An historic day for Councils, but what about ABC Learning?

Last night's Darebin Council meeting - the last before a new Council is elected - started with Darebin CEO, Michael Ulbrick, rightly noting the historic occasion of today's inaugural Australian Council of Local Governments meeting in Canberra.

With 80% of Australia's Mayors today meeting with Prime Minister Rudd and Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, Councils are asking for $1 billion additional infrastructure funding. According to ABC Radio National this morning, they are likely to get a much more modest $300 million to share.

Darebin Mayor, Peter Stephenson, will be there today and last night I asked during public question time what specific proposals he would be making to our nation's leaders regarding the transfer of Darebin's at-risk ABC Learning centres to community or Council control.

Despite an informative account of the complexities of the situation by Council staff, not only could our Councillors not give a specific picture of the representations Mayor Stephenson would be making, they could give no picture of the in principle position our Mayor would be taking to advocate for Darebin's children, more than 1000 of whom are currently on waiting lists for child-care. Those lists is set to grow if an effective solution to the ABC Learning issue is not quickly found.

Yes, today certainly is an historic occasion for our Councils, but it's a pity the Council could last night give no convincing picture of how it would benefit the residents of Darebin. Let us hope Mayor Stephenson does not waste this opportunity, and we will hear more sooner rather than later - hopefully before the election of the new Council is decided.