The Cootamundra Shire is fit and has been for some considerable number of years. The people, i.e. the rate payers of the shire, believe the current format of local government is doing a reasonable/satisfactory job in running the shire considering the duress placed on it by state government. I mention some of these later.

The NSW State Government has not handled this merger issue with any integrity/skill, keeps shifting the goal posts, releases reports at the most inopportune moments (on late Friday or just before Christmas or other holiday).

Under the guidance of the state government and its IPART stooges, the Cootamundra Council was urged to investigate and subsequently negotiate suitable mergers, which this council did, even though it did not believe a merger was a good idea. This procedure has come at some considerable cost in both time and money. The outcome, we all know was to merge Cootamundra and Harden (begrudgingly) So what does the government do, with the assist of IPART, recommend Cootamundra-Gundagai, the one merger that was shown as most unfavorable after due consideration.

The state government is acting on the report from IPART.

IPART was primarily responsible for the massive price increase in electricity cost. IPART is leading the push for future price rises in the future of natural gas, IPART’s recommendations around the rising of pricing of the OPAL card and I’m sure you could name a number of their fumbles. And this is the mob the government has hung its hat on regarding these amalgamations.

Another of the requirements of the merger is that the new council has a single headquarters. This will surely add much to the cost in both time and transport to the more remote areas for the services that is expected of council. One or the other town will be remote.

A great deal has been reported in the Sydney press over the past few years of the conflict between the state government and the City of Sydney Council. Clover Moore, to be more precise, and I believe that that conflict has gotten out of control and now spilled out to the country. IPART was again involved in this action. I believe Clover Moore and her team do a truly magnificent job running Sydney with the total opposition of the state government.

The $2 billion that the government has claimed to save with this merger has also been called into question by several economic gurus and I believe has had some input from IPART.

Recent reports indicate that the ‘Office of Local Government’ OLG is not aware of the modeling used by KPMG. OLG, one would expect, to be expert in local government and it has been sidelined by the Premier’s Department. I think most people will appreciate that life for councils e.g. Coota, Harden, Young or Gundagai has been made almost impossible with the rate capping and the amount of cost shifting.

Every person I have spoken to about this amalgamation seems to be of the same opinion. And that is we probably could do with some well-planned amalgamation in the near future, and one that would be of far greater benefit to all Australians is the amalgamation of state and federal governments.

Surveys carried out post the last merger meeting held at the Cootamundra Ex-Services Club, showed people were speaking on mergers (for or against) with either Harden or Gundagai as dictated to by the government stooges. All respondents to the survey indicated that given a choice, they were not in favour of any merger, and that Cootamundra was quite capable of standing alone.