What many of us thought, has now been proven true. New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian is sticking to her plans to merge more than a dozen Sydney councils despite a court ruling this week which deemed the merger process lacked “procedural fairness” for some of the Councils involved. The NSW Court of Appeal on Monday blocked the forced amalgamation between Ku-ring-gai Council and neighbouring Hornsby Shire after it found the merger could not proceed in its current form. “(The verdict) doesn’t change our plans at all,” Premier Berejiklian told reporters in Sydney on Tuesday. “We will seek legal advice and consider the best way forward,” Ms Berejiklian said, adding that she would not detail how the government plans to do so. The government would consider what it could have done “differently and better” in light of the finding, Ms Berejiklian said. “I’m not going to pre-empt what the court cases that are pending are going to have as an outcome,” she said. “But I’ll say this, as a government we’re really determined to see this through because we believe it’s in the best interests of the public.”
It seems now that it is only in the best interests of city Councils.
Ms Berejiklian decided to walk away from planned amalgamations in the bush but will forge ahead with those in the city after she replaced Mike Baird as Premier earlier this year. There are 20 already-amalgamated councils across NSW, with five more to be created in Sydney if their legal challenges are unsuccessful. The court ruled in favour of five of Ku-ring-gai’s six arguments in its decision to grant the Council’s appeal on Monday. They included that a government-appointed delegate failed to properly assess the merger because he did not have access to a KPMG report used to underpin the financial reasoning behind it. The council was also denied “procedural fairness” in the process because it was similarly denied access to the consultancy firm’s report, it found.
The ruling could affect a number of pending legal challenges being pursued by other Sydney councils which were denied full access to KPMG’s reports.
For Shires such as Harden, Cootamundra, Gundagai, Boorowa and Young the verdict is public vindication that the process was a sham. The powers to be including former Premier Mike Baird, former Deputy Troy Grant and former Local Governmnent Minister Paul Toole, did not provide Councils a fair or transparent process. They rammed through the outcome they wanted and used hand picked stooges to deliver the implementation of the new mergers and the restructured organisations.
All 3 are now no longer in their positions with Baird retiring and then moving into banking after citing familiy reasons. Troy Grant resigned as Deputy Premier whilst Toole was shifted to the Racing portfolio. It seems the new organisations such as Hilltops Council have been restructured in a way that would make them hard to unscramble. The simple thing is you can’t put a price on democracy, it is the style of government which has best served both the ancient and modern world since Roman times.
With 3 by-elections set down for Saturday April 8 the Berejiklian government may yet change their tune when it comes to forced amalgamations. The electorates of North Shore, Manly and Gosford will no doubt provide her government with a very strong guide to public sentiment.
