Image: Yoel Ben-Avraham
Fears are growing among local governments in Sydney that they could be forced to amalgamate and become “super councils” after New South Wales Minister for Local Government Paul Toole said the government wouldn’t support a motion that opposed forced mergers.
The statement from the Minister came as a response to a Parliamentary debate about amalgamations on 14th May, 2015 when Independent Sydney MP Alex Greenwich introduced a motion that opposed the “amalgamation of councils that are financially sustainable and have the support of their communities”.
It’s the biggest development in the ongoing debate about amalgamations in Sydney, which have faced strong opposition from the local government sector in its persistent fight to preserve the status quo.
And following this supposed “admission” from the state government, Local Government NSW (LGNSW) has called out Mr Toole’s statement as the first time that the government has revealed its true intentions for the future of local government
LGNSW President Keith Rhoades said the debate was “crunch time”, suggesting that the whole Fit for the Future process is simply “tick-a-box”, with the government “firmly committed to diluting local democratic representation for purely ideological reasons”.
Fit for the Future is a state government program that requires NSW councils to prepare a business case to establish if they are ready for the “future” by 30th June, 2015.
In the program, councils face an assessment criteria that includes financial sustainability, effectiveness in delivering services and managing infrastructure, efficiency, and scale and capacity, with ‘scale and capacity’ to be assessed against the Independent Local Government Review Panel’s recommendations for amalgamation.
And if the government cannot force amalgamations, it has held a carrot for councils to ‘voluntarily’ merge through incentives such as providing funding for amalgamation, interest reductions on councils’ borrowings, increased planning responsibilities, and removing rate-pegging.
During the Parliamentary debate, Mr Greenwich described the Fit for the Future program as a “farce, so the government can claim it was consulted and assessed”.
And Mr Rhoades slammed the state government’s arguments against Mr Greenwich’s motion, which included claims that amalgamations would “drive down rates”, that “bigger is better and that forced amalgamation is a “dead-set non-issue” for communities”.
“It was also interesting how often speakers against the motion adopted a straw man argument, suggesting that the Local Government sector was opposed to any kind of reform,” Mr Rhoades said.
“I can assure the community and the government this is not the case: Local Government welcomes reform that genuinely improves outcomes for residents and ratepayers.”
He said the sector does not support amalgamations being forced on councils who are able to show they are financially sustainable, and whose communities have stated clearly that they wish to continue to have grass roots representation via standalone councils.
Even before the 2015 state election, LGNSW gave a rhetorical warning about potential amalgamations looming through a prophetically metaphorical tweet saying “there’s a storm brewing” – and that didn’t refer to the wild whether Sydney was inundated with at the time.
The City of Sydney has also voiced its opposition to forced mergers, with Lord Mayor Clover Moore describing the state government’s preferred outcome as being a “mega-council the size of Tasmania, made up of the City, Randwick, Waverly, Woolahra and Botany”.
Ms Moore said this “would be a shockingly wasteful and disruptive exercise”.
The City of Sydney has a raft of infrastructure initiatives valued at $1.95 billion over 10 years that Ms Moore feels would be put at risk by an amalgamation, including the $220 million for light rail and $440 million for Green Square.
And councils aren’t feeling the love through the government’s offering to meet the cost of amalgamations.
Marrickville Council has said that the incentive package is “inadequate” because the amount offered for each Sydney metropolitan merger – $10.5 million – “will not cover even a small portion of the cost”.
The council has also said that there would be “zero benefit” from the offer of interest reductions on borrowings because it’s not planning any external borrowing next year.
