Wamboin Community Association

The Ward System

The Local Government Act provides for the optional division of a Local Government Area into wards for the purpose of electing representatives to Council. Wards, or ridings as they were once known, are simply electoral districts defined within a Local Government Area and become more relevant in large LGAs or in LGAs in which different interest groups are distributed geographically. The Local Government Act further requires that the decision to divide a Local Government Area into wards be taken by a referendum, thus passing responsibility for the decision directly to the electorate.

Of the 152 Local Government Areas in NSW, 88 are currently single area LGAs and 64 are divided into wards.

At the 2008 local government elections, three LGAs held referenda on Wards. Cabonne and Weddin LGAs held referenda to abolish wards, and Sydney City held a referendum to introduce wards. In the event, the Weddin (57% for, 43% against—wards abolished) referendum was carried, while the Cabonne (31% for, 69% against—wards retained) and Sydney (42% for, 58% against—no introduction of wards) referenda were not.

In an LGA divided into wards, all wards must be represented by the same number of councillors. Although some LGAs currently comprise wards represented by only two councillors, recent amendments (see Section 224A (9)) to the Local Government Act now appear to require a minimum representation of three councillors per ward. While I have personally contacted the Legal Branch of the Department of Local Government to clarify this situation, and have been advised that, pursuant of Section 224A (9), wards must indeed be represented by at least three councillors, I continue to find information that seems to conflict with this position.

The preceding comments notwithstanding, since Section 224 (1) of the Act also specifies that there may be no more than 15 councillors, a Local Government Area divided into wards must comprise at least two wards, with a maximum of seven councillors each, and at most five wards, each with three councillors. Section 281 of the Act also provides for the election of some councillors within wards and others within the LGA as a whole, although it should be noted that this system is not currently employed in any NSW LGA.

The Act also specifies that a candidate in a Local Government election may not nominate in more than one ward, although a candidate need not reside within the ward in which they nominate—they need only be on the electoral role for the relevant LGA.

03-01-2017