By JO HARRISON
NEW England residents made it clear at a public forum held by the Independent Local Government Review Panel at the Armidale Town Hall last Wednesday that they were sick and tired of repeating themselves over their opposition to any council amalgamation.
Hosted by panel member Glenn Inglis, the public forum outlined the recommendations in the Future Directions for NSW Local Government – Twenty Essential Steps Consultation paper that investigates various issues for the sustainability of local councils.
The panel has identified that Uralla, Guyra and Walcha are ‘Councils at risk’ and have recommended that they merge with Armidale Dumaresq Council to form a regional county council. This recommendation was rejected by all submissions put to Mr Inglis during the forum.
In his capacity as a member of the review panel he has personally conducted 12 public forums over recent months with varied levels of interest and was expecting a strong turnout for the forum in Armidale.
“Areas that have had a strong history particularly around the issue of mergers and amalgamations have had strong representation,” Mr Inglis said.
“I have tried to point out as best I could that this whole reform is not just about mergers and amalgamations they are but one small part of it.”
According to Mr Inglis the principle issue that the panel has to address is the financial sustainability of local government.
Declining revenues in rates and financial assistance grants which is the other major source of funds to local government have contributed to the financial woes of local councils.
“Uralla, Walcha and Guyra we have determined have a weak rating, either neutral or negative which simply means that they are going to deteriorate,” he said.
“No one is going to fall over tomorrow but what that means is, that in three to five years if something hasn’t changed those councils are going to have to take some serious actions like drops in service levels and not doing things they used to do.”
Throughout the public forum Mr Inglis stressed that the panel was independent.
“A lot of people at the forum seemed to believe that this was another State Government driven thing but it was actually the NSW Local Government Association on behalf of every local government authority in NSW that went to the local government minister and said ‘would you consider funding and setting up an independent panel to look at issues facing local government’. This was in January 2012,” Mr Inglis said.
Submissions close on 28 June and the panel’s final report is due on 20 September. It is then in the hands of the Minister of Local Government to submit that report to Cabinet with a recommendation.
