The news stories about NSW regional matters over the last week have been decidedly disappointing in far too many ways.
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The conclusions of IPART about local government have been difficult to grasp.
Small local councils which are efficient and creative in serving their ratepayers, and have met the requirements in their submissions, have been told they are “unfit for the future”.
Some 60 per cent of all NSW’s councils have been deemed “unfit”.
The defining reason for many councils has not been their economic status nor their efficiency. It is their lack of population numbers, their “scale and capacity”.
It appears that only councils with a defined number of ratepayers can be regarded as having an independent future by the NSW government and its bureaucracy. This is very odd, simply because so many of the councils with large populations have also been deemed “unfit for the future”.
The Minister for Local Government, Paul Toole, Nationals member for Bathurst, either does not understand his region or is under the control of his metropolitan bureaucrats. He is clearly out of his depth as minister.
The other two significant ministers – Anthony Roberts, Resources and Energy (LIB, Lane Cove), and Planning Minister Rob Stokes (LIB, Pittwater), have revealed their lack of understanding about mining on the Liverpool Plains, and the problems with CSG developments onagricultural land. Between them, including Premier Mike Baird and all their group-talk about new regulations, etcetera, they cannot stop the Shenhua development or the BHP Billiton long-wall extension at Caroona.
What these metropolitan members of parliament really know about the issues in the regions cannot fill us with any confidence about their abilities or their commitment to the regional areas.
When I open- ed the letters page of The Land, I was stunned by an articulate, perceptive and in- cisive comment- ary by Luke Foley, leader of of ALP Opposition in NSW.
He attacked Premier Baird’s state priorities document.
This is a glossy publication – its cover showing Sydney’s skyscrapers, enclosing 30 priorities over eight pages.
In Foley’s words: “Rural NSW is entirely absent from the Premier’s plan for the future of NSW”.
It is as if regional NSW doesn’t exist.
It is an omission that is both stunning and sobering.
Foley mentions agriculture and its export performance, regional development, regional employment and education (TAFE). He concludes: “NSW needs a regional plan”.
When a metropolitan leader of the ALP can see why NSW needs its regions to be viable and vibrant, you have to wonder what on earth the NSW Nationals and the Coalition think they are doing.
It is increasingly clear that we have to ask “is the NSW government fit for the future?”
Amalgamation is not an option.
