Sydney's deputy lord mayor quits over long hours and low pay

Sydney’s deputy lord mayor was supposed to be a part-time role for Jess Miller, but she spent 64 hours one week glad-handing ratepayers.

“That was a particularly mental week,” she said. “I literally had a 7am start every day and wasn’t finishing until 10.30 at night. And then I had a full program for the weekend."

Jess Miller has relinquished the role of Sydney's deputy lord mayor.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

One of the youngest councillors to serve as deputy lord mayor, Cr Miller announced this week she would not seek another 12-month term. She will continue to serve as a councillor and plans to contest the next council election in 2020.

Cr Miller, 34, said one year of juggling the part-time role with family and her paid job was enough.

“I'm not over it, but you can only work at that kind of breakneck pace for so long before you start recognising that you have to spend more time with your family,” she said. “And that you have to earn some money and also that you haven’t seen friends for 12 months.”

Labor councillor and president of Local Government NSW Linda Scott will replace Cr Miller as deputy lord mayor after defeating Liberal councillor Christine Forster in a vote.

Cr Miller said the long hours and low remuneration were behind her decision. She said there were not tensions within Clover Moore’s team of independents.

Town crier Graham Keating pictured in 2016 with Jess Miller, Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore and Kerryn Phelps.Credit: Louise Kennerley

Cr Forster said she thought Cr Miller had performed well in the role. But fellow Liberal councillor Craig Chung said Lord Mayor Clover Moore had “a history of not keeping her team”.

Cr Miller became deputy lord mayor last year after Kerryn Phelps, who is standing as an independent candidate in the Wentworth byelection, stood down after falling out with Cr Moore.

Cr Miller said: “I haven’t experienced anything like what Cr Phelps did, but we’re also very different people and we have very different ways of operating.”

Cr Miller said she believed Cr Phelps would be a good replacement for former member, Malcolm Turnbull, but she also praised two other independent candidates, Licia Heath and fellow City of Sydney councillor Angela Vithoulkas.

Cr Miller, who has a six-year-old daughter Jemima, said it was a privilege and an "amazing opportunity" to serve as deputy lord mayor, but the role was not family-friendly (“God no, no way”).

“If you’re out four nights a week cutting ribbons and shaking hands and smiling at strangers, it takes you away from your family,” she said.

“If you’re making that sacrifice and, at the same time, the remuneration puts extra pressure on your partner to earn more money or if you have to work on top of that, it cut outs a whole lot of people.”

She was paid $19,734 to be deputy lord mayor in addition to the $39,540 annual fee given to City of Sydney councillors. The Lord Mayor, in comparison, receives a councillor’s fee and $197,345, according to a council spokesman.

The Local Government Remuneration Tribunal sets fees for NSW councillors and mayors.

Cr Miller said the additional money she received as deputy lord mayor allowed her to reduce her working hours at sustainability and innovation company, The Republic of Everyone, to one day a week.

Cr Miller said the level of remuneration limited who could afford to be a councillor and was a barrier to young people, single parents, women, people with disability and “people who actually have to work to pay the rent”.

“If it were a full-time position what it would enable is a much greater diversity of people seeing it as something they could do,” she said.

She said councillors did not receive the salary or other benefits paid to state and federal politicians.

“Representation at a local level is just as important as state and federal, but it doesn’t have constitutional recognition,” she said. “It doesn’t come with the same types of security and protection.”

Cr Miller cited dealing with the “bloody lockout laws” and “fighting the cluster f**k that is Westconnex” as some of her achievements as deputy lord mayor.

She also pointed to efforts to address air pollution and the 'Sydney Doesn't Suck' campaign to reduce single-use plastic straws.

Besides spending more time with her family, Cr Miller said she was looking forward to hanging out with her “kickboxing buddies”.

“I’d rather do five rounds of [mixed martial arts] physical sparring than a council meeting any day - 100 percent,” she said. “A round is only two minutes whereas a bloody council meeting can sometimes go for five or six hours.”