When the unaccountable are provided power over purse.

Allowing government bureaucrats, NGO activists, and not-for-profit leaders undue influence over town planning and taxpayer-funded boards guarantees inefficiency, inflated costs, and perpetual failure. The Northern Territory offers clear, recurring evidence of this risk, where well-intentioned incompetence is always more expensive than outright corruption.

Economists have long recognised that centralising power away from accountable market forces and individuals ensures disastrous outcomes. Whenever bureaucrats or ideologically driven organisations oversee town planning and large-scale projects, economic realities become secondary to political expediency. The result is predictably uniform, cost overruns, wasted resources, and infrastructure that rapidly deteriorates into disrepair. Roads crumble prematurely, schools fail to meet basic standards, and community centres remain underused monuments to administrative vanity rather than public necessity.

There still remains an empty building in Nightcliff behind the Police station during an accommodation crisis as yet another example of the utter incompetence of entities that face no accountability for their failure.

The NT has consistently demonstrated this dynamic. Despite generous budgets, numerous public projects have spiralled into financial chaos and logistical nightmares. Public housing intended to relieve poverty becomes instead a source of perpetual grievance and escalating dependency, engineered by committees more invested in virtue-signalling than results.

Facilities promised as essential routinely become white elephants, their design so misaligned with local needs that their maintenance drains even more public money, a process cynically disguised as job creation.

Economists who value individual responsibility and market-driven efficiency understand this clearly. That when decisions about community investment rest with insulated committees, those committees inevitably prioritise ideological ambition and political optics over the community’s genuine needs. Taxpayers endure the burden, repeatedly funding failures with increased levies or reduced services elsewhere.

The psychological traits of those attracted to administrative power compound the problem. Bureaucrats and NGO members rarely possess the humility to question their assumptions or acknowledge errors promptly. Instead, entrenched personality traits, such as risk aversion masked as prudence, grandiosity disguised as compassion, and chronic aversion to accountability, ensure that the same mistakes repeat without learning. Public policy becomes a continuous cycle of misallocated resources, justified by increasingly elaborate moralistic language rather than empirical evidence or measurable outcomes.

Security experts and criminal profilers see clearly that poorly planned suburban environments created by these groups unintentionally breed crime. Obscure pathways, inadequate lighting, and layout designs based on aesthetic ideals rather than crime prevention principles directly contribute to heightened criminal activity.

Statistical analyses of suburban environments repeatedly confirm that crime thrives where bureaucratic planning ignores reality. Worse, to counter their waste of taxpayer funds, they employ private security firms burdening the taxpayer for even greater costs, throwing more money at problems they created. One only needs to look at Not-for-profit housing ventures in the NT to observe the utter waste and incompetence of bureaucrats provided ever greater access to taxpayer funds.

Historically, the Northern Territory’s attempts at central planning by boards dominated by NGOs and bureaucrats have proven economically ruinous. Projects run by those who spend money not earned through personal risk or productive endeavour almost always overrun budgets and fail to deliver value. Good intentions are irrelevant when measured against squandered resources, lost opportunities, and damaged community trust.

A healthy society requires accountability and genuine responsibility, not committees staffed by ideologically motivated activists who see taxpayer funds as a limitless source of moral self-validation. Until communities demand greater transparency, merit-based decision-making, and robust accountability mechanisms, taxpayer-funded boards on Councils, and in town planning will continue to deliver failures at enormous public cost.

The history and ongoing experience of the Northern Territory illustrates exactly why community leadership must return to principles of fiscal responsibility, empirical realism, and meaningful accountability, attributes perpetually absent when planning rests in bureaucratic and NGO hands. From the author.

The opinions and statements are those of Sam Wilks and do not necessarily represent whom Sam Consults or contracts to. Sam Wilks is a skilled and experienced Security and Risk Consultant with 3 decades of expertise in the fields of Real estate, Security, and the hospitality/gaming industry. Sam has trained over 1,000 entry level security personnel, taught defensive tactics, weapons training and handcuffs to policing personnel and the public. His knowledge and practical experience have made him a valuable asset to many organisations looking to enhance their security measures and provide a safe and secure environment for their clients and staff.