As the population of Melbourne and Victoria continues to boom, and farms turn to suburbs on the sprawling metropolitan fringe, the state faces big challenges keeping up with infrastructure such as schools, hospitals and transport.
Less obvious is the need to ensure communities new and old and are properly governed. The Age is aware of growing concern about the cavalier attitude of some local councillors to issues of probity, transparency and conflicts of interest.
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This is especially the case in the fast-growing municipalities on Melbourne's western, northern and south-eastern fringes, where planning decisions daily transform humble cow and crop paddocks into urban gold mines.
The case of Wyndham councillor Intaj Khan is illustrative. As The Age reports today, Cr Khan is under investigation by council watchdog the Local Government Investigations and Compliance inspectorate. The probe followed a Sunday Age story in September revealing his apparent failure to declare property and commercial interests, including large swaths of farmland.
The Indian-born Cr Khan has amassed a fortune in Australia as the head of a controversial private training college. He has sunk much of that money into property speculation in his own fast-growing municipal patch.
Cr Khan is flamboyant and ambitious, making no secret of his mayoral and parliamentary ambitions. Given his vast property interests, the potential conflicts of interest, his personal ambitions, and his legal and ethical obligation to govern in the community interest, he has every reason to be extra careful.
Yet he is known within the council and beyond for his insouciance about such matters.
The Sunday Age analysis pointed to multiple apparent breaches of the local government law, 25 or more for failure to declare property and corporate interests in the twice-yearly register of interest returns.
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For one six-month period, late 2013 to early 2014, he lodged no return at all.
Cr Khan is far from alone. Present and former council staff have expressed concern about the relaxed attitude by some councillors in new communities in the west to integrity rules.
It is a sensitive matter because, like Cr Khan, the councillors they complain about tend to be relatively new to Australia.
All the more reason, therefore, to ensure that councillors are well versed in their legal obligations, and sufficiently fearful of the outcomes if they fall short of them.
It is telling therefore that the investigation of Cr Khan is a result of the Sunday Age story, not of routine scrutiny by the local government inspectorate
The Age today notes growing concern about the inspectorate's lack of visibility and authority, even by the council champion, the Municipal Association of Victoria.
It would be unfair to attribute all the inspectorate's shortcomings to its own staff.
The Brumby government set it up in 2009 in the wake of scandals, most notably the quagmire made of Brimbank council by Labor factional heavies.
In 2012 the inspectorate was placed in limbo when the Baillieu government proposed to transfer its responsibilities to its new Independent Broad-Based Anti-Corruption Commission.
The Coalition then abandoned that plan. But the inspectorate became overshadowed – and arguably starved of resources and skills – by the cashed up IBAC.
It was further diminished when its prominent chief inspector, David Wolf, was moved to another position in mid-2014, and never replaced. For more than two years the inspectorate was headed by an acting chief inspector.
Its website lists completed prosecutions triggered by its investigations. It reports no prosecutions since 2013.
In what appears to be recognition of the inspectorate's demise, David Wolf returned to head it up in June.
It is understood that the inspectorate has recently boosted its investigative team and sought additional funds from government. It needs that and more.
Voting is now under way in council elections across the state, and amid a flood of complaints including about dummy candidates, campaign misinformation and the like.
Government sources say that through the election period the inspectorate is receiving 20 to 30 complaints a day.
It is crucial that it is adequately resourced and that it gets its priorities right. It should not be diverted by the trivial matters that often preoccupy residents and ratepayers. It needs to focus on proper governance and the prevention of corruption.