The Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) and NSW State Government have deemed Narromine Shire Council unfit blaming the shire’s unstable population.

Cr McAnally said “obviously the state government has taken no notice of the work we have done and are just taking on board the original IPART recommendation”.

Council put forward a submission in June to stand alone and not amalgamate with Dubbo and potentially Wellington.

“They will do what they want to do, they’ve made their decision,” he said.

Cr McAnally said he was unable to read the submission results due to the traffic on the website.

“The website has actually crashed so we haven’t seen that much,” he said. 

Narromine Shire Council has been against amalgamation since the idea arose in 2013, Dubbo is also anti-merger. 

“Dubbo will jump up and down if they’re forced to merge,” Cr McAnally said. 

NSW Premier Mike Baird made the announcement to councils yesterday stating 60 per cent of the councils across the state were not suitable to stand alone in the future. 

“Four years of independent research, analysis and NSW government consultations with councils and the community has shown that the current system of local government is not working as it should be,” he said. 

“With 60 per cent of councils not fit for the future, this IPART report shows the situation is now critical and that action is needed to ensure ratepayers get value for money and the services and infrastructure they deserve.” 

Cr McAnally said mergers were not the best option. He said councils that had amalgamated in the past were deemed as not fit in this assessment, using Warrumbungle Shire as an example. 

“Mergers have happened in the past and now they’re not fit. Money has gone down and the work force has gone up,” he said. 

“If Dubbo amalgamates with us and Wellington all they’ll get is   kilometres of roads, four more pools and a dozen or so more ovals.”

IPART chairman Dr Peter Boxall  said only 52 of the 139 proposals were found to be fit for the future including four merger proposals and 48 proposals to stand alone. 

“All proposals to either stand alone or merge were assessed according to whether they delivered the scale and capacity, financial sustainability, the ability to effectively manage infrastructure and services, and efficiency for the community as required under the criteria,” Dr Boxall said.

“Of the 87 proposals found to be unfit, 60 (around 43 per cent of all proposals received) did not have sufficient scale and capacity, 18 did not meet the financial criteria and nine did not meet either of these criteria,” Dr Boxall said.

“Despite smaller populations, more regional councils were assessed as satisfying the scale and capacity criteria than metropolitan councils because the ILGRP’s preferred option for regional councils recognised the local circumstances and in many cases did not propose a merger.”

Dr Boxall said IPART made the assessments based on information provided by councils, long-term financial reports and other available data. Additional information was requested from most councils, with IPART holding meetings with some councils to clarify key issues and also at a council’s request.

“We have not made any merger recommendations but have assessed each council’s proposal as either ‘fit’ or ‘not fit’,” Dr Boxall said. 

Cr McAnally said this wasn’t the end of the fit for the future road.

“Now we have 30 days to make a submission,” he said.