By Julian Bajkowski

New South Wales Premier Barry O’Farrell has moved to quell rising expectations from within the business community for deep cuts to the number of local governments in his state, warning that similar moves contributed to the downfall of Jeff Kennett’s government in Victoria.

Speaking at an address to the Australia Israel Chamber of Commerce in Sydney, Mr O’Farrell batted away suggestions there were too many councils, saying that he would take advice from a “root and branch” review of the third tier of government due to be delivered next year.

The pushback to the business community by the Premier signals growing concern  in Macquarie Street that more big cuts to councils on top of the existing state public service retrenchments risks creating a public backlash that would be difficult to contain.

Mr O’Farrell said that while there were 42 councils across Sydney, it was a “moot point” if this was too many.

“The Kennett approach, which I think helped contribute to his loss of government when he applied the same approach city and country, was to try and ensure that first and foremost they [councils] were economically viable,” Mr O’Farrell said.

“We saw last week Sydney City Council described as the wealthiest council around. But you go west of the divide in country NSW and there are real issues there around the financial viability of councils.”

“In rural and regional areas, councils have a far greater connection and relationship with local their local communities, more so than you see in urban areas,” Mr O’Farrell said.

Mr O’Farrell defended his progress to date on state planning reform, a key element of the Coalition’s 2011 state election campaign, saying that the government’s planning Green Paper would soon deliver legislative reform.

“You’ll see legislation on that in this session of Parliament, which resumes again tomorrow,” the Premier said.

“We’ve said not only should there be some limits upon the ability of the minister for planning to interfere in the planning process because of the corruption risks, but equally there should be some limits around the ability of local councils to interfere with approvals that are consistent with the planning codes that exist,” Mr O’Farrell said.

However the government is refusing to be rushed on its broader local government reform agenda.

Mr O’Farrell said that Local Government Minister Don page had sought input from the Local Government Association of NSW and the Shires Association following their approach to him for a root and branch review in February.

“That review will be completed next year,” Mr O’Farrell said. “We don’t just commission reports for the sake of putting things off – we commission reports to provide us with expert guidance as to how the reforms we make are going to meet the objectives we set for them; and that we don’t waste money on things in between.”

In the meantime, state government workers are being told by the Premier that they need to put the public first by cutting the number of bureaucratic hoops people need to jump through to obtain services.

“We want to remind the public servants and government that it is about providing service to the public. Instead of having to go from department to department to get transactions done, there should be one-stop shops… and we have 16 of these operating already,” Mr O’Farrell said.

He also nominated the government’s online presence as ripe for rationalisation, saying that rather than having “300 or so websites” his government intended to have a “one single web portal [which] is responsive to your needs – not responsive to the needs of the public servants.”