what’s emerging for sydney’s local councils

Councils across Sydney and New South Wales are again having to consider their responses to the increasing pressure from the State Government for councils to amalgamate. In this most recent phase of a process which has been running for over two years, the State Government is requiring councils to think again after the vast majority, following consultation with local communities, rejected the merger proposals in the Government’s “Fit for the Future” initiative released last year. While the State Government has been putting more pressure on local councils, a cross party committee of the Upper House of the State Parliament has conducted its own independent inquiry into the Government’s reform agenda and come up with some very critical conclusions. The Green Party member of the Committee, David Shoebridge, talked with Thursday Drive’s Mick Paddon about the committee’s conclusions and recommendations for a very different approach which rejects compulsory amalgamations