Local government has been uncharitably described as a 'nest of vipers'. It has in modern times had the potential to be much more, and an active creator of civil society. Local government is, as I once described it, the most direct experience that most citizens have of 'democracy at work'.
Perhaps that is why, given many Australians' experience with local government in certain areas, they resoundingly voted down, in 1988, the first proposal to include local government in the Constitution as a third tier of government along with federal, state and territory governments.
And perhaps the rather impoverished history in Australia of councils and boards acting as sealers of roads, rubbish collectors and satisfying recognition (of councillors and other local worthies) to benefit property and business owners, it was a little early to expect a change in popular culture.
Some of us who lived in Fitzroy in Melbourne's inner north, for example, found it embarrassing to watch the shenanigans of its then (prior to 1992) council as personalities and egos ran riot.
And yet we have a softer view of local politics when it comes to cherished icons of a region to which we are attached: just four years after the referendum, the same people of Fitzroy arose as one and opposed the Kennett-Government-appointed commissioners' decision to shut down the run-down Fitzroy pool.
The un-valued element of local government is its capacity to lift the vision of its people from NIMBY-ism and road maintenance to a sense of community and attachment.
Australians are, however, now thoroughly disengaged from politicians at a state and federal level, a recent poll finding that only about a third of those surveyed had any interest in the behaviour of our elected representatives, compared with double that proportion just a few years earlier. We tend to be disgusted at 'politics' and bad behaviour, rather than the idea of collaboration in the common good.
But when it comes to constitutional change, we are very conservative indeed.
We have been offered another chance to raise 'local government' to the lowly status of 'no worse than the other tiers'. The referendum on constitutional recognition announced on Thursday by Prime Minister Gillard arises from the work of an independent expert panel appointed by the Government in August 2011, and a joint select committee established on 1 November 2012 to consider its recommendations.
Historically, local government was used in the early years of the military colonies, before the states gained