Liberal Councillor Edward Mandla on Tuesday walked out of an extraordinary meeting called by Lord Mayor Clover Moore to attack the local government reform process being undertaken by the State Government.
Ms Moore called an emergency Council meeting on three days’ notice but only provided the papers to Councillors two hours prior to the meeting.
"I asked for the papers as soon as the meeting was called, but in the end I had less than 20 minutes to consider them," Councillor Mandla said.
At the meeting, the Lord Mayor asked Councillors to write a blank cheque to use ratepayers’ money to resist local government reform.
Ironically, Ms Moore also sought permission to write to Local Government Minister Don Page seeking an extension for submissions to the local government reviews. This was despite the fact that she has known about the approaching deadline since October 2012.
“I needed to be able to properly consider these papers and to get expert advice. Without that, I could not perform my duty as a Councillor, and with no option to abstain from the vote, I had no other course but to remove myself from the chamber,” Councillor Mandla said.
“The City of Sydney is in a state of complete disarray. It has been way too focused on non-core projects like trigeneration power plants, when it should have been meeting the local government review deadlines,” Councillor Mandla added.
“Clover Moore was last week forced to cancel her overly ambitious Green Square trigeneration project, which means she will be unable to meet her Sustainable Sydney 2030 emissions targets. Instead of focusing on core business and delivering services for ratepayers, she is now looking at harebrained schemes such as powering the city with chicken manure. These plans are absolutely bonkers and have soaked up all the resources of Council. As a result the Lord Mayor has run out of time to complete the vital submissions needed for the local government review process."