Council Funding for Centennial Park is Not the Answer

Australia’s first Governor-General, Lord Hopetoun, dedicated Centennial Park ‘‘to the people of New South Wales forever’’, but in the past few weeks several commentators have suggested that it’s people like you and me — the Cashed-Up Chumps of the Eastern Suburbs — who should be footing the bill for it.  

Coogee MP Bruce Notley-Smith and Centennial Park Trustee Lesli Berger have argued that our local councils should pitch in funding for Centennial Park, which faces dwindling funding from the state government, and an increasing need for money as many of its trees are coming to the end of their life span. Centennial Park has been funded by the state since federation, but the bean-counters’ increasing insistence that the park pay for itself is enabling the state government to weasel out of its responsibility, bit by bit, under the mantra of ‘‘user pays’’. The idea that the user should pay sounds eminently reasonable on the surface, but it begets hypocrisy, because the principle inevitably gets applied to some things and not to others. Bike lanes? Oh, the user should pay. Roads? Everyone should pay. And the exceptionalism being shown here with regard to Centennial Park is particularly telling. Does Auburn Council get asked to make contributions to the upkeep of Bicentennial Park? Does Kuring-gai Council spend its ratepayers’ money on Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park? No and no. The argument that Sydney, Woollahra, Waverley and Randwick Councils should help fund Centennial Park is being made on the simple presumption that they are flush with cash. In fact, the proponents of council funding can’t stop talking about it. Mr Notley-Smith made poetic reference to Sydney Council’s ‘‘rivers of cash’’, while Mr Berger focused on Sydney’s ‘‘strong balance sheet’’. But why should Sydney Council, or any council for that matter, be asked to help fund a domain over which it has no authority? It’s like being asked to chip in for repairs to your neighbour’s deck. Could it be the state government is green — with envy? It does seem a bit jealous of Sydney Council’s finances. Having thumped Clover Moore by creating the legislative conditions which removed her from state parliament, you’ve got to wonder if the Liberals are looking at her other source of power — Town Hall’s big fat balance sheet— and wondering how they can get their hands on it. In any case, the local councils have firmly kyboshed the idea, but by mounting the argument in the first place, the state government is trying to chip away at its own responsibility, entrusted to it by Lord Hopetoun over a century ago.

Wentworth Courier, Sydney

28 Nov 2012, by David Vills