AND so it’s finally come, NSW Premier Mike Baird has effectively wiped a host of the Riverina’s oldest and proudest councils from the local government map.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Like a thief in the night, Mr Baird moved stealthily and without warning on Thursday to announce the final forced merger list as part of the Fit for the Future reforms.
In an act of pure political bastardry, the government has ignored the plaintive cries of local communities – and common sense – to betray dyed-in-the-wool conservative voters.
It’s used IPART and the Boundaries Commission as a Trojan horse to ram through the cuts, cuts which can only have a deleterious effect on services to ratepayers.
The whole process has been a pantomime from the start, a political play with a pre-determined outcome.
Mercifully, Lockhart has been spared the indignity of merging with Urana and Corowa, surely the most egregious proposed merger of the lot.
But many of our other communities haven’t been as lucky.
Despite furious protests from both shires, Cootamundra will join Gundagai, with the new merged entity to be known simply – and bizarrely – as Gundagai.
Tumut and Tumbarumba’s compelling cases to stand alone have been ignored, while Boorowa, Harden and Young will also be grouped as one.
The whole process makes a mockery of the government’s local government reform tagline of “Stronger Councils, Stronger Communities”.
The government has failed to prosecute a coherent argument as to how merged councils will help build stronger communities.
Affected mayors and councillors are rightly shell-shocked.
They awoke on Thursday with no idea a decision was imminent and went to bed stripped of their roles.
If the government thinks the community will forgive this easily, they’re in for a surprise. A safe seat can turn into a shaky one very quickly.
There’s a reason why Donald Trump’s stocks are rising in the US, why modern-day Australian PMs fall faster than tenpins and why the average Aussie voter is utterly disengaged in politics.
It’s because we don’t trust the words or motivations of establishment politicians anymore.
This decision will do little to change that.
