Divided we fall
People power key to ending merger
“PEOPLE power” is the best chance Dubbo and Wellington have to prevent the NSW Government’s proposed merger of their councils, according to Dubbo Mayor Mathew Dickerson, who remains vehemently opposed to the planned merge.
“The only hope we have is for a very thorough campaign from the public; for the public to get behind this and tell the government what they would like to see. The voice of the public is the only thing that’s going to save us in this scenario.”
The final merger proposal released earlier this month by the NSW government is now available online to read at www.councilboundaryreview.nsw.gov. au, and the public is invited to write or upload submissions for or against the merger on the site, which includes detailed guidelines on how to submit.
According to Dickerson, preliminary reading has revealed a number of inaccuracies including the incorrect population of Wellington and an incongruous statement, which reads: “These communities have a common heritage in both agriculture and mining.”
“That particularly disappointed me,” he says. “For all the work they’ve done and all the conversations we’ve had, they think Dubbo and Wellington are mining and agriculture towns.
“Neither has mines. Wellington’s number one employer is agriculture. Dubbo’s 12th highest industry employer is agriculture so there’s no commonality there. They may as well have said we have pink elephants.”
Dickerson describes the proposal as “sloppy, disappointing and embarrassing” after four years of extensive consultation, research and analysis.
The merger proposal is a culmination of research conducted by KPMG, an audit, tax and advisory service.
“They’re not releasing the KPMG information and that’s been requested by councils and by Local Government NSW but the report is confidential to the state government. All they’ve done is taken that report and used information out of that.”
The proposal suggests a merger between Dubbo and Wellington would “lead to around $17M net financial savings over 20 years”. This confounds Dubbo’s mayor. “I couldn’t even begin to tell you how they come up with the $17 million dollars because that’s supposedly in the KPMG report.
“When someone says to me you’ll save $17M, I’ll go that’s fantastic, and I’d like to see how we can save that. Then you put it over 20 years, that’s around $800,000 a year and in the scheme of things our budget is $160M this year, so you’re talking about a saving of less than one per cent.
“The only way they say they can do it is with statements like “savings in back office functions”.
Dickerson believes the expenses side of the ledger will go up.
“What would logically happen is Wellington will lose its council office. They might have a small out-posting but the majority of staff will be based in Dubbo because it’s easier to attract people to live and work there.
“The distance from boundary to boundary in a new local government area is about 160 kilometres so you’re expecting councillors and staff to cross an area twice the size of the Dubbo LGA. I wouldn’t be surprised to see expenses going up.”
He says he’s already taking calls from people who live in the Wellington area (outside the town) saying “We don’t get water now, so with this new council we’ll get water?”
“When people expect the same level of service as everyone, where’s that money going to come from? Dubbo rate payers, essentially,” he says.
The merger proposal suggests there will also be a freeze on existing “rate paths” for four years.
“There’s a freeze on the rating structure but not a freeze on the rates,” Dickerson explains. “The mix of rates between Dubbo and Wellington and the way the rates are collected for the rating structure of the two areas will stay the same for four years and then it will be whatever is required.
“For example if a rate pegging amount of three per cent is allowed then rates will be allowed to go up by three per cent but they won’t be allowed to go up across all of that area.
“After that four years, then it would seem unfair that Dubbo CBD and Wellington CBD are rated differently, or that there are dramatic differences in rating structures among different parts of the LGA, although there might be argument for different rating structures for different services that are received.”
The proposal compares the future performance of both councils over the next ten years.
“Its quite clear Wellington’s overall performance is going negatively and Dubbo’s overall performance is going very positively and so they’ve basically said, well Dubbo, you can lend a hand to Wellington which I think is unfair to residents.
“I think the solution to the problem is not take a council that is performing well – in Dubbo – and say here’s one that’s a little bit shaky and you can help them out.
“I think the real issue is to address Wellington’s need at their core rather than try to address it by giving it to Dubbo to look after.”
“That core issue is really around the cost shifting that’s incurred from state government to local government for many years. Address some of those funding shortfalls within the Wellington local government area and that might be via some additional state government money or cost shifting. There’s a whole range of things they could do but aren’t.”
Dickerson is also critical of communication about the merger.
“It was actually Local Government NSW that sent me a copy of the map first before I’d actually received it from the Government. Communication has been poor, there’s no doubt about that.”
Overseeing the Dubbo-wellington council’s merger proposal is Dr Ian Tiley, the delegate appointed by the chief executive of the Office of Local Government. Tiley will hold a public consultation and is due to announce a date in mid January.
An emeritus Mayor, Tiley also published a book in 2012 called Divided We Fall: An Insider’s Perspective on Local Government Amalgamations.
“He appears very pro amalgamation and it’s going to be very hard for him to recommend against it,” Dickerson says.
“The solution to the problem is not take a council that is performing well – in Dubbo – and say here’s one that’s a little bit shaky and you can help them out.” – Dubbo Mayor Mathew Dickerson