Councillors concerned about Local Government Bill

City of Sydney councillors, including Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore, expressed concerns at Monday night’s council meeting about a new Bill introduced by the O’Farrell Government which would give the government powers to suspend local councils without notice.

The Local Government (Early Intervention) Bill, introduced to parliament last month, would give the NSW Government the power to suspend democratically elected local councils for three months without giving notice to the council, and extend the suspension for a further three months without notice.

NSW Minister for Local Government Don Page said the Bill would “put in place a more effective framework for addressing dysfunction and poor performance in local councils and … drive improvement”.

However, in a Lord Mayoral minute, Ms Moore told Council the Bill could be used for “partisan political or corrupt purposes”.

“Rather than simply addressing [concerns about poor performance in local government] the Bill could effectively convert democratically elected local councils into state corporations which were accountable to the Minister and subject to his direction,” said Ms Moore.

Ms Moore said councils should be accountable to the ratepayers who elected them, not the NSW Government.

Cr John Mant, author of the NSW Local Government Act, agreed, expressing concerns about “power without review”.

“To slip this in without any consultation … does smack of some suspicion as to what’s really behind this proposal,” he said.

Ms Moore recommended that Council urge Mr Page to withdraw the Bill, and ask him to extend the terms of reference of the reviews currently underway into local government in NSW.

Two inquiries are currently being held into the future of local government in the state, with the Independent Local Government Review Panel and Local Government Acts Taskforce reviewing the Local Government Act and the City of Sydney Act.

The Lord Mayor’s minute was passed almost unanimously, with only Liberal Councillor Christine Forster opposing her recommendations.