Local Government Areas of the Northern Territory - Definition and Overview

The Northern Territory has 63 Local Government Areas; though only 6 councils are considered municipalities, there are other types of local bodies.

List of councils and areas (partial)

• Town of Alice Springs
• Community Government Council of Coomalie
• City of Darwin
• Town of Jabiru
• Town of Katherine
• Shire of Litchfield
• City of Palmerston
• Town of Tennant Creek

Area types

The Northern Territory is unusual in that about 22% of the territory's population lives in unincorporated areas (by comparison, only 0.02% of New South Wales population, 0.002% of Victoria's population, 0.6% of South Australia's population, live in unincorporated areas, these being the only other states or territories with both incorporated and unincorporated areas.)

There are four classes of local government areas in the Northern Territory of Australia:

• municipalities (6)
• community government councils (30)
• incorporated associations (26)
• special purpose towns (1)

Municipalities

The six large centres of the territory are incorporated into municipalities, dealing with similar areas to other Australian councils, except building control and planning.

Community government councils

Community Government councils are constituted differently from municipalities, and often take on extra functions. Some councils, due to nature of their area's land ownership, do not charge rates on property.

Incorporated associations

Incorporated associations provide some local government functions.

Special purpose towns

The 'special purpose town' of Jabiru receives its power from the entity that constructed the town, rather than the territory's local government legislation.

Sources

• list at the Local Government Association of the Northern Territory site (http://www.lgant.nt.gov.au/demo/content/view/full/222/)
• partial list at the Northern Territory Government portal site (http://www.nt.gov.au/ntg/localgov.shtml)
• Statoids on Australia Shires (http://www.statoids.com/yau.html)