Councillor Report: Regents Park Ward, June 2026

The meeting at a glance

The May meeting was meant to sit on Tuesday 27 May. It sat a day late, on Wednesday 28 May, because late on the Tuesday night the NSW Parliament threw out the state government’s 2025 model meeting code - the rulebook every council in the state runs its meetings by. We reverted to our old 2022 code and carried on.

A fair bit got done. Council backed a new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education scholarship, voted urgent support for people sleeping rough at Civic Park in Pendle Hill, put NAIDOC Week on the events calendar, and shared out $175,132 in community grants to 17 local groups. I moved the Property Committee minutes and seconded a push to get more ratepayers onto electronic notices.

The big items are still ahead. The 17 June meeting adopts the 2026-2027 budget and sets the rates, and I have a notice of motion up that night about Council cleaning up the mess its own construction sites leave on our streets. The papers are already out.

A meeting code curveball

Before the meeting could properly start, the General Manager read out a statement. A disallowance motion in NSW Parliament on the night of 26 May had voided the Office of Local Government’s 2025 model code of meeting practice, effective immediately, for every council in the state. We were handed a late report and asked to deal with it first.

Council resolved to drop the 2025 model code and go back to the 2022 code we adopted on 1 June 2022. It carried 12 to 2, with Clrs Christou and Garrard against. The Office of Local Government, under the Minns Labor Government, called it for what it was - “Liberals and Greens unwind critical transparency measures in local government”. The 2025 code had banned private councillor briefings and required every council to livestream and record its meetings. The Liberals, Nationals, Greens and Mark Latham combined in the Upper House to throw it out, arguing it was too restrictive on councillors attending by video link.

This is not settled. Clrs Christou, Garrard and Hughes have lodged a rescission motion for 17 June to undo that reversion, so the same fight is coming back to the chamber.

From the chamber floor

• Community grants. Council shared out $175,132 across 17 local groups, carried unanimously. The list included the Auburn Public School P&C sustainability program, the Auburn Salvos women’s sewing group, STARTTS’ program for newly arrived Afghan young women, Swimming NSW’s Splash for Health for people with disability, and the Auburn District Cricket Club’s 75th anniversary. Real money to groups doing real work on the ground.
• First Nations education scholarship. Council set up an annual Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education scholarship - two awards of $1,000 a year, developed with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Consultative Committee. Carried.
• Homelessness at Civic Park, Pendle Hill. Council voted to direct the General Manager to urgently connect the people sleeping rough there - many of them asylum seekers who cannot access mainstream housing services because of their visa status - with specialist support, and to activate the relevant part of Council’s Homelessness Action Plan. Carried, with Clr Christou against.
• NAIDOC Week. NAIDOC Week goes onto Council’s annual events calendar from now on, with a report back on how Council can support it. Carried, with Clr Christou against.
• LEP and DCP review. Council endorsed in-principle a round of planning changes and the work to turn them into a formal planning proposal. This one touches our ward - it includes housing controls within 400 metres of Berala station and a proposal around 106 Woodburn Road. I had declared a significant conflict of interest on this item and left the chamber, so I took no part in the vote. An amendment from Clrs Garrard and Hughes was lost, and the motion carried 8 to 6.
• Disability Inclusion Action Plan. The draft Disability Inclusion Action Plan 2026-2030 went out on public exhibition for 28 days. Worth a look and a submission - more on that below.
• Tenders and works. Resolved without debate: re-lining the 50 metre pool at Granville Swim Centre ($1.77 million), new floodlighting at Peter Hislop Park ($720,000) and Granville Park ($1.13 million), and roofing works on seniors units ($459,000).
• Mayoral minutes. Council backed public screenings of Australia’s FIFA World Cup matches at Merrylands Civic Square, and a live screening of the Australia versus Türkiye match at Webbs Avenue Playing Fields hosted by Auburn FC. It also marked 100 years of Granville Boys High, Council’s own 10th birthday, Eid al-Adha, and passed condolences for former Holroyd and Cumberland Mayor Peter Monaghan. All carried unanimously.

My work in the chamber

I moved the adoption of the Property Committee minutes from 4 May. We adopted the lot bar one item - the Cumberland Open Space Planning Proposal - which I had referred back to the committee for more work rather than wave it through. Carried unanimously.

I also seconded Clr Selventhiran’s motion for a social media campaign to push electronic rates notices. Only about 20% of the 72,000 notices we send out each quarter go electronically, and the paper ones cost ratepayers roughly $90,000 a quarter to print and post. The campaign aims to lift that to 30%. Carried.

One I lost. I voted for a motion to help residents prepare for the Australian citizenship test through Council libraries and local TAFEs. It went down 6 to 8. I thought it was a sensible, low-cost idea for a community like ours and I was disappointed to see it knocked back.

Coming up: the 17 June meeting

The papers for 17 June are out, and there is a lot in them.

• My notice of motion. I have a motion up about Council’s own construction sites. Residents near big Council jobs are too often left with broken roads and footpaths, potholes that sit for weeks, lost parking, and no clear word on what is happening or who to call. Council already holds utilities and developers to strict repair and notice standards under the Roads Act - my motion asks that we hold our own contractors to the same standard. Keep the work area maintained, fix the damage promptly, give residents proper notice in plain English and community languages with a named person who answers the phone, and back it with real consequences. I have asked for a report within six months and within existing budget.
• The budget. Council adopts the Operational Plan and Fees and Charges for 2026-2027 - this is the annual budget, and the draft went on exhibition back in April. It carries a $101.3 million capital works program. For our ward that includes the Lidcombe Town Centre Revitalisation, the upgrade of Lidcombe Remembrance Park, the Auburn Basketball Centre of Excellence and the Auburn Park extension. Only three residents made a submission during the exhibition, which says we need to do better at getting people to engage with the budget while it is still open.
• Rates and charges. The same meeting formally sets the rates for 2026-2027. The minimum residential rate will be $961.59, eligible pensioners keep a rebate of up to $375, and the domestic waste charge for a full three-bin service will be $858. As I flagged in April, the rate rise is held to the 4.2% IPART peg.
• The call to prayer. Clrs Garrard and Hughes have a notice of motion to change Council’s development control plan so that the call to prayer, as practised by mosques, is discouraged across the whole city. In a community like ours this is a serious thing to put up, and I will be opposing it.
• Unwinding the May decisions. Two more motions try to wind back what we did on 28 May - one to rescind the return to the 2022 meeting code, and one to alter the LEP and DCP resolution, including taking no action on the Berala and Auburn sites in it. I expect to have the same conflict of interest on the planning one and will step out again.

Around the ward

Back to Guildford pulled 5,000 people through the gates on 23 May, doubling as Cumberland’s 10th birthday party. Auburn Library ran Law Week with the Western Sydney Community Legal Centre and drew more than 200 people across free sessions on tenancy, family law, AVOs and traffic matters.

Council’s first Youth Mentorship Program launched in May with full attendance, pairing young people aged 16 to 24 with Council staff mentors over a six-month program. Mentor matching started in early June. There are also free Arabic and Farsi mental health workshops for parents on 20 and 27 June, and the Toy Library marks its 35th birthday with story times, including one at Lidcombe Library on 8 July.

A couple of practical ones for residents: a citizenship ceremony at the Holroyd Centre on 15 June, and a new winter home-delivered soup menu for eligible residents at $4.10 a serve with free delivery, through Council’s Nutrition Services on 8757 9033.

A quick word on the fuel shortage I flagged in April. The diesel squeeze that hit Western Sydney in March has eased - at its worst in late March nearly 190 stations across NSW had run dry, and by mid-June that was down to a couple of dozen, helped along by the temporary 32 cents a litre cut to fuel excise running to the end of June. Prices are still higher than any of us would like, but the panic-buying is behind us.

On community safety, Lidcombe had two serious incidents this autumn - a fatal shooting on Shale Street in March, with four men since charged, and a firearms seizure after a police pursuit was stopped on Hill Road in April. Both are now before the courts. I am noting them because safety on our streets is something residents raise with me often, and it stays a priority.

Carnarvon Golf Course and Coleman Park

The biggest thing hanging over our ward is not on a council agenda this month, but it is worth knowing exactly where it sits. The NSW Government’s cemetery operator, Metropolitan Memorial Parks, has picked the Crown land leased to Carnarvon Golf Course in Lidcombe - around 45 hectares right next to Rookwood, more than 63 football pitches of green space - as its preferred site for a new cemetery. The neighbouring Coleman Park in Berala is also in the frame for future cemetery use. Both sit squarely in Regents Park Ward.

Council has voted against this twice, unanimously, in February and July last year, and in November resolved to call for a parliamentary inquiry into how the site was chosen. The Member for Auburn, Lynda Voltz, has led the local fight - a rally at Coleman Park last August and a petition of more than 10,000 signatures debated in Parliament in November.

Where it stands now - no final decision has been made. The consultation has closed and the feedback is with the Department of Planning. The golf club’s lease runs to 2035, so this is a fight about the long-term future of the land rather than an immediate closure, which is exactly why it is worth keeping the pressure on while there is still time. Residents who want to weigh in can do so through Council’s Have Your Say page at haveyoursay.cumberland.nsw.gov.au.

Have your say

A few things are open for community input right now on Cumberland Conversations at haveyoursay.cumberland.nsw.gov.au:

• Draft Disability Inclusion Action Plan 2026-2030. Council’s four-year plan for accessibility and inclusion, shaped with people with lived experience. Out for feedback now.
• Flood studies. The Haslams Creek and Cumberland Western Catchments flood studies are open - both matter for the low-lying parts of Lidcombe and Berala.
• Strategic Cycleway and Gender Equity Strategy. Both are on exhibition and worth a look.

What’s next

The next meeting is Wednesday 17 June at 6.30pm in the Council Chambers at Merrylands. The budget, the rates, my construction-sites motion and the call-to-prayer motion are all on the one agenda, so it will be a long night. The meeting is open and livestreamed, and I am always happy to hear from residents directly.

Enver Yasar Councillor, Regents Park Ward 0497 428 929