Sydney mayor’s brazen attempt to annex half an LGA

Blink and you would have missed it, but late last month, a Sydney mayor made a brazen attempt to annex half of his neighbouring council.

Ex-Liberal Sam Elmir, the mayor of Georges River, put up a mayoral minute, which was innocuously titled “boundary adjustment”, to begin a process to transfer all of the former Rockdale Council, plus a decent slice of Canterbury-Bankstown, into his municipality.

Under the proposed boundary adjustment, Georges River (green) would have taken all of the former Rockdale Council (red) and a sliver of Canterbury-Bankstown (blue).

That’s all of Bexley, Banksia, Rockdale and Brighton-Le-Sands that would fold into Georges River, plus parts of Riverwood, Narwee and Beverly Hills. The population of Georges River would soar by 50 per cent, to 288,000.

Part of the justification for this was that, apparently, residents of the former Rockdale area more closely identify with the St George region than the Botany region on the other side of Sydney Airport.

The brainwave was defeated by a 9-5 majority. Labor councillor Kathryn Landsberry called it a terrible idea and “another attempt to burgle our neighbouring councils, but this time in broad daylight”, referring to an abandoned 2020 attempt to usurp adjacent suburbs.

Landsberry also pointed out that with local government elections imminent in September, this annexation was really just a “landmine” for the next council to deal with.

‘We should be focusing on service delivery, not a hostile takeover … most people are more concerned about the cost of living and housing.’

Georges River Labor councillor Kathryn Landsberry

“We should be focusing on service delivery to our existing residents, and not a hostile takeover of our neighbours,” she said. “Most people, I think, are more concerned about the cost of living and housing.”

Indeed. But despite the severe housing crisis, potholes everywhere, infrastructure pressures and financial woes, Sydney councils are spending an inordinate amount of time and energy plotting mergers and demergers they can’t afford and which shouldn’t happen.

The latest Georges River folly was supposedly “triggered” by Bayside Council’s decision earlier this year to prepare a business case for de-amalgamation into the former Rockdale and Botany councils (they were merged by the Coalition state government to form Bayside in 2016).

On June 26, Bayside voted to begin “preliminary community consultation” on demerging, including online and paper surveys. Is this really what people want, or care about? I guess we will find out. Or maybe, as is often the case, we will only hear from the small cohort of local activists obsessed with this stuff.

It’s true that if you seek general views about demerging, people are often positively disposed. The Inner West Council held a plebiscite at the last election that won 62 per cent support for splitting back into Marrickville, Ashfield and Leichhardt. But subsequent surveys found people’s attitudes were more complex when it was explained what would actually be involved; and at any rate, they did not rank de-amalgamation as a top priority.

One of the problems is it’s expensive. The Northern Beaches hit pause on a push to return to the heady days of Pittwater, Manly and Warringah councils after being advised it would cost nearly $70 million. And last year, Canterbury-Bankstown shelved a business case on demerging “until such time [as] the NSW government gives an iron-clad commitment to fully fund the cost of any de-amalgamation, and all ongoing costs.”

The government won’t do that. Earlier this year it passed laws establishing a process for councils that wish to demerge, but limiting financial assistance to $5 million.

It’s a pity the Liberals got cold feet on council amalgamations and never finished the job. Hunters Hill, which was supposed to merge with Lane Cove and Ryde, remains a municipality for just over 13,500 people. Burwood and Strathfield have fewer than 50,000 each.

Georges River Mayor Sam Elmir has proposed expanding the land area of his council.Credit: Rhett Wyman

In London, the smallest of the city’s 32 boroughs, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, maintains a population of about 150,000. As far as I can tell, no one in London is clamouring for more localised representation. Indeed, the most recent talk was about three boroughs merging services to save money.

To be fair to Elmir in Georges River, he is proposing a larger council, not a smaller one. And he acknowledges ratepayers’ top priorities are basic services: rubbish collection, clean footpaths, driveable roads.

Still, he says, reuniting the people of Rockdale with their brethren in St George would “right the wrong of the previous government”.

The most frustrating part is what this reveals about council priorities. We are talking about hours upon hours of debate in public meetings, and loads more work behind the scenes, along with the costs associated with that work.

It would be good if councils spent less time on matters like expansion and more on things that matter to voters, like housing supply.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

Elmir’s motion was not some throwaway thought-bubble. It was accompanied by a detailed, 18-page proposal replete with tables, statistics and maps. Serious time went into this.

Imagine if that kind of effort and commitment was directed at boosting housing supply. Councils cop a lot of heat on housing, and inevitably they say: we want more housing, but we need time to plan it in our own way. Well, no council bickering over borders can or should be taken seriously on that point.

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