City of Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore’s big push to make the centre of Australia’s largest metropolis as easy to live in as it is to work and shop there has prompted the property development lobby to push for businesses that pay commercial rates to greatly increase their vote at council elections

The group says it supports “comments made by a number of City of Sydney councillors – primarily rising Liberals star Edward Mandla and Christine Forster, who is Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s sister – to a recent Upper House inquiry that businesses were effectively denied a vote and is urging businesses to exercise their democratic right in other big suburban centres.