Businesses will get two votes in every council election under a bill expected to come before NSW parliament this week

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

Sydney will become “rife with corruption” if the Melbourne model for business voting is introduced, a Sydney city councillor says.



Businesses in Sydney’s CBD will get two votes in every council election, instead of one, under a bill expected to come before NSW parliament this week.

“It’s clearly an invitation to rort the roll,” John Mant, one of lord mayor Clover Moore’s nine independent councillors, told AAP on Tuesday. “It’s an outrageous piece of legislation.”

The bill had a “pro-developer” agenda, Mant said, highlighting the Barangaroo development as an example.

The Shooters and Fishers Party announced in June it would introduce the changes, amending the City of Sydney Act 1988 to make it more like the Melbourne model.

Patricia Forsythe, executive director of the Sydney Business Chamber, said the voting changes were good news for business owners.

“There’s no doubt the next City of Sydney council elections will take on a different look with a much more engaged business voice playing an active role in the result,” she said.

In the 2016 election, 80,000 business voters would have their say in a major electoral shift, which was expected to end Clover Moore’s reign as mayor.

The NSW executive director of the Property Council of Australia, Glenn Byres, said the reform should be implemented across all local government areas.

“We want people who invest in our cities to have a say,” he said.

The independent member for Sydney, Alex Greenwich, is concerned about the lack of detail in the Shooters and Fishers Party legislation, saying it could allow vested interests to rort the system.

Moore said the NSW government was trying to manipulate the city.

“No business has complained to me about not having enough opportunity to vote,” she said. “Business has a right to vote in the city of Sydney, in fact it has a greater right to vote in the city of Sydney than anywhere else in NSW.”

She said the state government wanted to turn Sydney into a cash cow and accused it of trying to detract “from the procession of people at Icac all tied up with developers and development corruption”.