Thanks for posting this. A long-form response follows.
Auckland and NZ is an interesting case because like Brisbane, the City of Auckland was formed through the mass merger of multiple local councils over a wide area. The mass merger occurred in 2010, forming Auckland Council.
Governance context
There are also some key differences between Australia and NZ. Australia is a federation of independent states, whereas in NZ it is a unitary (central government) model.
You can think of it to being similar to how local governments within an individual Australian state can be added, altered or deleted by simple changes passed by Parliament, but applied to the national level.
The other key difference in NZ is they have a fourth layer of government - these local boards youāve mentioned. There are 21 within Auckland. They are a bit like your local neighbourhood association, but with public powers and responsibilities.
Transport
Auckland Transport is a council controlled organisation. Essentially, Auckland Council created a publicly owned agency or corporation and devolved urban and transport planning and operations to it. This might seem a bit unusual to Australians, as weāre used to direct service provision, but it would be similar to how some local councils might own and operate water or electricity utilities through companies or agencies.
IF the proposal is to have local boards run PT, this will probably not work because these local areas are the size of say three or four suburbs, and PT will be crossing the boundaries of most of these areas. They also donāt have the budget, by themselves.
What this means for Queensland
We donāt have local boards in Australia, although Brisbane City Council came close to something like it with Neighbourhood Planning being introduced around 2008 with the Newman BCC Administration.
A dedicated PT authority could solve some major issues with consistent policy and planning in Queensland. A big one is BCC buses not going to train stations either because the route has been designed to avoid the train station so that it provides a single-seat to the CBD (e.g. the situation on Coronation Drive) or there is no proper interchange at the train station and both BCC and the Queensland Government want the other party to pay for it (e.g. the situation at Indooroopilly train station, the lack of Queensland Government funding for the Brisbane Metro BRT project).
They key thing is that for a dedicated PT authority to last, it absolutely needs to be formed from the merger and incorporation of the existing agencies. This is the WA PTA model that works in Perth.
If it is just a third attempt at a co-ordinating style agency such as the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) or the Translink Transit Authority, it will not last.
In terms of Local Government funding and contribution, it would help if LGAs started funding regular PT operations. Currently, LGAs fund every other mode of transport (walking, cycling, roads) and PT is the exception. Lots of LGAs are also producing transport plans for which they have no way to execute, other than the roads and walking/cycling part. The effect of this is that most of an LGAās transport budget is being spent on roads.
Queensland is a big state, and LGAs exist so that the powers and responsibilities of the State Government can be administered more effectively locally. When you think about LGAs outside of SEQ, PT is essentially non-existent. In a European country, these regional cities and towns would have decent PT, even if it were only provided by buses.
IMHO a lot more cities and towns across Queensland, and even surrounding Brisbane would have much better PT services if LGAs were funding operations.
Notes