The local government areas (LGAs) of Queensland, Australia are the defined areas within which legally constituted local government authorities, known as councils, have responsibilities to provide local services. Determining the size and shape of the local government areas is the sole responsibility of the Queensland Government.
In the past, many local government areas (especially in South East Queensland and the Darling Downs region) have been amalgamated or abolished, either voluntarily or involuntarily. The most significant of these processes took place in March 2008, when 97 local government areas and 20 indigenous councils were amalgamated under a statewide reform process — until this time, the majority of Queensland's local government areas had remained unchanged for decades and some even dated back to the establishment of local government for regional areas in 1879.
In April 2007, an extensive Local Government Reform process was set up by the Beattie Government, who set up a Local Government Reform Commission to report on the State's local government areas other than the City of Brisbane. This was in part due to the number of financially weak councils with small populations in rural areas, dating from an earlier time when industry and population had justified their creation. The Commission reported back on 27 July 2007, recommending massive amalgamations all over the State into "regional councils" centred on major towns or centres, based on a range of criteria such as economy of scale, community of interest and financial sustainability. On 10 August 2007, the Commission's amalgamation recommendations passed into law as the Local Government (Reform Implementation) Act 2007, with only a few name changes as alterations. "Local Transition Committees" (LTCs) were created for each new area, made up of councillors and staff from the original areas, and on 15 March 2008, the old entities formally ceased to exist and elections were held to fill the new councils.
In 1948, the Queensland Government proposed three sets of LGA amalgamations: south of Brisbane, around Ipswich and around Toowoomba.