VALUES YOU CAN GET BEHIND

✅ Independence with integrity

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p class=”mailpoet_wp_post”>Events revealed by ICAC only this week remind us that developers still regularly have undue influence over Council affairs. The answer is not to take away the autonomy of Councils who are doing the right thing and act with integrity. The answer is to ensure that developers and their close associates are not elected to Councils in the first place.

I call on the Minns Government to pass the Local Government Amendment (Disqualification from Civic Office) Bill, which they brought to the Parliament twice in opposition and now have the numbers to pass.

✅ Restoring autonomy to Councils by restoring powers lost to Sydney metropolitan Councils when Planning Panels took over their roles.

The previous state government solved a real problem with the wrong solution when they took away the planning powers of elected Councillors and replaced them with Planning Panels. The vast majority of Councils, and Councillors do the right thing. Planning Panels may have subject expertise, but our government is based on decision makers being democratically accountable. Planning panels aren’t, as I’ve said when interviewed by Ray Hadley.

✅ Demanding a fair share of revenue from the State and Federal Governments, and reverse decades of cost-shifting to local government.

We all know that Federal Assistance Grants to the LG sector sat at 1% of gross Federal taxation revenue in 1996.

Nearly three decades later, that has fallen to below 0.55%.

LGNSW must advocate to correct the Vertical Fiscal Imbalance –the growing gulf between  what we’re responsible for, and the revenue we get to do it.

Councils take 3.6% of tax take nationwide, yet we are responsible for 33% of public infrastructure, and over 75% of the nation’s road network, which more than 650,000 kms.

This is something I have had a lot to say about (Video 1 @ ALGA 2021, Video 2 @ ALGA 2022)

✅ Valuing the environment and heritage

Councils do the lion’s share of the planning work that seeks to balance our needs for economic health and growth, and the needs of our environment and heritage. Peri-Urban Councils at the fringes of major cities like mine feel this more acutely than most.

I rescued my own Council’s Heritage Committee from being disbanded, and I’ve pushed for a evidence based debate on finding the right balance with development when the State Government frequently rides rough-shod over Councils.

✅ Support for communities repeatedly struck by natural disasters

My community in the Hawkesbury was struck hard by the 2019-202 bushfires, where 515,000 hectares of land and over 95 homes lost or damaged.

Then we were struck by five floods in two years, drowning 600 homes. Support from other tiers of government frequently fall short of the needs of communities. Capital grants with no allocation for planning and compliance. Back loaded funding pushing Council’s budgets into the red with a promise of reimbursement down the track. The ‘Red fleet anomaly’, forcing Councils to own the depreciation cost on assets they don’t own. The standing rebuke of shortfalls in the Emergency Services Levy support.

As a leader in one of the communities hit hardest by fire, flood and pandemic, I will advocate for your community.

✅ Reducing immigration pressure on Sydney through calls to properly support the regions

in 2018, 61% of Australia’s population growth was driven by migration. But in Sydney, that figure, and therefore the demand for housing, rises to 84% of all growth. Imagine the benefits to the housing market, housing affordability, and the pressure it takes of our infrastructure and environment if even a fraction of that growth was targeted to regional NSW.

Australia needs a population policy, and it’s a disgrace that we don’t have one.

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p style=”text-align: center;”>This and all content on this website is written and authorised by Nathan Zamprogno, 27 William Cox Drive, Richmond