Coming up on December 4 are the NSW Local Government Elections. Across the state of NSW, people will be voting for their local councillors and depending on how their local council is constituted, maybe their local mayors as well. Now, although there is a frequently oft cited saying that "all politics is local" in reference to state and national elections, this time around it appears that right across Sydney, no politics is local at all.
I live in the local government area of Blacktown City Council. It is one of 42 local councils across Sydney. I mention this because 2021 has been a year of plague; where the experiences of people across Sydney have been vastly different depending on which local government area that they live in.
Blacktown City Council was one of the 12 "areas of concern" during the Sydney outbreak of the Delta Variant of Covid-19. This particular outbreak which started in a salon in Rose Bay after a traveller returned from overseas, had very very different policies depending on where you lived. For the 12 "areas of concern" this meant that people were technically not allowed to leave their homes except for the purposes of exercise, going grocery shopping, and/or seeking medical treatment which included getting the vaccine. The people within the 12 "areas of concern" were also restricted to movement within a radius of 5km from their house, and it was unclear in the legislation whether or not you were technically allowed to leave that radius for the purpose of getting the vaccine.
This was a chance for the people of Western Sydney to learn the conjugation of irregular verbs.
We failed in our jobs of quarantine and vaccination rollout.
They caused the outbreak with merry abandon.
You are doing the wrong thing.
...and so it goes.
In order to reinforce the point, the NSW State Government decided to enforce to point. Depending on where you lived in Western Sydney, you were subject to 13 weeks of nightly flyovers by police helicopters and/or RAAF helicopter gunships. In order to further reinforce the point, the NSW State Government put extra police on the ground, sent in Armored Personnel Carriers and military service people and tracked people's number plates to make sure that nobody left the 12 "areas of concern".
During the period of lockdown, I was pulled over by the police three times; wherein they asked to see my driver's licence and wanted to know the purpose for me leaving the house. I also had the car serviced during that insanely short window when mechanics' shops were open, before they too along with literally any shop that wasn't a supermarket or a medical centre/chemist, was ordered to be closed.
Then as it became apparent that they only way out of this was by making sure that people were vaccinated at a faster rate, the NSW State Government set up mass vaccination hubs and helpfully made sure that none of them were actually in the 12 "areas of concern". On top of that, they prioritised where the vaccine was going and I just happened to be one of many people who had their vaccine appointment for Pfizer cancelled by NSW Health, probably as an incentive to make me get the Astra Zeneca vaccine in a hurry (which I duly did).The then Premier of NSW Gladys Berejiklian, refused to meet with any of the 12 mayors of the "areas of concern" because presumably they were also doing the wrong thing.
Eventually as the outbreak worsened, the 5km radius rules were extended across Sydney; but the rhetoric changed. Suddenly "we are all in this together" as the people of Western Sydney became vaccinated at rates exceeding that of the rest of the state and were the first to get to +90%.
As there are no stories told in a vacuum, the NSW Local Government Elections happens at the end of 2021; after the people of Western Sydney especially, were demonised in the popular press and then made to feel like second class citizens like the scum class that we supposedly are. Apparently, the wrong thing that we kept on doing was existing.
So when it comes for even the smallest chance of equity and to signal to the political parties that we're not happy about what was done to us, the political party that was in change at both State and Federal level, is conspicuous by its absence.
All across my local electorate, the branding for the Liberal Party is non-existent. Instead, the people who would have run as Liberal Party candidates are running as the "Blacktown Coalition of Independents". I am led to believe that we are not unique in Blacktown City, as right across the city and especially in the "areas of concern", the Liberal Party is so concerned about the reputational damage which it did to itself, that it isn't technically fielding candidates; even though in lots of cases next year, the same people will be very much running under the Liberal Party banner.
It isn't actually wrong to run as an independent. It must be said that up until about 1890 in Australia, there weren't really proper political parties at all. The list of Australian Prime Ministers (which by the way isn't contained in the constitution as a position) reflects this and it is likely that the political parties were more of a suggestion rather than formal membership. However, running as an independent when normally you are absolutely a party member, looks to me like an intent to deceive.
Of course this is further complicated by the fact that within Blacktown City Council, one particular family has gamed the local branch of the Liberal Party and it is subject to one of the strangest cases of very local factionalism that I've seen in my observations of the political game, anywhere in the world.
When you also add the cultural overlay that News Corp and Nine Ent Co. closed heaps of local newspapers, then what we have in Blacktown City Council isn't even subject to scrutiny in the popular press either. You won't read about a lack of branding in the local newspaper because there isn't a local newspaper anymore to report on it. Blacktown City Council's own pamphlets can not very well report on the goodness, fitness, badness, or sadness of local politics because that would be using the instrument of government for political propaganda.
What we have in this year's local government elections, is a political party that isn't explicity running because they don't want to be punished at the polls, candidates who have chosen not to brand themselves in the political party which they would normally run for because they don't want to be punished at the polls, and a non existent press who can not hold them to account. Somehow, we the general public are expected to make wise choices to determine who will be in charge of the local council, with practically no information whatsoever.
Did we do the wrong thing again?
Aside:
You can ignore this entire pose when it comes to the City Of Sydney. Town Hall and Macquarie St are in a perpetual battle of preposterous pugilism. The Liberal Party within the confines of the City Of Sydney hates anything and anyone which it sees as daring to enter its domain. The amount of visceral hatred for Clover Moore and indeed any independent by the Liberal Party within the City Of Sydney is extraordinary. The Sydney Morning Herald has been running a quiet disquiet campaign, so that the people of that particular local government area don't elect "the next Clover Moore"; through some kind of fear that I can not understand.
Aside II:
Actually, even if you account for everything that I've just mentioned, being a councillor in local government is arguably even less fun than being in State or Federal politics. In State and Federal Politics there is the stage of political theatre; which helps to explain why so many people who are skilled in the arts of rhetoric, oratory and thesp, are drawn to it. Local government, which isn't even being reported in the local newspaper (because of an existence failure), is now the art of squabbling in rooms over where property developments, parks, toilets, roundabouts, and parking signs go. At its heart, the saying that "all politics is local" is immediately proven as bunk, as I am sure that the Prime Minister of Australia has no idea of why there are arguments over traffic islands in his local constituency.
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