Labor has announced it would spend $20m to ask voters in New South Wales what they think of council amalgamations, in a move aimed at embarrassing the Liberal state government.
On 12 May, the state premier, Mike Baird, sacked 42 councils and announced plans to create 19 new larger councils, reduce the states’ 152 councils to 115.
The plan has sparked protests due to fears council areas will lose their individual identity. Residents are also concerned that the new councils will be managed by unelected administrators and voters will have to wait until September 2017 to elect new councillors.
On Monday, Bill Shorten and his local government spokeswoman, Julie Collins, announced that if elected Labor would set aside $20m for plebiscites for all councils in the state, even those spared from amalgamations, to express a view on how they were governed.
In a statement, Shorten and Collins said: “The Liberals’ plan to sack directly elected representatives and force councils to amalgamate is an insult to democracy and the people of New South Wales.”
“This will give the people of New South Wales the power to stand up to the Baird Liberal government, and their plan to unilaterally dispense with democracy and force councils to merge and sack councillors.”
Councils would be able to opt to take part in the plebiscites. The results would not be binding but Labor said they would “send a clear message to the Liberals to keep their hands off the council”.
On Monday the Coalition’s campaign spokesman, Mathias Cormann, said it was hypocritical of Shorten to say the Country Fire Authority dispute in Victoria was a state matter but to intervene in council amalgamations.
“What Bill Shorten proposes to do is throw some money around that won’t make any difference,” he said.
“After the plebiscite the situation would be exactly the same as before the plebiscite, that is, that this is a matter for the state government of New South Wales to decide … It would make absolutely no difference whatsoever.”
In 2007 the then prime minister, John Howard, promised a similar round of plebiscites to stymie council amalgamations proposed by the Queensland Labor government.
The then Queensland premier, Peter Beattie, criticised the plan, saying it amounted to “the people in Sydney and Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Hobart … paying for some political trickery by the prime minister”.
The New South Wales amalgamations are also controversial because Walcha council, in deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce’s seat of New England, was spared from amalgamation despite being originally slated to merge with Armidale.
Joyce celebrated the decision, saying “we fought [and] we won” a battle to ensure Walcha would keep its own identity.
In May, when asked about council amalgamations Malcolm Turnbull said: “This is very much a matter for the state government. The local government is entirely under the jurisdiction of the state government.”
