Politics
As noted above, the electoral boundary of the City of Sydney have been significantly altered by state governments on at least four occasions since 1945, with advantageous effect to the governing party in the New South Wales Parliament at the time. Successive State governments of both major parties, Labor and Liberal, have re-drawn the electoral boundaries to include inner suburbs that are traditionally supportive of them, and to exclude suburbs that are traditionally hostile. In 1972 the Council had prepared the City of Sydney Strategic Plan, only the second city (after New York) to prepare a comprehensive assessment and plan of major issues for the future. With triennial reviews, this guided development of the City for twenty years, and a similar planning process has continued.
A 1987 Liberal re-organisation saw Sydney Council split, with southern suburbs forming a new South Sydney Council. This was thought to advantage the Liberal government of the day, as the southern suburbs had traditionally voted Labor.
In 2004, the Labor State Government undid this change, again merging the councils of the City of Sydney and the South Sydney Council. Critics claimed that this was performed with the intention of creating a "super-council" which would be under the control of Labor, which also controlled the State Government. Subsequent to this merger, an election took place on 27 March 2004 which resulted in the independent candidate Clover Moore defeating the high-profile Labor candidate, former federal minister Michael Lee and winning the position of Lord Mayor. Critics of the merger claimed that this was a result of a voter backlash against the party for attempting to create the "super-council".
The daily administration of the City of Sydney is performed by its General Manager, currently Monica Barone, who reports to the Council.
Read more about this topic: City Of Sydney
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“The average educated man in America has about as much knowledge of what a political idea is as he has of the principles of counterpoint. Each is a thing used in politics or music which those fellows who practise politics or music manipulate somehow. Show him one and he will deny that it is politics at all. It must be corrupt or he will not recognize it. He has only seen dried figs. He has only thought dried thoughts. A live thought or a real idea is against the rules of his mind.”
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933)
“The rage for road building is beneficent for America, where vast distance is so main a consideration in our domestic politics and trade, inasmuch as the great political promise of the invention is to hold the Union staunch, whose days already seem numbered by the mere inconvenience of transporting representatives, judges and officers across such tedious distances of land and water.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“All you can be sure about in a political-minded writer is that if his work should last you will have to skip the politics when you read it. Many of the so-called politically enlisted writers change their politics frequently.... Perhaps it can be respected as a form of the pursuit of happiness.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)