Cootamundra-Gundagai Regional Council (CGRC) held an extraordinary meeting on Wednesday October 15 to iron out items that arose from a September resolution to elect a demerger committee.
Council previously considered a report in relation to the establishment of a Demerger Transition Committee to oversee and guide the planning, communication, and implementation of the demerger process.
Council said that, “Following the September Council meeting, a concern was raised about the legality of the establishment of the Committee. Subsequently, legal advice was obtained on the validity of the resolution. The legal advice confirmed that the resolution and establishment of the committee did not breach s233 of the LG Act or were inconsistent with the OLG advice or the requirements of the Code of Meeting Practice (CoMP) in respect of transparency and inclusivity. However, it also identified that the requirement for decisions to be made by an absolute majority rendered that resolution technically unlawful.”
Legal advice Council received, as stated in the report, includes that, “As the Committee is comprised solely of Councillors, the resolution cannot dictate how decisions are made by the Committee. Here, voting is dictated by the CoMP. For this reason, the resolution is ‘unlawful’.” This resulted in CGRC calling the emergency meeting to draw up a required resolution to correct the procedural error and formally establish the Committee in compliance with legislative requirements.
The resolutions that were recommended are as follows:
1. Note that resolution 157/2025, September 2025, ‘Establishment of a Demerger Transition Committee’ is considered unlawful.
2. Endorse the establishment of a Demerger Transition Committee.
3. Approve the draft Terms of Reference for the Committee.
4. Authorise the Demerger Transition Committee to make decisions necessary to achieve the orderly demerger of the Cootamundra Gundagai Regional Council and creation of the two new councils. Such decisions must be made via an absolute majority of Committee members present at the time of the meeting.
5. Appoint the Mayor (Cr McAlister) and Councillors Wight, Nicholson, Graham, Kelly, and Ryan to the Committee.
6. Authorise Councillors McAlister, Nicholson and Graham to select and appoint a resident of the proposed Gundagai local government area to the Committee.
7. Authorise Councillors Wight, Kelly and Ryan to select and appoint a resident of the proposed Cootamundra local government area to the Committee.
8. Note that, unless a vacancy occurs, there will be no alternate representatives appointed for councillors and community representatives.
9. Receive ongoing reports from the Committee at each Ordinary Council Meeting.
During the meeting, an amendment was moved by Councillor Gil Kelly and seconded by Ethan Ryan that would defer the matter to allow for further consideration. This ultimately failed due to a lack of Councillor support.
Councillor Ryan said during the Council meeting, “I’d like to see this go to the full Council…..If we do bring in the community members, that means that it would need to be an advisory only committee, and in which case we may as well not do a committee and just get on with it all together in our ordinary and extraordinary meetings to deal with the demerger issues as they come up.
“It’s going to end up that way anyway, because we can’t make binding decisions with community members, and we can’t keep it in its current state from the September resolution.”
Another motion was moved by Les Cooper and seconded by Logan Collins, which would win the Councillors’ vote. Council agreed to the original first 2 resolutions of noting the report and establishing the committee, but made some changes to the original motion.
They are: 3. Approve the draft Terms of Reference for the Committee, subject to the following points being incorporated into the Terms.
• Clarification of matters listed in Section 377 of the NSW Local Government Act
• The role of the Committee is to make recommendations to the full Council for decision by the full Council
• Remove wording to an absolute majority
4. Appoint the Mayor (Cr McAlister) and Councillors Wight, Nicholson, Graham, Kelly, and Ryan to the Committee.
5. Receive ongoing reports from the Committee at each Ordinary Council Meeting.
Councillor Logan Collins said during the meeting, “From some of the discussions that have been held today, I am of the firm belief that we don’t need community representatives.
“Who are we? We are councillors elected by the community. We live in our community. If the people that we are proposing to be community representatives so badly want to be on this committee, or they’ve indicated their expressions to be on this committee, where were their hands during an election campaign?
“We all have an agenda that we stood out there for, and the people put their faith in us, so who are we to now just lay down our weapons and say, give it to other people, let them fight a good fight for us. It’s not right.
“I am of the personal belief that no, we don’t need community representation on there. We are the community representation. We amended the last one to add more people to this committee to make sure we have more feedback coming through, to make sure we have more representation from our communities.
“But what I’m seeing now is that we’re excluding three Councillors from making decisions. Three Councillors who were elected by their community to run Cootamundra-Gundagai, not run Cootamundra Shire, not run Gundagai Shire in the background, but to run Cootamundra-Gundagai Regional Council….We are now discussing removing three of those Councillors from Council, removing three of those Councillors from the discussion and talking about bringing the decision-making to a committee.
“I don’t know any of our current committee that make decisions for us, but then we are saying we are going to allow them to make those decisions, and then they’ll send a report, and if we don’t like it, we’re going to have to object or just get on with it.
“I think the committee’s a good idea. If we have those people providing the professional advice, that’s right. But the committee should not be making a decision for all of us.
Council said the establishment of a Demerger Transition Committee will provide governance oversight, strategic coordination, and stakeholder engagement to address the complex financial, administrative, infrastructure, and workforce implications of the demerger.
– Jack Murray
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