Mayoral Memo | The importance of Regional Cities NSW

It is not my intention to make it a weekly series on the Local Government Act, so it is just a coincidence that I quoted from the Act last week and I am going to do the same this week.

Local Government Act 1993 Section 226 Part (m) says that "the role of the mayor is...to represent the council on regional organisations and at inter-governmental forums at regional, state and commonwealth level."

There are certainly a number of forums and events that I attend to represent council. These are typically two-way information sharing events. I can discuss issues of relevance in this council area and learn about experiences in other areas that may be applicable.

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One organisation that is very important to our future is Regional Cities NSW (RCNSW). This is an alliance comprising fifteen member councils that are all dedicated to growing regional cities. We believe that we are fundamental to the success of NSW as a state and we want to ensure our fifteen cities, and surrounding towns, are great places to live and work while also easing the population squeeze in Sydney.

It could be considered that RCNSW grew up from Evocities. Evocities was formed in September 2010 with seven member cities including Dubbo. At the time of the amalgamation in 2016, I was chairperson of Evocities. In my five-year absence from local government, RCNSW was formed with the seven initial Evocities members plus the additional members. When I returned to local government, I was elected chairperson of RCNSW.

RCNSW normally meets at Parliament House in Sydney with good access to state politicians.

As you read this, the mayors and general managers of the cities will be conducting site tours through Tweed Heads and Lismore. We normally discuss and share various issues and solutions but the members thought there was more value in being "on the ground" in some member cities. We have left it to Tweed and Lismore to show us some of their problems and solutions but presumably Tweed will be focusing on their drastic shortage of housing compared to the number of people who want to move to Tweed. Lismore will be giving us an overview of the dramatic impact that flooding has had on Lismore and how they are progressing with their current solutions. All member cities have a housing shortage so we will learn from Tweed and although not all member cities are prone to floods, we can all learn from disaster recovery experiences.

I have always been impressed with the ability for local government areas to learn from each other and this will be another example of exactly that.

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