Maitland City Council is leading a State charge calling on the Local Government Minister to review NSW council categories which places Maitland with a population of 80,000 in the same category as Broken Hill which has 17,000 residents.
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Cr Mitchell Griffin highlighted the population inconsistencies in a unanimously supported notice of motion at a recent council meeting and urged other councillors to back his proposal for a review.
Cr Griffin initially raised the issue earlier this year and despite submissions raised by 13 councils there continues to be strong inconsistencies across NSW.
“Maitland is unfairly considered to be in the same category as Broken Hill and there is a clear need for a review of how councils in regional NSW are categorised to reflect a fairer, more consistent system,” he said.
The council’s resolution will now be submitted to Local Government NSW (LGNSW) for debate by members at the annual conference in Albury in October. If the motion is successful there, LGNSW will write to the Minister Gabrielle Upton requesting a review.
Council’s Group Manager Strategy Performance and Business Systems Leah Flint said council has made submissions to the Local Government Remuneration Tribunal in regard to categorisation of council for remuneration purposes .
She said these representations have requested consideration for re-categorisation of Maitland City from Regional Rural to Regional Strategic Area or that a new category be created between the two.
Ms Flint said in a report that the tribunal had reviewed criteria that apply to the categories of councils and the allocation of councils into those categories, finding there was no strong case to change the criteria at this time.
She said that in regards to Maitland’s submission, the report said the city was significantly below the indicative population range of the Regional Strategic Area councils category.
