Supplementary AGENDA  1R

 

Distributed on 8 March 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Council Meeting

                            

TUESDAY 8 MARCH 2022

 

6.30pm

 

 

   


Council Meeting

8 March 2022

 

 

 

MEETING AGENDA – PRECIS

SUPPLEMENTARY ITEMS

 

 

The following reports appear as late items as information required for the preparation of the reports was not available at the time of distribution of the Business Paper.

 

1          Mayoral Minutes

 

ITEM                                                                                                                                         Page

 

C0322(1) Item 26     Mayoral Minute: Flood Response                                                            3

C0322(1) Item 27     Mayoral Minute: An Inner West Arts and Music Crisis Summit               4

C0322(1) Item 28     Mayoral Minute: Fair Grant Funding and Ending the NSW Government’s Bias Against the Inner West                                                                             6

 

 


Council Meeting

8 March 2022

 

Item No:         C0322(1) Item 26

Subject:         Mayoral Minute: Flood Response           

From:             Councillor Darcy Byrne   

 

 

Motion:

 

That Council:

 

1.   Acknowledge and thank the Marrickville and Ashfield State Emergency Services Units, local Police and Council officers for their work protecting our community during the current floods;

2.   Receive an urgent written briefing from the General Manager about the ongoing response to flooding as well as the recovery and clean up operations that Council and other agencies will undertake;

3.   Write to councils in flooding affected areas of northern NSW to ask what assistance the Inner West can provide to their communities, to help in their recovery from the disaster; and

4.   Write to the NSW and Federal Governments advocating for direct financial assistance to local governments to undertake the works identified in the flood mitigation plans, which councils are statutorily required to prepare and adopt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

ATTACHMENTS

Nil.


Council Meeting

8 March 2022

 

Item No:         C0322(1) Item 27

Subject:         Mayoral Minute: An Inner West Arts and Music Crisis Summit           

From:             Councillor Darcy Byrne   

 

 

Motion:

 

That Council:

 

1.   Convene an Inner West Arts and Music Crisis Summit, in partnership with the Sydney Fringe Festival and the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, with the objective of mobilising local artists, creative businesses and supporters of the arts, to resuscitate the sector. The summit is to be held at Marrickville Town Hall;

 

2.   Write to the Premier, Treasurer and the Minister for the Arts inviting their participation in the summit, with the date of the event to be determined in consultation with the NSW Government;

 

3.   Invite a broad and representative cross section of the Inner West arts and music sectors including artists, organisations, creative businesses, live performance venue operators and academics, to help plan, coordinate and participate in the summit;

 

4.   Invite all state and federal parliamentarians representing electorates in the Inner West local government area to attend and participate in the summit;

 

5.   Design the agenda of the summit with the aim of producing an Inner West arts and music recovery plan that Council can contribute to and advocate for. The plan should include specific actions to be undertaken by local, state and federal government as well as the business community and relevant peak bodies; and

 

6.   Write to all relevant state and national arts peak bodies and advocacy organisations to notify them of the summit and invite interested stakeholders to attend.

 

Background

 

After two years of the pandemic and economic hardship, the Inner West arts and music sectors are in state of crisis and decline.

 

The consequences of the pandemic have included the prohibition of live events, arts-based businesses being unable to plan ahead or commit to future investment, and audiences and patrons staying away from cultural activity. The neglect of the sector by state and federal governments has compounded these blows.

 

As a result, the whole arts economy is reeling and in serious trouble.

 

Many artists have been forced to turn away from their careers to pursue a secure income, businesses and organisations have incurred mounting debts and an increasing number of long standing cultural institutions are closing their doors.

 

The arts is too important to our society as a whole and to central to our local economy and identity, for Council to be passive while this crisis deepens.

Council cannot, on our own, resolve structural problems such as income support, regulation and industry assistance. However, we can, and must, play a leadership role in bringing artists, citizens, government agencies and businesses together to address the situation wholistically.

 

An Inner West arts and music crisis summit can help to clarify the immediate challenges, galvanise the arts community to develop short and long-term solutions and cajole the state and federal governments into doing more to work with us to resuscitate the sector in the Inner West.

 

 

ATTACHMENTS

Nil.


Council Meeting

8 March 2022

 

Item No:         C0322(1) Item 28

Subject:         Mayoral Minute: Fair Grant Funding and Ending the NSW Government’s Bias Against the Inner West           

From:             Councillor Darcy Byrne  

 

 

Motion:

That Council:

1.   Write to the Premier, Treasurer and Local Government Minister requesting that following the findings of the Auditor General about the maladministration of the $252 million Stronger Communities program, that a compensation fund of $24 million be established to pay for infrastructure in the Inner West local government area; 

2.   Write to the Premier and Treasurer insisting that as the local government area which has experienced most of the disruption from Westconnex construction, the Inner West must be allowed to apply for funds from the $5 billion WestIvest program, which is funded by the sale of Westconnex; and

3.   Write to the Premier and the Minister for Local Government seeking a commitment that the Inner West will no longer be improperly prevented from applying for grants schemes which we are eligible for, and that the recommendations of the Auditor General to improve the probity and transparency of public grant allocations will be implemented in full.

 

Background

 

Auditor General’s scathing report into Stronger Communities Fund

 

On February 8, the NSW Auditor General released the Report into the integrity of grant program administration, which investigated the NSW Government’s $252 million Stronger Communities fund: Integrity of grant program administration | Audit Office of New South Wales (nsw.gov.au)

 

The Report confirms that the Inner West was blatantly and improperly prevented from accessing funds from the Stronger Communities program, which was established for the purpose of assisting amalgamated Councils with infrastructure. Instead, the money was funnelled to Liberal and National electorates, including many that weren’t even amalgamated.

 

The Auditor General has found that:

 

- 96% of the $252 million was allocated to projects in Coalition seats

- 36% of the funding went to one Council, Hornsby, where NSW Liberal Party President Philip Ruddock is the Mayor (ICAC is investigating this awarding of funds)

- $8 million in projects were identified before the guidelines for the program were finalised.

 

The then Premier and Deputy Premier administered this program as a Liberal and National Party slush fund in the lead up to the 2019 election. This quarter of billion dollars in partisan expenditure of public money was one of the biggest rorts in the history of the State.

 

Having made the original request for investigation by the Auditor General I am pleased that the truth about the maladministration of this fund has now been brought to light.

It is now time for the NSW Government to compensate the people of the Inner West for the $24 million in funding they were improperly prevented from accessing. (This figure represents the amount the Inner West community would have received had the funds been distributed fairly on a per capita basis to amalgamated Councils).

 

Inner West excluded from proceeds of Westconnex sale

 

In the wake of the Auditor General’s report the Premier has made no apology, acknowledgement, or commitment to fair funding for the Inner West in future grant schemes.

In fact, the Government has now created yet another grants program that the Inner West has been excluded from, for base political purposes.

On February 24 the NSW Government announced that the Inner West Council would be excluded from the WestInvest program, funded from the proceeds of the sale of Westconnex.

Other than the Inner West, every single Council between the CBD and the Blue Mountains, including our neighbouring local government areas of Burwood and Strathfield, are eligible to benefit from the scheme. This petty exclusion is a continuation of the Government’s blatant bias against our community.

Westconnex construction has smashed the Inner West community for almost a decade. Hundreds of homes have been demolished, there are massive, ongoing noise and environmental impacts in our suburbs and central Rozelle is currently an industrial wasteland.

For Dominic Perrottet to now deliberately and cold heartedly exclude the community that has borne the brunt of the construction impacts of the Westconnex project, from benefiting from funds derived from its sale, is a real slap in the face.

ATTACHMENTS

Nil.