Ex-councillors call for Canterbury-Bankstown Council demerger in light of possible NSW Premier backflip
FORMER senior Bankstown and Canterbury councillors have called on Premier Gladys Berejiklian to immediately split Canterbury-Bankstown Council into its original two distinct identities.
The Express
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PREMIER Gladys Berejiklian should reverse the amalgamation of Canterbury and Bankstown councils, like other councils with mergers held up by legal challenges, former Bankstown mayor Khal Asfour says.
Last week it was revealed Ms Berejiklian was considering halting the amalgamation of 11 NSW councils which are fighting the move in court.
It has prompted some politicians and former councillors to call for the same in Canterbury-Bankstown, which was forcibly merged in May last year.
Mr Asfour said the merger should be reversed.
“The Premier should immediately begin to de-amalgamate Canterbury-Bankstown – it’s too large, we’ve had a trial run, it doesn’t work and the local community are suffering,” he told The Express.
Mr Asfour said the council’s legal advice at the time of the merger was that a court challenge would likely fail and cost ratepayers too much money.
“Now the councils who fought it are going to be rewarded and we are stuck with the largest council in the state and we don’t have the ability to do anything. It’s totally unfair when we were Fit for the Future.”
Bankstown Council was deemed fit to stand alone in an Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal assessment in 2015, however Canterbury Council was not.
Both Mr Asfour and former Canterbury Council mayor Brian Robson opposed the marriage along with the majority of councillors and the community, who were surveyed through the Fit for the Future process at the time.
There was speculation Ms Berejiklian would propose plebiscites asking ratepayers if they want to unwind already merged councils, however it is understood this is unlikely to proceed.
Former Canterbury council deputy mayor Karl Saleh said it was already known the majority of residents didn’t support the merger.
“The former NSW Premier (Mike Baird) has dismissed democratically elected representatives in the Canterbury-Bankstown area and replaced them with an administrator who is only accountable to the government and not to the community,” he said.
Canterbury-Bankstown Council administrator Richard Colley said the council had saved $3 million in the first six months of the merger and expected to save another $6 million this year through aligning internal operations and streamlining services.
“It is not my role to comment on or debate the NSW Government’s decision-making process,” he said.
“My role, along with the general manager, Matthew Stewart, is to lead the City of Canterbury-Bankstown and improve services throughout the area.”
The council refused to provide any details on the amount of money that had been spent on merging the two councils so far.
However, it has been revealed that close to $400,000 has been spent on a rebranding strategy alone.
In an interview last year, former Local Government Minister Paul Toole praised the merged Canterbury-Bankstown as “leading the way” in a model that could be rolled out across NSW.
New Local Government Minister Gabrielle Upton declined to comment.
Bankstown state Labor MP Tania Mihailuk said “the community deserves the right to have their say and unwind this merger” and claimed services had dropped since May due to the size of the merged council, including the scaling back of council-run Australia Day celebrations.
The council is the largest in Sydney, with more than 350,000 residents.
Council elections are due in September.
DE-MERGER
PROS
- Smaller council wards, increasing local representation
- Returning local democracy to two distinct council areas
- Respecting the wishes of most residents, who are opposed to the merger
CONS
- Residents and ratepayers will lose the benefits of significant cost savings
- Streamlined services and internal operations will be lost
- Money and effort spent on the merger will be wasted
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