City of Brisbane

City of Brisbane Queensland
Map of Brisbane City in South East Queensland
Population:	1,067,279(2010)[1]
• Density:	769.9/km² (1,994.0/sq mi)
Established:	1924
Coordinates:	27°28′S 153°07′E / 27.47°S 153.12°E / -27.47; 153.12Coordinates: 27°28′S 153°07′E / 27.47°S 153.12°E / -27.47; 153.12
Area:	1367 km² (527.8 sq mi)
Lord Mayor:	Graham Quirk
Council Seat:	Brisbane CBD (City Hall)
Region:	South East Queensland
State District:	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:	Brisbane, Bonner, Griffith, Lilley, Moreton, Oxley, Petrie, Ryan
Website: http://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/
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 (LGA) that has jurisdiction over the inner portion of the metropolitan area of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Unlike LGAs in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide, where LGAs are generally responsible only for the relatively small Central Business Districts of those cities, the City of Brisbane administers a significant portion of the Brisbane metropolitan area and 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 the one million.^[2] The population of the LGA 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 Local Government Area is the combination of the local cities, towns and shires that merged together in 1925. The main offices and Central Library for the Council are at 266 George Street, also known as Brisbane Square. The 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

Brisbane City

The Queensland state government created the City of Brisbane with a view to uniting the then Brisbane metropolitan area under one 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:

• Cities:
  • Brisbane
  • South Brisbane

• Towns:
  • Hamilton
  • Ithaca
  • Sandgate
  • Toowong
  • Windsor
  • Wynnum

• Shires:
  • Balmoral
  • Belmont
  • Coorparoo
  • Enoggera
  • Kedron
  • Moggill
  • Sherwood
  • Stephens
  • Taringa
  • Tingalpa
  • Toombul
  • Yeerongpilly

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 powerful executive Lord Mayor, a parliamentary-style council of twenty-six councillors representing single-member wards of approximately 23,000 voters, and a Civic Cabinet comprising the Lord Mayor and the chairpersons of the seven standing committees drawn from the membership of Council. The Lord Mayor is the person elected by the largest single electorate in Australia. The seven standing committees of Council are:

• Community Services Committee
• Environment and Sustainability Committee
• Finance Committee
• Public Transport Committee
• Roads, TransApex and Traffic Committee
• Urban Planning and Economic Development Committee
• Water and City Businesses Committee

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

• Brisbane CityWorks
• Brisbane Transport
• Brisbane Water

Following Local Government elections on 15 March 2008, 10 councillors are members of the Australian Labor Party while 16 councillors and the Lord Mayor are from the Liberal National Party. The current Lord Mayor of Brisbane is Graham Quirk, who replaced civil engineer Campbell Newman in April 2011, when he resigned to enter Queensland State Politics. Graham Quirk belongs to the Liberal National Party. The current Deputy Mayor is Adrian Schrinner. 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 a Liberal Lord Mayor co-existing with a Labor majority on Council, resulting in remarkably few conflicts over civic budgets and Council policy. The most recent election in March 2008 saw a swing of 5.5% to the Liberal National Party on the councillor votes, resulting in a Liberal majority on Council with a Liberal Lord Mayor (Lord Mayor Campbell Newman won re-election with 60% of the primary vote).

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 5, 157 Ann St, 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.

See also

Flag of Brisbane

Wards

As of 20 June 2011, the twenty-six wards, their councillors and their party affiliations are:^[8]

Ward		Party	Councillor
	Bracken Ridge	LNP	Amanda Cooper
	Central	Labor	David Hinchliffe
	Chandler	LNP	Adrian Schrinner
	Deagon	Labor	Victoria Newton
	Doboy	Labor	John Campbell
	Enoggera	LNP	Andrew Wines
	Hamilton	LNP	David McLachlan
	Holland Park	LNP	Ian McKenzie
	Jamboree	LNP	Matthew Bourke
	Karawatha	Labor	Gail MacPherson
	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	LNP/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:

• Kobe, Japan (July 1985)
• Auckland, New Zealand (August 1988)
• Shenzhen, People's Republic of China (June 1992)
• Semarang, Indonesia (January 1993)
• Kaohsiung, Taiwan (September 1997)
• Daejeon, South Korea (June 2002)
• Chongqing, People's Republic of China (October 2005)
• 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.^[10] Brisbane does not have any sister city relationship with any North American, South American, African or European city.^[11]

References

1. ^ Australian Bureau of Statistics (31 March 2011). "Regional Population Growth, Australia, 2009–10". http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Products/3218.0~2009-10~Main+Features~Queensland?OpenDocument. Retrieved 11 June 2011. 
2. ^ Eco2 Cities: Ecological Cities as Economic Cities. World Bank. 2010. p. 213. ISBN 978-0-8213-8046-8. http://publications.worldbank.org/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=23661. 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. http://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/BCC:BASE::pc=PC_8. Retrieved 21 March 2010. 
6. ^ "City Hall Restoration". Brisbane City Council. http://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/BCC:BASE::pc=PC_5200. Retrieved 21 March 2010. 
7. ^ "Council's energy aims". Brisbane City Council. http://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/environment-waste/plans-projects/council-energy-targets/councils-energy-aims/index.htm. Retrieved 27 September 2010. 
8. ^ "Councillors and wards". Brisbane City Council. http://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/about-council/councillors-wards/index.htm. Retrieved 20 June 2011. 
9. ^ "Facts & Statistics". Our Brisbane. Archived from the original on 14 October 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20071014010655/http://www.ourbrisbane.com/living/brisbanelife/facts/statistics.htm. Retrieved 2 January 2008. 
10. ^ Thomas, Nicholas (in English). Re-Orienting Australia-China Relations: 1972 to the Present. Australia: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. p. 75. ISBN 0754632458. http://books.google.com/books?id=I2Or9vD2LYQC&pg=PA75&dq=For+example,+the+BCC+officially+severed+all+ties+with+its+French+Sister-city,+Nice,+in+protest+against+the+Chirac+government%27s+decision+to+resume+nuclear&sig=b9eYCYByKUwv6gZHRCljAmed4uQ. Retrieved 12 January 2008. 
11. ^ Sister Cities - Brisbane City Council

External links

• Brisbane City Council online
• Brisbane City Council's Organisational Structure
• Brisbane City Enterprises
• Brisbane Community Profiles