Local authors excel at romance, fashion * Helping local SMEs * New deputy mayor
September 2021/Issue 7
News and views for North Sydney’s residential and business communities
www.northsydneysun.com.au
After COVID: Zimmerman posits how the recovery will play in North Sydney
Independent candidate Kylea Tink and supporters in Forsyth Park, Neutral Bay
Challengers want to change the climate in Federal Parliament By Grahame Lynch North Sydney MP Trent Zimmerman is in a fight for the centre at the next federal election, likely to be held anytime between now and May as he faces challenges from two self-styled progressive, small-l liberal candidates. Both are running on platforms highlighting climate change and the desire for a national integrity or anticorruption commission. North Sydney’s Independent candidate Kylea Tink and New Liberals candidate Victor Kline have both declared their intention to run against Zimmerman in the electorate, won by the Liberal with a 51.5% primary vote and 59% two party preferred vote in 2019.
With candidates from Labor, the Greens, the Sustainable Australia Party and possibly others with similar policies likely to run, North Sydney electors face a campaign which will be dominated by climate change advocacy. The goal of the challengers will be to suppress Zimmerman’s primary vote to 40% or below, and then aim for a tight preference swap which will propel one of their number to 50% of the final vote. Tink is the pick of the North Sydney’s Independent, a well-organised group of local residents who mounted a high-profile search earlier this year to find the “next Ted Mack” - a reference Continued on page 2
North Sydney Federal MP Trent Zimmerman has painted a bright picture for how the district will recover from the COVID-19 induced local recession, expressing hope that new infrastructure builds and a highly innovative business economy will drive recovery. And at the same time, he has hit out at would-be challengers for his job who say he lacks conviction on climate change, pointing to extensive policy and advocacy work he has undertaken within the government as well as the shift in the overall position of the Coalition on a zero emissions target in the current parliamentary term. “It’s been quite emotional seeing what a ghost town North Sydney has become during the lockdown but there is a light at the end of the tunnel and that's the resilience of the economy and the resilience of businesses,” Zimmerman told North Sydney Sun. “Australia has done better than any other country in the world in rebounding as we showed earlier this year. And I’m confident that we’ll do that again. Obviously, during the process, the government’s worked with New South Wales to make sure that there is support for those businesses most affected and also for employees,” he added. Zimmerman said the federal government had been focused on its vaccine rollout and the national plan for re-opening the economy. “I am really thrilled that New South Wales will, in fact, after the horror of the last few
months, really be leading the country in terms of being able to reopen because we’ve been able to get vaccination rates so high and in Sydney and across the state.” Zimmerman said that he is confident that the North Sydney economy can bounce back, despite the prospect that the work-from-home practices developed by many local employers may endure post-lockdown. “I’ve always been a very big proponent of the role of North Sydney in innovation and the ICT sector. And so I worked, for example, with the videogaming sector to be developing policies that are going to benefit the cluster of really exciting cutting edge businesses that we’ve got in North Sydney Continued on page 5
Council fights against $96m strip of developer fees North Sydney Council has banded together with other city councils to oppose a state government decision which could strip up to $96 million from its revenue over the next decade. The NSW government’s plan to revamp the way developer levies are allocated would see the state planning department get more say over allocations. The proposed bill states: “No connection is required between the development of land to which a regional infrastructure contribution relates and the object of expenditure of money required to be paid.” North Sydney Council said it had combined with some 22 other councils, including Mosman and City of Sydney, to lobby against the changes. Council said that the change would impact: “the money councils levy developers to help pay for local infra-
structure such as playgrounds, sports fields, libraries and parks.” “Without these funds, councils will be forced to either cut funding to these services or raise council rates,” a spokesperson said. “North Sydney Council alone would lose more than $96 million over ten years and would need to raise rates by 10%, over and above the rate peg, to make up the shortfall.” “I’m concerned that we’ll have development here in North Sydney and someone will get a benefit in Bathurst, or Orange, or Byron Bay,” North Sydney Mayor Jilly Gibson told the North Sydney Sun. Gibson is concerned that the new development in North Sydney will lose its social licence as a result. “It’s like what we’re trying do up at Neutral Bay,” Gibson said.
“I think it’s reasonable if we accept a small increase in height there and get a huge underground parking station, and a public plaza where the existing car park is,” she added. “But if the proposed bill gets passed, then all the money just sort of goes into this huge pot and who knows where it ends up.” A council submission on the topic stated: “The very real resistance that is experienced in North Sydney to population and housing growth within established communities, will be further fuelled and community confidence undermined as Council’s capacity to deliver infrastructure that sustains and “softens” growth impacts, is severally diminished.” Gibson was part of a mayoral delegation which met with planning minister Rob Stokes earlier this month.