When the NSW Minister for Local Government, Ron Hoenig, announced an inquiry into the City of Liverpool in July, it seemed clear that the council was headed down the path seen by councils like Shellharbour, Warringah, Wingecarribee, Wollongong and Central Coast in the past. In the dying days of a council term, the state government intervenes and sacks the council, appoints administrators and delays the election. Indeed this is exactly what happened to the City of Liverpool just before the 2004 council election.
In most of these cases, the council is left without an elected council until the next statewide council election – although in the case of Shellharbour and Wollongong, the newly-elected Coalition state government brought forward their election to a year before the rest of the state.
At the time I stopped work on my Liverpool council guide. I didn’t do any more work on candidates, and expected the election to not proceed.
But that isn’t what happened. The election process continued ahead, since the state government never actually got around to suspending the council after giving them a week to show reason they shouldn’t be suspended. Earlier this week, a court case found that the investigation could proceed, opening the door for Hoenig to cancel the election, but a lot had already happened by that point.
Nominations were received and declared in much the same way as every council (conducted by the private Australian Election Company, who is also running the Fairfield election). Postal vote packs are already going out, and pre-poll was due to open next Monday.
I am not here to defend the current council administration, led by Liberal mayor Ned Mannoun, but I wonder why this process never has a role for local residents in judging the behaviour of councils in these sorts of situations.
In the case of Liverpool, Mannoun’s hold on his office is not strong. He was elected mayor in 2012, lost the job in 2016 and won it back in 2021. In 2021, he won 51.27% of the mayoral vote after preferences.
And the mayoral seat also decided who was in control of the council. The other ten seats split 4 to Labor, 4 to Liberal and two to independents who quickly split, with one siding with Labor and the other Liberal. That means that the mayoralty gave the Liberal Party and their independent ally a 6-5 majority. A swing to the left could see the council change direction.
If the allegations against the council are as bad as the Minister says, surely this is the kind of thing that should factor into the judgement of the voters.
If a state or federal government faced these issues there would be no question of suspending elections – but it could well be the kind of thing that leads to a new government taking power. Accountability in local government isn’t as robust at higher levels, but we should be trying to give space for democracy to play its part. In the case of Liverpool, it seems quite likely that a new council can set another direction, and they should be given that chance.
If you want to read more, check out my guide to the City of Liverpool election.
Canterbury Bankstown council is dysfunctional and is not performing in the role of addressing local issues. Surely there has to be a limit of times that a council has to have a ICAC investigation and a Parliamentary enquiry before it’s put into administration.
Canterbury Bankstown council has had 2-3 ICAC interventions and a parliamentary enquiry in 3 years . I think that’s enough to factor in that it needs an administrator or has the local government minister Ron Hoenig reluctant because it’s a safe Labor council?
I understand the icac enquiry was into the former canterbury council and the parliamentary enquiry was a liberal party stunt aided and abetted by Mark Latham
See Land and Environment Court tomorrow 6/9 where another matter of OLG and ministerial overreach is being challenged…
I know nothing about the Canterbury Bankstown council as I live in Brisbane, but the article headline reminded me of a time many many moons ago when I worked as a Footman at Government House Sydney. On more than one occasions when they had the Governor in Council meetings I was serving tea and coffee to the Governor and ministers when they were signing the papers to dismiss a LG Council and it struck me at the time how little discussion took place – the Governor just signed the papers and that was it – our governing institutions at work.
More recently I worked for LG here in Brisbane (Logan) and virtually all our Councillors were dismissed and charged with offences. I had retired by that stage, so I had no inside knowledge of the facts and circumstances. I did however go along to the court case over a few days and to say it was murky on both sides would be an understatement.
I suppose my point here is that dismissing a government or elected representatives should not be done lightly and there should be good strong evidence for undertaking any such action. Unfortunately, in my experience, LG is seen as a lowly animal that can be kicked around at will, because the State Government has the complete power and authority to do so. I know in my own field of town planning, the State legislation was heavily biased against the financial and public interest betterment of the LG and from what I am hearing from people still in the field – they are slowly going broke because of these decisions, but the LGs will carry the can for any fallout.
Neil, while I suspect these decisions are indeed often made without sufficient consideration, I would say that the meetings of the Governor in Council is absolutely not the place for such consideration. The Governor’s role is to verify that the Advice is Constitutionally and legally valid, not to second guess the merits of the particular case nor even to ensure that the Ministers have fully considered those merits. I suppose you could argue convincingly that the Advice to dismiss a council is Constitutionally straightforward *because* of the complete power the State Government has over Local Government, but even in the most robust and accountable process these discussions would still (perhaps, especially) need to be concluded before reaching the Governor.
You are right Dryhad, but with the Republic debate wasn’t part of the discussion around having a President who had some executive power. Personally I have gone away from the Presidential model, but I my point was that we are “supposed” to have these checks and balances in our existing model, but they are effectively ticking boxes exercises.
While I was not expecting the Governor to say no, I was expecting that he would be questioning whether other ways and means could be employed to get around the existing problem, without just dismissing a democratically elected government (al la the Whitlam dismissal). I am sure that State Governments would be squealing if the Feds had the same power over the States and exercised that regularly.
I think we may be coming at the same conclusion from different angles, Neil. People like to imagine that having a human being in a Vice-Regal office is an effective check on the power of the government, but if you think through how it actually and intentionally works for any amount of time, it obviously isn’t. The Governor cannot (and in some interpretations *must* not) question the Advice except to the extent that the letter of the relevant law and the conventions surrounding it require. And while I would consider modifying the relevant law around Local Government to require the Ministers to exhaust alternative ways and means before dismissing a council to be a positive step, the root of the problem is that the checks and balances in the shape of the Governor’s assent don’t actually function as such because the convention is that the Advice be accepted on the Minister’s assurance.
Having an elected President would be a step up in that the use of their powers would be governed by electoral mandate rather than pure convention. Like you, I’m personally in favour of scrapping the whole facade of a singular executive person, and either encoding the conventions themselves in law, or distributing the powers to other officials. However, either change is preferable to the all-too-common refrain that the current system is perfect but also that the Governors and Governors-General ought to be doing things the system forbids them from doing.