I’ve been thinking recently about the Local Government Areas in Sydney. With the exception of the City of Sydney, which has grown and contracted over time, and Canada Bay, which was formed by a merger of Drummoyne and Concord in 2000, local government in Sydney has remained largely intact since a massive round of mergers in 1948-49, which saw many of Sydney’s councils merged into larger units. Is it time to rethink local government in Sydney?
Prior to 1948, Sydney suburbs such as Glebe, Newtown, Annandale, Balmain, Alexandria, Vaucluse, St Peters, Petersham, Erskineville, Darlington, Macdonaldtown, Granville, Mulgoa and Ingleburn formed their own councils.
Today’s local councils largely reflect the population distribution of the immediate post-war period, with Western Sydney councils covering much more land and residents than those in the eastern half of the region. Populations vary from about 13000 residents in Hunter’s Hill to over 290,000 residents in Blacktown. The following map shows the various populations of each Sydney LGA:
The colour code represents:
- Red – 200,000+ residents
- Dark orange – 150-200,000
- Orange – 100-150,000
- Yellow – 75-100,000
- Light yellow – 50-75,000
- White – Less than 50,000 residents
It becomes clear that almost all Western Sydney councils have over 150,000 residents, with the exceptions of Campbelltown (which falls just below the threshold), Camden (which is about to begin growing rapidly) and Holroyd. In contrast, the Eastern Suburbs, Inner West and Lower North Shore have much smaller populations, and this translates into more councils covering a smaller population. Western Sydney has over 1.8 million residents covered by 11 councils. In contrast, the Inner West, inner city and Eastern Suburbs have a population of about 750,000 residents covered by another 11 councils.
Of course, there isn’t a strict injustice in such malapportioned local government areas in the same way that there would be if electoral districts were so skewed. Indeed, there can be benefits to both large and small councils. Smaller councils tend to be closer to the local population and often form an important part of a local community. In contrast, larger councils can be more efficient, hold more political clout and tend to result in more attention from local media, who tend to ignore local government and help contribute to the lack of engagement many have with their local councillors and local elections.
While you can argue about the proper size of local government areas in terms of population, I would argue that there is a big problem in having a large city having such massive differences in population in local government areas between east and west. I would argue that the main reason there has been no change through sixty years of massive population growth is the inertia that comes in handing control over local government boundaries to the very councillors and council officials whose power relies upon the maintenance of existing boundaries. In large councils, powerful mayors and councillors generally will oppose any breakup of council areas that would reduce their power, while mergers of small councils undoubtedly reduce the number of councillors, mayors and senior executives.
In contrast, the few attempts by state governments to intervene and overrule councils have proven to be unpopular and generally have shown little interest in respecting local democracy.
So my idea would involve a number of ideas. First of all, there would need to be a re-examination of what areas we want local government to cover. In particular, local government authority over planning would need to be strengthened, in my opinion, but this post isn’t about determining what powers rightfully belong to local government. I would think this could be part of a process of redrawing local government boundaries and re-examining numbers of councillors on each council. At the end of this process, the powers and rights of local government could be embedded in the NSW Constitution by a referendum across the state.
I’m suggesting that all local governments in Sydney should at least cover 100,000 residents. The following map shows how I would redraw council boundaries. All of these involve merging existing councils, it might make sense to redraw boundaries completely. and such a map might look a bit different. On this map, I have reduced the number of councils in Sydney from 38 to 26. I have not touched Hawkesbury, Camden, Wollondilly or the Blue Mountains, as they are on the edge of Sydney, likely to grow, and don’t make sense to merge with any others. In the case of Camden, I considered merging it with Campbelltown but, considering Camden’s imminent population explosion, I determined that in the long run Camden would quickly rise to the population levels I imposed on all other Sydney LGAs.
I made the following mergers:
- Sydney – Sydney, Marrickville and Leichhardt
- Waverley – Waverley and Woollahra
- Randwick – Botany Bay and Randwick
- North Sydney – Manly, Mosman, North Sydney and Willoughby
- Ryde – Lane Cove, Hunter’s Hill and Ryde
- Northern Beaches – Warringah and Pittwater
- St George – Kogarah, Hurstville and Rockdale
- Inner West – Burwood, Strathfield, Ashfield and Canada Bay
- Parramatta – Parramatta, Holroyd and Auburn
This also creates a siituation where the two cities in Sydney that have Lord Mayors, Sydney and Parramatta, become the two largest LGAs, each having a population of over 300,000. Amongst other things, it would add to the significance of the role of the Lord Mayor. At the moment this position is given tremendous power and prestige for a Mayor who covers less residents than six other councils. I also considered that Leichhardt and Marrickville have a common community with residential suburbs in the City of Sydney like Glebe and Erskineville.
The other element, in addition to clarifying the powers of local government and increasing the population of eastern Sydney councils, would be a change in the governance structure. In the United Kingdom, local unitary authorities in big cities, which tend to have similar populations to large Sydney LGAs, have much larger numbers of councillors. The City of Wolverhampton, part of Greater Birmingham, has a population of 236,000, similar in scale to the current Blacktown and Sutherland and many of the proposed councils, but has 60 councillors, which is similar to many similar councils.
I’m not suggesting we go that large, but I’m suggesting a formula that ties councillor numbers to population. I’m thinking one councillor for every 10,000 residents plus 10. This formula would result in small councils like Wollondilly having 14 councillors (+5 from current numbers). It would give the new Parramatta and Sydney councils over 40 seats on their councils, down to 21 on Ku-ring-gai Council (which would not gain any territory under this proposal). This would mean that, while the number of councils would shrink, the overall number of councillors would grow and, for most of the Sydney region, there would be an increase in local representation. This formula would increase the number of councillors across Greater Sydney from 488 to 699.
I must say that I totally agree with the mergers, though I don’t think we necessarily need that increase in councillors – councillors really only vote on things, it is the GM who runs the day to day business of council.
While some councils do have an affinity to an area that may dissapear with enlarged councils, I don’t think there’s as much an affinity in Sydney as in regional areas, where I advotate smaller councils rather than population based ones. Also, cost and services must be taken into account, which larger councils deliver on.
Certainly Wollahra and Waverley should have been merged years ago.
Interesting post Ben.
One small note, I personally would leave Sydney as is, given the number of really very large scale events it holds, which makes it quite unique, and just merge M’ville and Leichhardt.
Very interesting read indeed.
Sydney was the last merger I did, I almost left Sydney and Marrickville-Leichhardt as separate councils, but I wanted to make Sydney a significant force worthy of its prestige. The City of Sydney gets a lot of prestige and significance through their position and history, despite the fact that a very small part of Sydney has a vote in the City.
I still like the idea of increasing the number of councillors on most councils. If you also have less councils with larger scale, it would also then be possible to pay a full-time wage to a handful of senior councillors, allowing them to actively be involved in the running of the council.
There’s a fair few different name types of council in NSW. Going by the ABC election page from last year’s council elections, there seems to be:
Albury City Council
Auburn Council
Ballina Shire Council
Bathurst Regional Council
Leichhardt Municipal Council
Also, some of them have ‘The Council Of …’ on the start to look fancy. SA’s kinda the same jumble; meanwhile, Vic and WA just have City / Town / Shire councils and that’s it (except for one Borough that survived the Kennett axe). Do the city / municipal / regional / shire / — councils actually operate differently, or is it just old names that never got changed?
Hey Ben, completely off-topic, but what about the Mexican Congressional election? I see from some news reports that Calderon’s PAN has lost seats to the PRI, but can’t find any other results.
There is no difference between the councils since the passage of the Greiner Government’s new local government act. The only different council is the City of Sydney, which has its own act of Parliament.
The reason councils haven’t been amalgamated is because Councillors scream denial of local democracy anytime the state government tries to do it. There is a very good economic rationalist argument for amalgamating councils, but no one involved in councils accepts it.
There have been a number of rural council amalgamations in recent years, but in every case driven by the Council essentially going backrupt. The state government has saved the ratepayers from bailing out the council’s problems by linking a resolution to amalgamation.
Generally agree here. There is a major imbalance with the LGAs in Sydney, and whilst there may be no major problems with that, it would seem to make sense that it be addressed somehow, and I’m also a fan of the idea of some formula for tying councillor numbers to population as you suggest.
My idea has been to go the other way, and break up the larger councils, but that’s probably because I’m from the country. Your perspective as someone from a large outer-suburban council is obviously different, and does make me reconsider my view. It would mean that you essentially end up with different approaches to local government in Sydney and the rest of NSW, but perhaps that makes sense too.
Either way, I also think any such changes should be part of a more general reform of local government. Just going out and imposing some amalgamations on local communities, rather than doing it as part of a broader reform process, is inevitably going to be unpopular in many areas and clearly doesn’t respect local democracy.
Certainly some very well-considered ideas there.
I think that you need some sort of local government on a scale that they have some sort of political clout and are able to have a significant input into development planning and to provide certain services.
However, if you were to radically change the federation to have a dozen or two states, with Greater Sydney as a single state, I would support having maybe 100 smaller borough councils underneath performing the very local functions.
Yes, I think you’ve made a good argument. Smaller councils make more sense if we abolished the current states and replaced them with a couple of dozen or so regional governments (I’m definitely in favour of that). Since that’s not happening any time soon, larger councils with more clout do make sense in Sydney, especially with more councillors. You’ve convinced me.
Given the population distributions in Australia and the amount of moving about we do, it’d make as much sense to abolish the Commonwealth government as the state governments. If I wanted to make Australian government less disfunctional, I’d give the states more power so they have nothing to fear from regional and local government.
One thing about many Sydney LGA boundaries is that they run along minor roads, or split parts of suburbs off from the LGA that bears their name (eg Rockdale, Hurstville, Kogarah, Strathfield).
So in addition to simple amalgamation, it would be a good idea to tweak the boundaries between the new councils to use major roads, rivers, freeways, etc at all times.
I did overlook another argument for smaller councils, and that is from a sustainability perspective. Smaller councils no doubt contributed to the way Sydney’s older suburbs developed around town centres, as opposed to the newer sprawling suburban development in larger LGAs. Developing suburbs around town centres, or ‘urban villages’ has many advantages, as it places more jobs and services closer to where people live, supports greater use of public transport, walking and cycling, and arguably fosters a stronger sense of community, amongst other things.
Compare Sydney to Brisbane, with its single council, and where suburbs didn’t generally develop around town centres in the way Sydney’s did. The pattern of development in Brisbane is probably a significant contributor to the way the city’s transport problems have spiralled out of control in the last decade (to a greater extent than Sydney’s have).
Of course, there’s no reason why larger councils can’t adopt different planning practices, so you’ve still convinced me on the logic of larger councils, but it is something that should be considered.
Your first map is fascinating. The difference between eastern sydney and western suburbs is quite distinctive and alarming. There clearly needs to be a radicical remapping of LGA’s in Sydney.
However, my intuition would be to break up the larger councils rather than merge the smaller eastern councils. However, you have made that up by increase representation by increasing the number of councillors. I like it.
Additionally, I would suggest a streamlining of boundaries between the different levels of government. For example, a federal seat should represent 1 state seat inclusively and 1 LGA (and no geographical hang-over), each being multi-member seats (varying in number at each level of government).
Oh and by the way Ben, stuff the prestige of Sydney!
My point about the prestige of Sydney is the fact that the City of Sydney Council and the Lord Mayor get statewide media and treated as if they are a superior body to other local councils, which isn’t reflected in terms of its actual size.
I’m not sure how you could make it so all seats match up, mainly because even multi-member electorates should be of similar size. If we kept our current system, it would be quite easy for NSW to have 2 state seats to each federal seat, which would involve adding 3 seats to the state Parliament. Then when you do a federal redistribution you simply then break each federal seat in half to create two state seats. Queensland could likewise split each federal seat in three, which would increase the number of state seats from 89 to 90.
Victoria did this (two Legislative Assembly seats for each House of Representatives seat and also using the House of Representatives boundaries for the Legislative Council) from when Cain Senior introduced it for the 1955 election until Bolte changed it for a zonal system in 1967.
And they also do something similar in Wales and Northern Ireland. The 40 Welsh seats in the House of Commons are also used to elect the 40 constituency seats in the Welsh Assembly. The 18 Northern Irish House of Commons constituencies also elect 6 MLAs each for the NI Legislative Assembly, similar to how Tasmania does it.
The Lord Mayor of Sydney also gets paid a sh-tload more than other Mayors, so they should have more responsibilities to reflect that.
btw Ben, good luck with Powershift. I was interested in going, but can’t. I hope it goes really well for you and everyone involved.
Sydney Council does play with a lot of money though, perhaps a lot more than much larger councils? Not sure.
Sure, the City of Sydney has a huge amount of businesses in their area so their rates would bring in a lot more money. But that is even more reason why a larger electorate should control that budget.
I agree withe the 9 councils concept, not only for the cost benefits gained from efficiencies fo scale, but for the future town planning and sustainability reasons. Others have commented that smaller council areas encourage smaller village style communities and are thereofre more sustainable. If you track the growth in car ownership, you will probably fin that the change in density has had more to do with this than the size of the LGA’s, ie the suburban density and by definithion the LGA size may be more a product of car growth. SO while the idea of smaller councils with village centres, I don’t think this would apply today. On the other hand, what Sydney has at the moment is a series of small councils competing for rates, much of which comes from business.
In this regard, the zoning maps have been drawn to allow commercial development in each LGA, when this might not produce the right outcome. We could look at the major centres (Cty, Nth Syd, Parra Liverpool etc) and only allow commercial growth in these areas, but under the current system, Councils such as Marrickeville, Strathfield etc would have no right to commercial development and the associated rates. The almagamation would allow each council access to an establishd CBD for growth. Where does this lead? Ultimately this would untangle the current randomness of the road network / commuter routes, by focussing on a limited number of centres, not a commercial spread. Public transport can then function in relation to each hub, rather than attempting to link all people to all places at all times (which the car is great for).
Ben, Is there any chance of posting your map as a KMZ (Google Earth layer)?
Andrew, both my maps are deprived from my LGA map, which you can download from the maps page. I don’t usually keep these maps that I make.
It is incredibly easy to change colours of the background and borders of these. If you want to merge them together, the easiest way is to group polygons into folders according to what the map would look like, then change the colours so all the polygons in the one folder share the same colour. That’s all I did on that second map.
“White – Less than 50,000 residents”
Fewer than 50,000 residents.
*Pedant*
Andrew, I was looking at this in the historical context, and noting that there would seem to be a strong link between older suburbs developing around ‘town centres’ and the fact that those areas had their own council. Generally speaking it makes sense to assume that, unless they specifically commit to doing otherwise, each council, regardless of size, will tend to focus on having one commercial hub in their area. Hence larger LGAs in more recently developed areas have not developed suburbs around ‘town centres’. Obviously the growth of car ownership has paralleled this trend, but I would argue they were mutually reinforcing – locating more residential development further from jobs and services increases car dependence as much as more car ownership encourages people to be happy to live further away from jobs and services.
I was drawing on a document I’ve got titled ‘Which Sydney Suburbs Work’ which I believe was prepared in connection with the Sydney Metropolitan Strategy. It’s a very interesting document which compares those older suburbs with newer ones. I can’t find a copy of it on the web though. It was sent to me about 4 years ago by a (now retired) councillor whom I was on a council transport committee with.
Having said all of that, I do think that these days larger councils utilising appropriate planning controls can theoretically achieve any of these benefits just as well as smaller councils, which is why Ben’s convinced me on the merits of larger councils, at least under the current configuration of our three tiers of government. It was a very interesting post as it seemed that I’d had the same thoughts as Ben on most of this, except that I’d leaned towards smaller councils. I’d never discussed it with anyone else though, so I found Ben’s perspective very useful, and it did alert me to the fact that my preference for smaller councils was probably because my thinking on this was linked to my thinking on replacing the states with regional governments.
Yeah right. pollies with more power. Aint that a great idea. Maybe the Councils should stick to roads rates and rubbish and cut down on the political nonsense. It is a joke where a mayor is expected to run a multi million dollar organisation on “political” lines.
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