Marrickville unable to amalgamate response
Image: Victor Macri, Brian Barrett, Neil Strickland and Helen Ferry
The Greens’ proposed referendum on the amalgamation of local councils has been blocked by Marrickville Council.
The referendum originally aimed to gauge public opinion on the merging of council boundaries to make new ‘super councils’, which have been recommended by the Independent Local Government Review Panel.
Marrickville Greens Councillor David Leary, a supporter of the referendum, said existing telephone and online polls were not enough to determine local opinion on the voluntary changes.
“That’s 700 people who might have expressed an opinion on the amalgmations, as opposed to the 70,000 people who actually live in Marrickville. Once a final proposal has been developed, I think that it should be the people who decide whether we go ahead, not the politicians,” he said.
Released in April, the Independent Local Government Review Panel recommended Sydney’s existing councils be merged into 15 ‘super councils’. Under the scheme, the new-look councils would each have large populations between 600,000 and 800,000 people.
The recommendations subscribe three options for Marrickville Council. The first choice is to join with a ‘Sydney super council’ consisting of City of Sydney, Waverley, Randwick, Botany and other councils. The second option is for Marrickville to join an inner west group with Leichhardt, Ashfield, Burwood and Strathfield councils. A third option is for Marrickville to join with Canterbury Council.
Marrickville Mayor Victor Macri said the decision to follow one of these options, or to amalgamate at all, would be community-driven.
“The Council has taken a position that we feel we need to engage the community and it has really got to be a community-based decision. We’re in the middle of consultation at the moment with the community,” he said.
At the May 21 Council meeting, the referendum motion was blocked by Mr Macri, Labor and Liberal councillors. Mr Macri said a referendum was unnecessary with community consultation and polling underway.
“We’ve already started going through a consultation process with people [and] engaging them. It’s very hard for people to vote on a referendum because there’s very little information about amalgamation. It’s basically ‘well what choice do you like better’, but there’s no real substance as to why this choice is better than that,” he said.
Mr Leary said evidence of the benefits of amalgamation was yet to be seen.
“They keep talking about these perceived benefits, but when you drill down to the detail they admit that they haven’t done all the work that they should have done. My biggest worry is that it will disempower communities,” he said.
Community consultation on amalgamation in Marrickville is open until June 14.
