Councils offered $85m to reduce waste

The NSW government has put money on the table to help overhaul waste management infrastructure and divert rubbish going to landfill.

Cash-strapped Central Darling Shire Council facing suspension

By Paul Hemsley and Julian Bajkowski The New South Wales government has moved swiftly to use its new authority to bring badly struggling local governments in the state to book through issuing a notice of suspension under Early Intervention powers. The state’s Local Government Minister Don Page on Tuesday hit Central Darling Shire Council with […]

Fines on hold after NSW pool registration website takes a dive

By Julian Bajkowski The New South Wales government has instructed the state’s councils to hold off issuing fines to backyard pool owners that fail to register on the new compulsory Swimming Pool Register after a last minute deluge of online traffic put the regulatory website underwater. Pool owners in the state had been given until […]

PM’s sister tilts for Local Government NSW presidency

By Julian Bajkowski New South Wales Premier Barry O’Farrell and his Local Government minister Don Page could soon have the most formidable of internal opponents to deal with when it comes to trying to push through contentious and controversial council mergers. Christine Forster, a Liberal councillor on the City of Sydney and the high-profile and […]

Government research finds rate rises more popular than council mergers

By Paul Hemsley New South Wales Premier Barry O’Farrell and his Local Government Minister Don Page have a new electoral headache to deal with in their efforts to sell the controversial idea of council mergers in the state. New polling research commissioned by the Independent Local Government Review Panel in New South Wales has revealed […]

NSW Electoral Commission puts word on councils over DIY polls

By Paul Hemsley The New South Wales Department of Premier and Cabinet (DPC) has issued all councils across the state with the set of formalised words that are now required to be used when contracting-in the NSW Electoral Commission (NSWEC) to run their elections, referenda or polls. The circular from the chief executive of the […]

O’Farrell sends councils to back to business school

By Paul Hemsley and Julian Bajkowski The New South Wales state government led by Premier Barry O’Farrell has mounted an ambitious push to make councils more “small business friendly” through a new carrot-and-stick regime that will reward achievers with a certificate but also publicly list laggards that the state and shopkeepers believe need to lift […]

New crackdown laws for NSW councils

By Julian Bajkowski The New South Wales state government has ushered in the start of a fresh financial year by warning the state’s councils they must now comply with sweeping new powers that give Local Government Minister Don Page the ability to suspend dysfunctional municipalities. Councils across the state on Monday were issued with a […]

New challenge to council CCTV use

By Paul Hemsley and Julian Bajkowski A fresh row over how councils can use video surveillance and CCTV in New South Wales has erupted after moves by Local Government Minister Don Page to relax privacy regulations governing cameras encountered resistance from the Greens in the state’s upper house. The Greens have moved a motion that […]

Bendigo mayor demands referendum clarity from Premier

By Paul Hemsley The mayor of Greater Bendigo Council has put the hard word on Victorian Premier Denis Napthine and Opposition Leader Daniel Andrews to come clean on their positions on Constitutional recognition of local government amid sniping from the state government over the looming referendum on the issue on 14th September, 2013. The demand […]

NSW councils try to turn Page on referendum ‘yes’ case

By Paul Hemsley and Julian Bajkowski Councils in New South Wales have repudiated claims by the state’s Minister for Local Government, Don Page, that an amendment to the Constitution to allow financial recognition of local governments will lead to pork barrelling as baseless scaremongering. As the September 14th referendum debate heats up, joint presidents of […]

Clover to spend $1.9 billion on City of Sydney’s infrastructure

By Paul Hemsley City of Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore has committed to an overhaul of the inner city’s streets and infrastructure by announcing that the council will embark on its largest ever capital spending program work worth $1.9 billion over the next decade. A persistent advocate of urban renewal that favours people over cars, […]

Panel urges O’Farrell to push ‘voluntary’ council amalgamations

By Paul Hemsley and Julian Bajkowski A push by the Independent Local Government Review Panel to the New South Wales government to encourage “voluntary amalgamations” of councils has sparked widely divergent reactions from stakeholders as peak body Local Government NSW (LGNSW) continues to argue that forced mergers are not, and should not, be state government […]

NSW Treasury answers councils’ demands to end rate pegging

By Paul Hemsley Local Government New South Wales (LGNSW) joint president Ray Donald has said that calls for an end to rate pegging have been backed by the state government in the latest report about the financial sustainability of councils from the NSW Treasury Corporation (TCorp). Mr Donald said TCorp’s findings in the Financial Sustainability […]

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