Wollongong councillors have urged state politicians to delay an overhaul of the way public land is managed, labelling a bill before the upper house as a “disaster” and “an indirect way to privatise Crown land”.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
If passed, the legislation – to be considered by the NSW Upper House on Tuesday – would give lands minister Niall Blair the power to transfer Crown land to a government agency if doing so is in the public interest or that agency is “an appropriate owner and manager of the land”.
At last week’s meeting, Independent councillor Vicki Curran asked her colleagues to write to the NSW government to raise their concerns that the council had not been given the chance to comment on the bill, which was introduced to parliament on in late October.
The councillors unanimously supported Cr Curran’s urgent motion, and voted to ask the government delay passing the bill until councils had time to analyse and make detailed comment on its implications.
Much of Wollongong’s Crown land, which includes parks, golf courses, greyhound tracks, beaches and areas like the Lake Illawarra foreshore and Stuart Park, is currently managed or controlled by Wollongong City Council. Wollongong Harbour is also Crown land, however this is managed by the state, with other parts of the foreshore under the council’s control.
The council currently spends about $6 million a year on managing Crown land, councillors were told.
Greens councillor Jill Merrin said the Crown Lands bill was a “disaster of an Act”, and an “indirect way of privatising Crown land,” as she said councils would not be able to afford to manage the land without state funds.
Similarly, Lord Mayor Gordon Bradbery said he believed the bill would have a negative effect, as having more land under the control of councils would mean more costs for ratepayers.
“If we were going to take on the harbour, just as an example, we would have to take resources from other areas in the city to refurbish that particular asset as well, and that asset is a very costly exercise,” he said.
Labor’s Ann Martin worried the adoption of the bill at the same time as council amalgamations could leave merging council areas like Wollongong and Shellharbour without locally elected representatives to fight for the protection of certain parcels of Crown land while the bill was implemented.
But Liberal councillor Michelle Blicavs leapt to the defence of her party, saying the overhaul of Crown land management had been coming for a long time.
“This is not something that the government decided yesterday, this is something the government has been talking about for some many years,” Cr Blicavs said.