Northern Midlands elected member Andrew McCullagh's motion - which is set to be voted on at the council's next monthly meeting on January 30 - asks fellow councillors to consider establishing a working group made of councillors and chaired by himself to initiate discussion with Meander Valley, Break O'Day, and Glamorgan Spring Bay regarding possible amalgamation.

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Cr McCullagh said he suspected the end result of the ongoing future of local government review - which the Tasmanian Government commissioned the Local Government Board to undertake - would be several forced amalgamations across Tasmania, due to the state having 29 councils despite the total population only being slightly above 500,000.

"If something like this is going to happen, and possibly even be enforced, then I want to get on the front foot and make sure our council is in the best position possible before we're potentially made to do something we might not want to do," he said.

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"With the Local Government Review well advanced, it would be prudent and wise to look at the best options for our Municipality and look at what may be the 'best fit' for the Northern Midlands Council should the merger option arise."

Glamorgan Spring Bay mayor Cheryl Arnol said despite the final report not being due to be published by the Local Government Board until June, its most recent report did suggest boundary adjustments and shared services to make the function of local government more efficient, while managing to avoid the "dreaded A word".

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Despite that, she still felt Mr McCullagh's motion was "slightly premature" and felt that such action should only be taken after seeing the result of the final report.

"About a decade ago our council and Break O'Day looked at a potential amalgamation and it was concluded that there was just no benefit to the ratepayer," she said.

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A similar sentiment was echoed by Meander Valley mayor Wayne Johnston, who felt that if amalgamation was to take place, the residents of his municipality would more align with the North West rather than with the Midlands and East Coast.

"I think all councils are probably already thinking along the lines of shared services and where they may go in the future, but we haven't really had much of a discussion about the local government review at my council yet," he said.

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