For two decades, New South Wales governments have talked tough about reducing the number of local councils through local government amalgamation.
But they all backed away when local mayors and councillors raised community support and threatened their MPs with a brutal electoral backlash.
The fate of Victorian premier Jeff Kennett, swept out of office in 1999 after forcibly amalgamating metropolitan and rural councils, put the issue off limits. Predictably, during the NSW election in March, neither side uttered a word about council reform.
However, Premier Mike Baird has accepted the challenge of cutting local government down to size and promised $1 billion to fund mergers.
His strict timetable gives the state’s 152 councils until the end of next month to suggest which of their neighbours they are prepared to merge with. Only five major councils have been listed for “non change”: Blacktown, Penrith, Hawkesbury, Blue Mountains and Wollondilly.
Those councils that reach mutually agreed mergers will have their proposals sent to the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) for assessment before a final report by October. Choosing IPART, chaired by former senior Canberra civil servant Peter Boxall, to make all the hard decisions is a nifty way of protecting Coalition MPs from political fallout — they can now blame the tribunal’s faceless government-appointed bureaucrats.
The merger project was initiated by former premier Barry O’Farrell, and then adopted by his successor, who launched the policy blueprint Fit for the Future, which has been under intense discussion in town halls across the state since last September.
Warringah, Manly and Pittwater are considering the creation of a Northern Beaches council, while Parramatta City is discussing a merger with Auburn and Holroyd councils, and part of Ryde and The Hills.
Randwick council’s Liberal Party mayor Ted Seng is pushing for a merger with Waverley and Woollahra, while Botany council, an ALP rotten borough for 50 years, has launched a community campaign under the slogan “Hands off Botany Bay”.
Sussex Street, head office of the NSW Labor Party, is quietly confident that super-councils in the Greater Sydney area, Wollongong and Newcastle, will play into their hands and build bulwarks of ALP influence.
The Nationals are equally certain that the painful mergers in regional areas will benefit them. Local Government NSW president Keith Rhoades said: “Amalgamation is not an easy decision to make, especially in the regions. Councils have to weigh the potential of increased efficiencies against possible additional costs.”
Local Government Minister Paul Toole, Nationals MP for Bathurst, a former mayor and schoolteacher, has a $1 billion package to oil the wheels of the merger bandwagon.
Baird and Toole are hoping that a bit of old-fashioned pork-barreling will produce better results than Kennett-style forcible amalgamations. But when the “cash splash” runs out, it is ratepayers who will pay for the mergers through yet higher rates.
The merger process is not being driven by high-minded democratic values but the corporate sector anxious to make profits from the new super-councils. Just think of the money to be made by private vested interests for supplying private bus services, computers, office equipment, waste-disposal services, etc, to a cluster of councils rather than one.
Polling shows that people feel “over-governed” and the tier of government they least like is local government. But will they feel the same when their council is suddenly swallowed up or moved three suburbs away?
Baird managed to sell power privatisation to a highly suspicious electorate, but he will need the salesmanship of “Louie the Fly” to convince them that fewer councils are a cheaper, more efficient option for local government.
I lived through two council amalgamations, in Victoria and Queensland. Before amalgamation the sharp suited management consultants with experience in Europe (oooooooh) assured state politicians and residents that there were massive savings to be enjoyed, better services and happiness for all beyond Bhutan’s wildest dreams. Years after amalgamation there were no cost savings, no better services only a super irritating council with a “We value your call …. ” call centre with phone operators that only had time to say they had never heard of your town, before cutting you off. The only benefit were the large expensive new offices in a land faraway with Sultan of Brunei fit outs for the many that now award themselves large bonuses for nothing in particular.
There were wash up reviews, stating accurately, that there were no tangible benefits. However there were unseen problems etc etc and it would all be right in ten years time. These reports were written by the original contracted consultants responsible for the amalgamations and had embedded their services and fees into council forever. In Queensland angry Queensland residents donned pitch forks and successfully removed Noosa from the super council. Now there is an effective efficient local (small) council.
Careful of those sharp suits.
Has anyone told “Sussex Street” or Sydney politicians in general that Newcastle no longer has the steelworks as its major employer and is no longer a dirty industrial working class city.
In the last State election the Newcastle Greens candidate Michael Osbourne got nearly 20 percent of the vote. Sussex Street can keep on living in their own right wing catholic fantasy land. They’re bleeding votes to the Greens and will continue to do so while the Right control the NSW Labor party.
The elites keep bringing up amalgamation here as some kind of panacea for all our ills. No one here is fooled and no one here will amalgamate. No one wants Newcastle’s historic old buildings and the maintenance that entails, as well as the rest of the crumbling ancient infrastructure. Lake Macquarie, Port Stephens and Maitland will all run a mile from amalgamation with Newcastle Council.
On the NSW Central Coast while the quality of our Councillors isn’t outstanding, their zeal to resist any change which might affect their lifestyles adversely knows no bounds.
I can certainly tell them that as a resident in a small shire, watching the antics of the council in the big city up the road brings no reassurance. Regional councils seem to attract corruption due to lack of press scrutiny and oversight. If you are 6000 people swallowed by 35000 you will never even meet your councillor.
Hey Zeke, what does fuel Newcastle jobs. With unemployment at 9% not much, that is worse than Orana far west. Take away the dirty stuff, coal port and rail/coal mines what is left? Newcastle began as a port/industry centre. The fact that greens do well means nothing for its future until it can reinvent major employment.