RURAL communities across the Darling Downs are the latest to call for local government boundaries to be redrawn in an effort to improve services outside major population centres.
With Queenslanders set to go to the polls in the local government elections on the weekend, Millmerran Commerce and Progress Inc (MCPI) has unveiled a plan to "de-amalgamate" from the Toowoomba Regional Council and create a new super rural shire - tentatively called the Condamine Shire - which would incorporate Millmerran, Clifton, Pittsworth and sections of Jondaryan and Cambooya.
The proposed area would take over about half Toowoomba Regional Council's current 13,000 square kilometre area, which expanded to incorporate eight shire areas following amalgamation in 2008.
The Condamine Shire would establish a head office at Pittsworth, including administrative centres at Millmerran and Clifton, have an estimated annual revenue of $25 million and would initially employ 179 locals.
MCPI spokesperson and former Millmerran Shire Council chief Paul DeDaunton said the former shire regions had been successful before being chained to the Toowoomba region in 2008.
An MCPI letter last year to the then LNP local government spokesman David Gibson warned that morale in the Toowoomba local government workforce was now "non-existent" and the core staff of the previous local authority had resigned.
"The annual works programs for roads and infrastructure upgrading have been depleted and the rates collected are used to upgrade other areas of the Toowoomba Regional Council," the letter said.
With community groups at Noosa and Port Douglas also calling for a review of shire boundaries, this latest announcement has the ears of the Newman Government, with the LNP pledging before the election to appoint a commissioner to review the current local government boundaries.
Mr Newman said during the election that once the boundaries and the financial position had been identified, residents living in the proposed new council areas would vote on whether to establish a new shire council.
Since the mergers, rural and regional communities have consistently argued that their local government services and workforce were in decline.
The issue of rural representation on council has also angered landholders, with many arguing that primary producers contributed significant levels of rates, but there were few opportunities for people with rural understanding to be elected to councils that incorporate a large regional centre.
Since 1991, there has been a trend to abolish electoral divisions. For the 2004 elections the number increased dramatically from 24 councils with no divisions to 66 councils (nearly 50pc).
After amalgamation, 51 councils (70pc) became undivided. For the 2012 elections two councils (Blackall-Tambo and Longreach) have moved from divided to undivided, while three councils (Fraser Coast, Gympie and Townsville) have moved from undivided to divided.
MCPI president Bill Macqueen said the group had been working on its plan to establish the Condamine Shire Council for more than 18 months and had met unsuccessfully with the former Bligh Government to raise the proposal.
He said the election of the new State government had brought renewed confidence in the plan.
Mr Macqueen said he believed the majority of ratepayers within the TRC area would support the establishment of a breakaway council.
"I think the general approach of the large councils such as Toowoomba does not service the regional areas well - they are trying to manage two distinctively different areas, city and rural, and they are not able to do it properly," he said.
"Regional communities look for leadership, direction and assistance through their council and we have not been able to get that since amalgamation.
"Instead, it is a tremendously cumbersome system, big and unwieldy, and difficult to navigate."