Sydney councils in fierce battle over future home of SBS

Several western Sydney councils are battling to become the new home of the Special Broadcasting Service, with Canterbury-Bankstown refreshing its push and Willoughby pleading for the broadcaster to stay put on the north shore.

The federal government has commissioned a feasibility study into whether SBS should move to western Sydney. If the report is favourable, the decision would be a matter for the SBS board.

Several Sydney councils are campaigning ferociously to become the new home of SBS if a relocation is approved.Credit: Peter Rae

At least four councils – Canterbury-Bankstown, Liverpool, Parramatta and Blacktown – are lobbying to become the broadcaster’s home. Canterbury-Bankstown mayor Khal Asfour has proposed to bolster the council’s bid to create “SBS Square” in Campsie – first pitched to the federal government in 2018 – to include more sites and commercial partners, including retail developer Vicinity.

“Right now, we as a council have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, to make a new home for SBS in our city,” Asfour will tell a council meeting on Tuesday, according to a written mayoral minute that also references the late television legend Bruce Gyngell and former prime minister Paul Keating.

“It’s time for SBS to once again evolve and relocate and plant its roots into a diverse, multicultural community which aligns with its charter and values.”

Blacktown mayor Tony Bleasdale said his municipality – now the most populous in Sydney with more than 400,000 residents and 188 nationalities – was the best pick to house the multicultural broadcaster.

Behind the scenes at the SBS Sydney offices in Artarmon.Credit: Oscar Colman

“SBS should be based in the most diverse city in Australia,” he said. “[It] would be a perfect fit for Blacktown City, it really would.”

Bleasdale hoped for support from federal Communications Minister Michelle Rowland, whose seat of Greenway overlaps Blacktown City Council.

But Liverpool and Parramatta are also gunning to be SBS’s new home. Parramatta’s mayor Donna Davis said Sydney’s second CBD was a gateway to the rest of western Sydney and it “just makes sense” for major media outlets to have a presence there.

Liverpool mayor Ned Mannoun said relocating the broadcaster to his municipality would spark a new technology precinct that could help solve the city’s housing affordability crisis by creating good jobs in proximity to new housing. He said this should form part of the feasibility study.

SBS has been based in Artarmon, on the north shore, for 30 years. Willoughby City Council won’t give it up without a fight, passing a motion in late June noting the relocation of SBS “will have a negative effect on the Artarmon industrial area and the City of Willoughby in general”.

The council resolved to write to Rowland to seek clarity on the feasibility study and the process for making submissions, as well as to federal and state ministers and the SBS board of directors to lobby against relocation. It also noted the forthcoming metro line would improve transport connections around Artarmon and the lower north shore.

The latest census showed half of Willoughby City Council’s 75,000 residents were born overseas, a very similar proportion to Canterbury-Bankstown, Liverpool and Blacktown.

Nine, the owner of this newspaper, moved its television operations from Willoughby to North Sydney in 2020.

An SBS spokesperson said the broadcaster would participate constructively in the feasibility study.

“The outcomes of this study will be carefully considered by the SBS board, which as the minister said recently, holds ultimate responsibility for any relocation,” they said.

“Our priority will remain accessing the talent, tools and technologies we need to continue fulfilling our charter each and every day for our audiences who are in all corners of Australia.”

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