{"id":85919,"date":"2026-09-02T09:12:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T09:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/85919\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T09:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T09:12:08","slug":"car-bombs-feuds-and-5000-to-count-12-votes-put-nsw-councils-under-scrutiny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/85919\/","title":{"rendered":"Car bombs, feuds and $5,000 to count 12 votes put NSW councils under scrutiny"},"content":{"rendered":"

A car bombing, an alleged threat to kill a fellow councillor, and spending almost $5,000 to count 12 votes.<\/p>\n

Local government may have a reputation for being boring, but NSW budget estimates today provided an extraordinary snapshot of the feuds and farces playing out across the state’s councils.<\/p>\n

At one end of the spectrum was the Waverley Council and the apparently complex business of counting 12 votes.<\/p>\n

Greens MLC Amanda Cohn asked Local Government Minister Ron Hoenig if he was aware the council had resolved to spend almost $5,000 to engage a private contractor to oversee the election of its mayor and deputy mayor.<\/p>\n

Those positions are decided by a vote among 12 councillors.<\/p>\n

Mr Hoenig was incredulous.<\/p>\n

“I’ve been around for over 40 years, I’ve never heard of that before,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I mean, the mayor of Waverley’s been wanting to catch up with me for a while and I haven’t been able to fit it in, so I might make some inquiries.<\/p>\n

“That seems to be pretty unusual.”<\/p>\n

Waverley Council defended the decision, saying the appointment was recommended by its general manager and endorsed by councillors.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson said using an independent and qualified external returning officer would ensure the election was conducted “independently, transparently, and in accordance with legislative requirements”.<\/p>\n

Far more serious was the fallout from the firebombing of a vehicle belonging to the husband of Cumberland Mayor Ola Hamed.<\/p>\n

\"Ola<\/p>\n

Ola Hamed’s council was among those discussed at budget estimates. (ABC Radio Sydney: Declan Bowring)<\/p>\n

Questions were raised about council-funded private security subsequently provided to the mayor, including how the expenditure was approved.<\/p>\n

Mr Hoenig said security arrangements were generally a matter for councils but opened the door to further scrutiny.<\/p>\n

“If there’s a complaint about an improper allocation of expenditure, I’m happy to have the OLG [Office of Local Government] investigate whether that’s improper or not,” he said.<\/p>\n

The hearing also heard about an unnamed councillor who was charged after threatening to kill a council colleague.<\/p>\n

The criminal proceedings were later dismissed after the councillor was dealt with under mental health provisions.<\/p>\n

A costly question of who pays<\/p>\n

The hearing also ventured into concerns about apprehended violence orders (AVOs) between councillors.<\/p>\n

It was told a councillor seeking an AVO might have to fund their own case, while the councillor defending it could potentially have their legal costs covered by council insurance.<\/p>\n

In the case of one unnamed regional council, those costs were “apparently \u2026 closing in on $1,000,000″, without the council’s explicit approval as the individual went around them and straight to the insurer,” Nationals MLC Nichole Overall told the hearing.<\/p>\n

\"Man<\/p>\n

Ron Hoenig reflects on the challenges facing councils during a wide-ranging budget estimates hearing. (Supplied: NSW Parliament)<\/p>\n

“It seems somewhat bizarre,” Mr Hoenig responded, asking for details so the matter could be pursued.<\/p>\n

Hawkesbury City Council also attracted scrutiny over a series of controversies, including its treatment of local media and the prosecution of a councillor over technology expenses that amounted to about $4,000.<\/p>\n

Mr Hoenig described an attempt to ban journalists from council premises as “bizarre”.<\/p>\n

He said he would ask the OLG to look at events at the council “with a bit more scepticism”, warning that “cumulatively those things get worse”.<\/p>\n

There were also council feuds that generated complaints under the code of conduct.<\/p>\n

Mr Hoenig told the hearing he wanted to stop the “weaponisation” of the complaints system and said he had threatened an unnamed council near the Victorian border with rarely-used financial surcharge powers.<\/p>\n

After being told the power apparently had not been exercised in 60 years, his response was simple.<\/p>\n

“Well, we’re about to,” he said.Who actually runs the council?<\/p>\n

The minister also took aim at council bureaucracies after hearing about a councillor who had been prevented from asking whether a capital expenditure review had been conducted on a council project.<\/p>\n

Mr Hoenig said the question should have been answered and delivered his own reminder about who was in charge.<\/p>\n

“Councillors run the council, not the bureaucrats,” he said.<\/p>\n

Cumberland and Hawkesbury Councils have been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A car bombing, an alleged threat to kill a fellow councillor, and spending almost $5,000 to count 12…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,21,3352,142200,142201,1774,142199,140997],"class_list":["post-85919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-council","tag-cumberland","tag-hawkesbury","tag-local-government","tag-nsw-budget-estimate","tag-waverly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}