LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN NEW SOUTH WALES.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18408, 15 June 1925, Page 16

LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN NEW SOUTH WALES.

(moil OT7S OWN COHBISFONDEHT.) ■ . SYDNEY, June 4'. There has been an extraordinary development in; New South Wales local government in recent years. The civic system'is- controlled by 183 municipali-. ties, and 136 shires. The total income of the municipalities and shires to-day is £7,830,000, with an expenditure approximalsly one-fifth of'that of. the State Government. The smallest local government area in the State ft Darlington, with a total of 44 acres. It is safe to say that 75 per cent, of the Seople of .Sydney do not know where Arlington • is, just as a very much greater percentage do not know the name of the street which is actually Circular quay, or "a big part of it. Darlington, as a matter of fact, is within cooee figuratively, of the Central .TJailwav Station. As an interesting-: -instance of the extremes in population and size between at least two local gpverning areas in the State, calculations show that if the Waradgery 6hire, whose headquarters are in Hay, was as thickly settled as Darlington, it would have a population of over 192,000,000 people. To-:lay in the Waradgery shire there is approximately ■ one person to every 40 square miles. Outside of the City of Sydney, the City of Newcastle has the largest revenue of the councils, followed by Randwick and then North Sydney. The insistent allegation against .civic government, especially as an argument in favour of a Greater Sydney, .that a. great proportion of the rates is eaten.' up by administration, does not appear to be borne out by the Statisticafßegister.