If you live in a wealthy area of Sydney, Gladys Berejiklian's government thinks your views are more important than if you don't.

If you live in Hunters Hill, or Mosman, or Vaucluse, Berejiklian's government thinks your views matter more than if you live in Punchbowl, Merrylands, or Ashfield.

That is a conclusion which is only too easy to draw from the pitiable, risible, craven decision taken on Thursday to abandon Sydney's remaining council mergers.

Set to one side the merits of the original amalgamation policy. The Premier and her ministers say they think mergers are a good thing. Sydney residents will be better off, they say, if local community services and town planning are conducted by larger councils.

• NSW government abandons remaining council amalgamations

But mergers, like any changes to civic administration, are unpopular with some segments of the community.

And in the past two years, those segments that have provided the strongest resistance to council mergers have been in wealthier segments of the city. There is more to lose, perhaps, and more to protect.

read more:

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/gladys-berejiklians-debacle-one-rule-for-rich-...

Imagine that you are a clever journalist. Say an investigative journalist... Lucky you're not an international penpusher... so you still et a chance at getting a prize for imagining and digging some dirt. Imagine that the whole process of killing off MANY GOOD WORKING COUNCILS and replacing them with an administrator was a ploy by the NSW government to a) get rid of Labor next generation of politicians coming up the rank of Councillors; b) push through a hated and I mean HATED WestCONnex through most of the said Councils that had shown objection to the project but c) to appear democratic, the NSW government organise "all" councils to merge and d) when the WestCONnex is advanced enough and the "rich" councils have "fought" ("secretly pre-organised fights") through the courts the mergers, you decide not to go ahead with the "rich" councils mergers while those under the gun of the WestCONnex have been eliminated. Meanwhile the WestCONnext, the 1980s rejectable solution to a car problem which will fizzle in 2040 because of global warming is going crackers, is going to make a HUGE amount of cash for "your" (the government's) mates — ie, developers and builders of big holes called tunnels...

Just imagine that the whole "council mergers" thingy was to force through the WestCONnex without appearing undemocratic which it is completely.  Yeah, just imagine. You would smell this like the fishy smell of the next NSW government's venture, the Sydney Fish market...