‘There’s no voice of reason’: Northern Beaches’ lost Libs blame party failure for rate hike

The 40 per cent rate rise looming for residents of the Northern Beaches would not have won council approval if the Liberal Party had nominated its candidates in time for last year’s local government elections, former councillors say.

Karina Page, who served on Northern Beaches Council after Rory Amon’s election to state parliament, said that the party’s failure to nominate a single candidate in the local government area for last September’s elections had damaged “democracy” and paved the way for decisions that were not in line with the community’s values.

Former Liberal councillors Karina Page, Stuart Sprott and Georgia Ryburn.

“I understand that head office at the Liberal Party made a huge mistake, a huge blunder by not nominating its candidates. Unforgivable. But at the end of the day, just because it’s the law, it’s not a democracy … almost 50 per cent of the primary vote across the northern beaches … is Liberal, and [Liberal voters] don’t have any representation whatsoever.”

On Tuesday night, the council narrowly voted to seek the rate rise from the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal amid a fiery debate attended by hundreds of angry residents.

Page described community consultation for the rate rise as “deceitful” and dishonest, adding that she thought this was “only just the beginning” of unpopular decisions for ratepayers, with the expectation that the majority independent council would “open up the floodgates” on other contentious issues.

According to council papers, 51 per cent of surveyed residents opted for a pegged rate increase of 10.7 per cent. Only 11 per cent voted for the 39.6 per cent rise that was successfully moved at the meeting.

Protesters rally against the Northern Beaches Council’s proposed 40 per cent rate rise.Credit: James Brickwood

The former Liberal councillors were critical of the past two terms of leadership under independents, with Stuart Sprott saying: “This isn’t a new issue. It’s been going for the past two terms, but now there isn’t a Liberal voice to hold them to account. There’s no voice of reason.”

David Walton, who also previously served on the council, said that ratepayers had lost trust in new councillors who had “limited ability and knowledge to keep the growing bureaucracy under control”.

“I’ve publicly stated my disappointment with the NSW division of the Liberal Party in relation to the incompetence of not getting 140 Liberal councillors’ nominations in … and we’re seeing the consequences of it now.

“Those voices of restraint, and cutting the fat, cutting the waste, and not putting an impost of cost-of-living pressures onto our community, those voices are gone.”

One former councillor who chose not to nominate for the last local election, Bianca Crvelin, said: “Right now, within this term of council, the community is misrepresented … because they couldn’t vote for Liberals. I live in the northern beaches, of course, and I, personally, wasn’t given the option to vote for a Liberal councillor.

“We have conservative values, and not having the chance to vote that way means that whoever is on council is not representative of the community as a whole.”

Former deputy mayor Georgia Ryburn, who unsuccessfully ran as the Liberal candidate in the Pittwater state byelection last year after not being nominated for the council, was critical of councillors’ interpretation of the consultation survey, describing their vote as a “clear affront” to community sentiment.

“The rate rise wouldn’t have happened if the majority Liberal councillors were elected. Indeed, I think a lot of things wouldn’t have happened if council wasn’t run by teal-affiliated Greens councillors since 2017.”

James Brown, the Liberal candidate for Mackellar at this year’s federal election who spoke against the motion during Tuesday’s meeting, told the Herald that he found the tone of the meeting “condescending” and “contemptuous”.

While Brown wouldn’t directly say if he thought the situation in council would affect his chances at the federal level, he did say, “I’ve just knocked on the doors of 50 houses in Narrabeen, and five of the people I spoke to voted teal last time and won’t be voting teal this time, and they mentioned the council rate rise as one of the reasons for that.”

In a statement to this masthead, Northern Beaches Mayor Sue Heins said she didn’t “wish to comment on a hypothetical debate on what might have occurred if former Liberal councillors were sitting around the chamber”.

“The decision to support an application to vary rates was very difficult and reflects the chronic challenges the sector faces in securing sufficient revenue to meet the reasonable expectations of our communities.”

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