Part III
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Armidale Regional Councillor Margaret O'Connor, who attended the conference, welcomed the news. Like others in the region, she is concerned about the effects of the forced merger of the former Armidale and Guyra councils in 2016.
"They've now backed entirely away from forced mergers," she said. "The basis of that, one would presume, is the failure of the forced mergers in terms of the damage they've done to communities and the political opprobrium that attracted."
On Monday morning, before the conference, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Deputy Premier John Barilaro and Local Government Minister Shelley Hancock signed an agreement committing to an equal partnership between the two tiers of government.
The agreement also states that councils will return as quickly as possible to democratically elected representation after administration; and that the state government will consult with LGNSW before any laws or significant policy initiatives affecting the sector.
"The lapsing of the last IGA heralded a tumultuous period for the sector involving a wave of forced council amalgamations," LGNSW president Linda Scott said.
Cr O'Connor said that, in her view, LGNSW should press the state government to fix the financial problems thrust upon the forcibly merged councils, and drive for financial compensation for those councils that had been 'damaged'.
"There is no addressing yet of the problem," she said.
In July, she supported Crs Debra O'Brien and Dorothy Robinson's proposal to note financial information provided by the anti-merger campaign group Save Our Councils Coalition, and to financially help amalgamated councils meet important commitments to their Delivery Programs.
They made their case on the Save Our Councils Coalition's "Council Amalgamations, a sea of red ink", published in March.
It claimed that merged councils - including Armidale Regional Council, with a projected deficit of $3.8 million - were tens of millions of dollars behind the former stand-alone councils' results.
The SOCC report, mayor Simon Murray argued at the time, was misleading.
Crs O'Connor and O'Brien also welcomed the clause that administrators should be appointed for a minimum term - rather than, as in Armidale's case, more than a year; Dr. Ian Tiley was appointed from May 2016 to September 2017.
"The months we had to suffer were far too long," Cr O'Connor said. "It was an awfully long time to have no democracy."
At the LGNSW conference, one council wanted the NSW government to review the progress and success of the councils formed by the 2016 amalgamations.
"Three years later some of these councils have made some extraordinary advances," the Cootamundra-Gundagai Regional Council said. "For others, some challenges remain. For Cootamundra-Gundagai Regional Council (CGRC) there is still considerable work to be done on harmonising cultures, systems, and processes. As a result of the merger, CGRC is facing a large ongonig financial deficit.
"In business, such a move would warrant a review of the outcome of the decision within 12 months of its implementation. For amalgamated councils there is a feeling of abandonment by the NSW Government which, in some instances, leaves amalgamated councils struggling to survive.
"A NSW Government review into amalgamated councils, to look at both the benefits and disadvantages of the forced mergers, is a matter of good business practice."
The motion was passed.