North Sydney Council has joined Woollahra Council to mount a legal challenge to the NSW government’s attempt to force council mergers but North Sydney Mayor Jilly Gibson is appalled and she says ratepayers are too.
North Sydney councillors voted on Monday this week to join the legal fight to wind back Premier Mike Baird’s attempt to axe 40 of the state’s 152 local councils, including North Sydney – which is slated to merge with Mosman and Willoughby.
Sydney silk Bret Walker SC will argue that the government has used the wrong sections of the Local Government Act, sections designed to be used only for voluntary amalgamations, not forced. If the challenge is successful, it could mean the government has to begin the whole council mergers process again under a different section of the act.
But North Sydney Liberal Mayor Jilly Gibson said she thought joining the legal challenge was “a terrible idea” and could cost councils hundreds of thousands of dollars if they lost.
“I’m getting lots of feedback from residents that they don’t want to spend any more money on legal fees,” Ms Gibson said. “At the time when local government is under scrutiny, we should be being very diligent about the choices that we’re making.
“If Woollahra is already taking action wouldn’t it be cleverer to sit back and watch to see before we jump in ourselves?”
Taking on the state government could be a real risk for councils. Government News understands that Mr Baird has said he will seek court costs from the councils involved, if he wins.
“The word is that they have very little chance of success,” Ms Gibson said. “I’m sure that Mike Baird and his team have consulted their own senior counsel before they embarked on this mission. We are being terribly politically naïve if we think that Mike Baird hasn’t got a team of lawyers onto this. He will avail himself of Sydney’s best legal talent.”
She said it was “not a smart idea” to antagonise the State Government in court.
A strong case?
President of the Local Government Association NSW Keith Rhoades said he thought there was a possibility that Woollahra could win its case.
“They have got very strong community support in Woollahra and a very strong case to stand alone,” Mr Rhoades said.
However, he said that if the government parachuted administrators into councils their first instruction could be to tell the administrators to halt any legal action against the state.
Mosman Council is also understood to be seeking legal advice on whether it too can join Woollahra’s legal challenge to derail the NSW government’s council mergers plans.
On Tuesday Leichhardt Council a Labour/Liberal alliance fought back an attempt by the Greens and Independent to join the Woollahra challenge.
Independent councillor John Stamolis said he was disappointed the motion had been lost.
“I supported a legal challenge because there’s strong feeling amongst the community that there is no rigorous and justifiable evidence to warrant the amalgamations. This is what our communities are saying to us.”
“Certainly, nobody wants to lose a case but this is about the future of local democracy at stake here.”
Mr Stamolis said that if the proposed Ashfield-Leichhardt-Marrickville went ahead it would likely be a Labour council.
He said that if it was a valid challenge to the minister’s powers or the Local Government Act it was worth it.
“We want to make sure that the minister isn’t overstepping his powers.”
“We’re talking about the future of local government where many communities are not happy with forced amalgamations and many communities aren’t happy with the merger they have been given.”
Comment below to have your say on this story.
If you have a news story or tip-off, get in touch at editorial@governmentnews.com.au.
Sign up to the Government News newsletter
Related stories
9 thoughts on “North Sydney joins council mergers legal challenge: Mayor appalled”
Leave a comment:
Most read
Scathing report finds little has changed at PwC
Qld council welcomes progress on massive battery system
Inquiry to consider how federal govt can address councils’ sustainability issues
‘Local’ procurement turns out not to be so local, committee hears
Another report finds local government falling down on cyber security
If Woollahra think there’s any chance of winning why are their staff and GM working with Waverley and Randwick on merger project teams and transition plans etc?
is it just wasting rate payer funds because their mayor is upset about losing her position to Sally Betts or is the elected council disconnected from the organisation ? Surely if they were confident of winning the staff would not be working on the merger.
Disgraceful. Councils should be looking for the very best value for money for their rate payers, not pursuing pathetic power-related battles and self-interest.
If old hard GMs would pull their heads out, they would see the potential for millions of dollars in savings. Coordinated purchasing, discounts, volume purchase programs, not to mention millions of dollars of savings in IT hardware, software and licensing.
The days of standing alone and doing it “all by ourselves” is over. Respect the knowledge of the experts and quit relying on those who fear they will be exposed in the bright light of accountability to the ratepayers.
Hey GMs/Mayors of Councils, and Councillors. The enemy is not the next Council over…it is the vendors, the suppliers and organisations making huge sums of cash in the LG Market, because there is no “single voice”
What evidence are theses ‘experts’ relying on? See https://theconversation.com/do-mergers-make-for-better-councils-the-evidence-is-against-bigger-is-better-for-local-government-56813?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+March+31+2016+-+4586&utm_content=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+March+31+2016+-+4586+CID_7070a1c9b7e15f62fa2912e43d9d4cef&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=Do+mergers+make+for+better+councils+The+evidence+is+against+bigger+is+better+for+local+government
This is evidence…
Jilly Gibson is a total joke. No one takes any notice of her silly comments. She lost her car last year!
It seems to me a major conflict of interest having councillors take legal action to save their own jobs. Would they take the action if the costs were to be covered by themselves if they lost ?
There are far too many councils and it’s only the noisy minority who can’t handle change that are against this. most People just want their medium strip mowed more than once every few years, their rubbish collected on time, and get a simple refurbishment approved in less than 3 years and not have to spend $100k on design costs.
My experience with councils is that some are very good and some are very bad. Best to have the cream rise and the poor performers weeded out. Brisbane City has run for many years ( as a very good council) over a very large area and diverse population.
It is still possible to maintain individual villages within larger council areas and people need to stop thinking about themselves and start thinking about efficiency .
A terrible idea says Mayor Gibson? A better idea would be for her to resign.
Sticking up for local democracy is obviously too much for Jilly Gibson to understand.
The most effective and efficient method that North Sydney could do to save money is to remove the Mayor. It is shown, watch the web recordings of Council meetings, that she has very few clues as to how to run a meeting.