The changes in services has been described as
2958-544: The state on each radio callsign in Australia are the same numeral as the first numeral for postcodes in that state, e.g. 2xx in New South Wales, 3xx in Victoria, etc. Radio callsigns pre-date postcodes in Australia by more than forty years. Australia's external territories are also included in Australia Post's postcode system. While these territories do not belong to any state, they are addressed as such for mail sorting: Three scientific bases in Antarctica operated by
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#17327727534443016-448: The state or territory that the postcode belongs to Sometimes near the state and territory borders, Australia Post finds it easier to send mail through a nearby post office that is across the border: Some of the postcodes above may cover two or more states. For example, postcode 2620 covers both a locality in NSW ( Gundaroo ) as well as a locality in the ACT ( Hume ), and postcode 0872 covers
3074-565: The term "town", while in Victoria they are designated as "rural city". Historically, the word "borough" was common for small towns and suburban centers in Victoria, but nowadays only the Borough of Queenscliffe remains as the one and only borough in the entire country. New South Wales and Queensland have also introduced a new term "region" for outback LGAs formed by the amalgamation of smaller shires and rural cities. In New South Wales, where
3132-501: The varying designations, whilst the local governing legislature itself is generally known as a council . In general, an urban / suburban LGA is called a " city ", as in the City of Melbourne , City of Canada Bay and City of Bunbury ; while an exurban / rural LGA covering a larger agricultural / natural area is usually called a " shire ", as in Shire of Mornington Peninsula , Shire of Banana and Lachlan Shire . Sometimes designations other than "city" or "shire" are used in
3190-539: Was defeated. A 1988 referendum sought to explicitly insert mention of local government in the federal constitution but this was comprehensively defeated. A further referendum was proposed in 2013 , but was cancelled due to the change in the election date . Federal government interaction with local councils happens regularly through the provision of federal grants to help fund local government managed projects. Local government in Australia has very limited legislative powers and no judicial powers , and executive -wise
3248-816: Was elected to the Kingaroy Shire Council, the first woman council member elected to a local government council in Queensland. On 15 March 2008, under the Local Government (Reform Implementation) Act 2007 passed by the Parliament of Queensland on 10 August 2007, the Shire of Kingaroy merged with the Shires of Murgon , Nanango and Wondai to form the South Burnett Regional Council . The Shire of Kingaroy included
3306-630: Was originally part of the Barambah (later Nanango ) Divisional Board, which was created on 11 November 1879 under the Divisional Boards Act 1879 . With the passage of the Local Authorities Act 1902 , Nanango became a shire council on 31 March 1903. The town of Kingaroy started to grow after the arrival of the railway in 1904, and on 12 January 1912, the Shire of Kingaroy was proclaimed. In 1923, Dr Ellen Kent Hughes
3364-621: Was the Perth Town Trust , established in 1838, only three years after British settlement. The Adelaide Corporation followed, created by the province of South Australia in October 1840. The City of Melbourne and the Sydney Corporation followed, both in 1842. All of these early forms failed; it was not until the 1860s and 1870s that the various colonies established widespread stable forms of local government, mainly for
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