ABSTRACT

This chapter explores the relationship between grassroots action on the one hand and the response by the state on the other, through the analysis of a major funding scheme that lasted 40 years in NSW. The relationship is complex and shifts with time. The scheme demonstrated that community development-driven social change can be highly productive within a supportive governance environment, but that the underlying rules and principles of community development are non-commensurate with a neoliberal-driven bureaucratic regime of the state, such as currently exists in Australia.