Touching on transparency in city local law making: Experiences from waking up each day in City of Melbourne, Australia

The purpose for this paper is to share jurisdictional knowledge on local law-making theory and praxis, an area of law not well represented in the literature despite its involvement in day-to-day life.

The paper not only shares knowledge about the local law-making process in Melbourne, Australia, but also explores attitudes to local law-making gathered through semi-structured interviews from a sample of relevant stakeholders.

The paper reports on findings from a study undertaken in Melbourne, Australia. Stakeholder perceptions and attitudes were canvassed regarding local law-making in the areas of land use planning and waste management. Overall, stakeholders were satisfied that Melbourne is a robust jurisdiction offering a fair and transparent local law-making system, but they see scope for more public participation.

The findings suggest that even though the state of Victoria offers a fair and transparent system of local law-making, there is still significant scope for more meaningful involvement from the community, as well as space for more effective enforcement of local laws. The stage is set for greater cross-jurisdictional reciprocal learning about local law-making between cities.

This paper offers meaningful and utilitarian insight for policy and law makers, academics and built environment professionals from relevant stakeholders on the operation and transparency of local law-making.