Craig Troth is not one for histrionics.
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The Mount Saint Thomas resident doesn't think much of those people who jump up and down complaining if things don't go their way.
But Mr Troth felt compelled to take action when he thought an "injustice" was being carried out on his beloved city Wollongong.
So he started a change.org petition titled 'If it is good enough for Shellharbour, it's good enough for Wollongong'.
Mr Troth kicked off his petition last Friday morning. By midday Monday over 5500 people had signed his petition.
"I've been feeling a lot of anger and frustration to be honest. I don't understand how the state government feels Shellharbour is a regional area, and Wollongong isn't," he said.
"Most of the time we are considered regional. For 30 years I've been here, we've been regional, and all of a sudden for the government's agenda, we are not.
"The Illawarra can't function as a region when the largest local government area (LGA) of the three LGA's in the region is shut down.
"The other two LGA's rely on Wollongong for health services at the hospital and a range of other services.
"It has just got to the point of ridiculousness I think."
Mr Troth also argued it was unfair to place Wollongong with Greater Sydney, as the city was doing quite well in terms of its COVID cases, compared to the rest of NSW.
"When you also look at the figures on the Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District website, they've had a total of 188 cases since the pandemic started, of which 128 were acquired overseas, so we've had 60 locally transmitted cases in the 18 months.
"We've kept it under control," he said.
"Taking the Central Coast and Shellharbour out [of Greater Sydney] and leaving us in is a big overreaction.
"If we were having 100 cases a day I'd say 'okay fair enough, we need to be locked down', but for the cases we're having and the cases we've had in the past, it is a bit of an overreaction."
Mr Troth hoped the petition would persuade NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian to change her mind and reclassify Wollongong a regional area.
"I've never done a petition like this before and I don't know how successful they are. I'm just one person trying to make a difference," he said.
It seems he is making a difference, with many Illawarra Mercury readers backing his calls to change Wollongong's status to a regional area of NSW.
"Nearly 50 per cent of workers from the Shellharbour LGA work in the Wollongong LGA. Why? Because we are basically one community. It is absurd. I believe this decision has a party-based political motive behind it..." one reader commented.
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