The College has made a submission to the Governance and Administration Committee on the Local Government (Community Well-being) Amendment Bill, a government bill.
The intention of this Bill is to establish to restore the purpose of local government to be 'to promote the social, economic, environmental, and cultural well-being of communities'.
The College’s position
Local government has influence on the well-being of populations, and local government decisions have effects on population health. We support this Bill, as restoring the four well-beings to local government's purpose would enable their decision-making to focus on the wider social determinants of health.
The College has developed this position based on our own analysis of the Bill.
Next steps
The Governance and Administration Committee is due to report back to Parliament on this Bill by 11 October 2018.