Ratepayers in Sydney's south-west will be slugged half a million dollars because of the state government's failure to implement its own laws.
Campbelltown City Council residents will next month go to the polls to elect a new councillor, following the death of popular local independent Fred Borg before Christmas.
The cost of the by-election, expected to be around $500,000, will be borne by the council.
But this cost could have been avoided had the State Government taken steps to implement its own reforms that would allow new councillors in such situations to be selected on a "countback" of votes from previous elections.
The provision for councillors to be selected via a countback, rather than a by-election, was inserted into local government laws three years ago.
But that legislation required the government to devise regulations outlining how the countback would work. It never got round to doing this.
"This is an embarrassing stuff-up from a state government that has lost touch with the needs of local government and what's in the best interests of residents," said Greens local government spokesman David Shoebridge.
Ben Moroney, a councillor on Campbelltown council, said a countback to select a new councillor would also be more democratic. Mr Borg was an independent, and a countback based on the result of the September 2016 elections would likely have resulted in an independent on Mr Borg's ticket being selected to replace him.
But a by-election across the entire Campbelltown Council is likely to result in the election of a major party candidate.
The director of city governance at Campbelltown, Michael Sewell, confirmed the expected $500,000 cost of the by-election.
When the government passed legislation providing for countbacks, then local government minister Paul Toole said countbacks would allow councils to avoid the "significant costs" of running by-elections if a vacancy arose within 18 months of the start of a council term.
"All councils will potentially benefit from this proposal," Mr Toole told NSW Parliament, saying that the countback model would be based on the Victorian system.
But the legislation also said that a process for undertaking countbacks needed to be specified under regulations. This is what the government has not done.
"The coalition government has been so set on destroying local councils that they haven't found time to get the basics right," Mr Shoebridge said.
The new Local Government Minister, Gabrielle Upton, has not outlined her position on the government's contentious council merger policy.
Fairfax Media requested comment from Ms Upton and the Office of Local Government. A spokesman for the Office of Local Government said: "The regulation has not yet been implemented on the advice of the NSW Electoral Commission." Fairfax Media has asked for details about that advice.
