On Wednesday night, as the controversial City of Sydney bill progressed through both houses of Parliament, the NSW government backed away from allowing the laws to be introduced outside Sydney.

In its original form, the bill paved the way for the government to introduce compulsory business voting at any NSW council election, however Christian Democratic Party members successfully sought to have this provision removed.

At first, Fred Nile's party had proposed an amendment that would have allowed the laws to be introduced in Wollongong, Newcastle, Parramatta and North Sydney councils.

However, Cr Connor - who happened to be in Sydney on Wednesday for a Southern Councils Group meeting - said he spent much of the day lobbying the minor party to change its mind.

Speaking to the Mercury on Thursday, he labelled the victory "bitter-sweet".

"It's good for this city that we were not being tarred with the brush of this inequitable, undemocratic change to the electoral system," he said.

"But I don't like what's happened for the City of Sydney, and I think into the future, we're going to have to be very vigilant and make sure that future governments don't amend or change [the law]."

Last month, all but two Wollongong councillors voted to fight the bill all the way to the High Court, labelling it an assault on democracy for giving business owners more voting power than residents.

Kiama MP Gareth Ward, who headed a committee which recommended compulsory voting be introduced for non-residential landowners, attributed the government's change of heart to Wollongong councillors' strong stance.

"The committee recommended that this could be considered in other areas but in the case of the City of Wollongong there was a strong recommendation from the councillors that they did not wish to proceed in that regard and in line with our policy to listen to local communities, the minister did just that and we did not proceed down that path," he told Parliament on Wednesday night, despite earlier ridiculing councillors for "deliberately misleading" the public.

Cr Connor said he was pleased the government had listened to the council's protests.

But Liberal councillor Bede Crasnich, who voted against the council's motion, said he was disappointed.

However, he said this did not rule out the possibility of compulsory business voting being introduced in the future.

"This will be something that will come up again, this just puts it on the backburner," Cr Crasnich said.