Local government employed 213,500 people nationally last financial year with the total wages bill rising 7.3 per cent to $16.4 billion.

Australia has 537 local councils with 77 in Queensland.

Lobby Group Council Watch President Dean Hurlston told Peter Fegan on 4BC Breakfast, "The more we've been digging into what councils are spending your money on, our hard-earned ratepayers' money on, what we find is that the vast majority are pen-pushers."

"We keep getting asked for these exorbitant rate rises every year and all we keep doing is paying more but seeing less."

"We don't see our streets as clean as they were, we see potholes everywhere."

"We see problems that council's no longer fixing, but the bureaucracy, well, it's just ballooning and the fat cats are earning massive salaries, bigger than those in state and federal government," Dean Hurlston said.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.