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Hawkesbury Councillors are asking for a 40% rate rise, but are we getting the services to match? With staffing levels increased by 60% in the previous decade, higher than those of larger neighbours, and the sewer asset on the chopping block, we investigate what the hike really pays for.
Hawkesbury Council is asking IPART to allow it to impose compound rate increases of 8.66% per year for four years, a total increase of nearly 40%, under its latest Special Rate Variation (SRV). Before doing so, it’s worth asking a straightforward question:
For what, exactly? How do we compare with our neighbours who charge similar prices?
STAFFING: Hawkesbury is no lightweight
According to the NSW Government’s Your Council data, Hawkesbury had 316 full-time equivalent (FTE) staff in 2022–23, serving a population of just under 70,000. That equates to roughly 4.7 FTE staff per 1,000 residents.
Compare that with nearby councils using the same 2022–23 dataset (Your Council NSW):
Penrith – 1,207 FTE, population ~220,900 → 5.5 FTE per 1,000 residents
Blacktown – 1,413 FTE, population ~410,900 → 3.4 FTE per 1,000 residents
The Hills – 571 FTE, population ~199,200 → 2.9 FTE per 1,000 residents
On a staff-per-resident basis, Hawkesbury is higher than Blacktown and The Hills, and not far behind Penrith, a much larger city with far more intensive human services.
The story doesn’t stop there. Hawkesbury’s most recent Annual Report shows that 435 people performed paid work for Council on the standard NSW “reference day” in December 2024, up from 367 on the equivalent day in 2022. In plain English, the staff headcount has surged while the population has barely moved.
SERVICES: what we get and what we don’t
You can’t just look at raw staff numbers. You must ask which services each council actually operates in-house.
Hawkesbury is unusual in the Greater Sydney metropolitan area because it operates its own wastewater (sewer) system, including treatment plants at South Windsor and McGraths Hill. Council holds EPA discharge licences for both facilities and publishes environmental monitoring data and Pollution Incident Response plans for its wastewater schemes. This is the case for 22 other Councils in regional and rural NSW.
The Council is formally recognised as a Water Supply Authority under the Water Management Act and provides sewerage services and operates recycled water schemes.
According to this paper's reporting, that sewer network services around 8,500 households and 1,000 businesses, historically generating roughly $15 million a year before the delayed repair to Rising Main C blew out costs.
Wastewater management is real, complex, 24-hour work, and it absolutely justifies a chunk of extra staff compared with councils that don’t operate a sewer utility.
But now, the Council itself has confirmed it is in discussions with Sydney Water to transfer the wastewater business entirely for $0, with future pricing set by Sydney Water and the community potentially losing a major income-producing asset.
If wastewater is being handed away, it cannot be used as a long-term excuse for a permanently bloated staffing profile.
What do Penrith and Blacktown Councils do that Hawkesbury doesn’t?
Now look at what some of our neighbouring Councils operate alongside their “normal” council duties.
Penrith City Council has an extensive childcare network. It directly operates a large children’s services network under a cooperative model, comprising dozens of long-day care centres, preschools, out-of-school-hours care, and related programs. Council documents describe it as an extensive citywide network that provides early childhood services to thousands of children.
Blacktown City Council is one of NSW’s largest childcare providers. Blacktown Council “owns and operates” Kids’ Early Learning Blacktown City, which has over 1,800 children enrolled across 32 childcare centres and more than 35 family day care providers, making it one of the most extensive childcare operations in NSW.
Both Penrith and Blacktown also operate substantial aquatic and leisure networks, including pools, gyms and stadiums, directly as council businesses.
By contrast, Hawkesbury does not operate a council-run childcare network. Childcare within the LGA is provided by private and nine community operators, with the Council’s role as landlord and regulator, not operator.
So, Penrith and Blacktown Councils run large, labour-intensive childcare and leisure operations, while Hawkesbury manages only wastewater (for now).
Yet on staff-per-resident, we’re still higher than Blacktown and The Hills, and closing in on Penrith, all Council areas with three to four times the population of Hawkesbury.
Significant rate increase, paying for a significant staff increase
Council’s updated SRV proposal would lift rates by 8.66% per year for four years.
Public consultation material and independent “capacity to pay” work show that under these scenarios, the average residential rate in Hawkesbury moves towards and, in some areas, beyond the high-$1,900s per year, before you add on all waste and sewer charges.
For comparison:
The Hills: average residential rates in recent benchmarking are around $1,100–$1,150.
Blacktown: similar benchmarking places Blacktown in the $1,150–$1,250 band.
Penrith: around $1,520+ for the average residential rate – higher, but Penrith is running extremely labour-intensive childcare and leisure services.
A Daily Telegraph analysis of bin services and total annual bills has already placed Hawkesbury’s typical combined rates, including the standard waste charge, in the mid-$1,600s, before the new SRV.
The direction of travel is clear: Hawkesbury is drifting into “big-service council” price territory, offering reduced services such as citywide childcare and leisure networks.
“We’ve already cut everything we can” – Have we?
At recent SRV briefings and in the official SRV engagement material, Council officers and councillors have repeatedly argued that Hawkesbury has already “made significant savings” and “found efficiencies”, and that there is now very little left to cut without reducing services.
But when you step back to 2014–15, Hawkesbury’s FTE staffing was around 200; it is now 316 FTE, an increase of about 60% over a decade. Headcount on the reference day in December 2024 has climbed to 435 people, with figures for December 2025 not yet available. Hawkesbury City Council, while our population over the same period has only nudged up a few per cent.
Council’s own 2015 Fit for the Future submission to IPART promised efficiency dividends, service reviews and break-even targets for non-core business units. A decade later, the organisation is larger, rates are rising faster, and we’re still being told there’s nowhere left to trim.
Residents are entitled to be sceptical about the purpose of the proposed 40% rise.
What needs to change
This doesn’t have to be a “bash the staff” exercise. Hawkesbury’s workforce has been on the frontline of fires, floods and a sewer crisis. The question is whether the organisation’s structure and scale now match the services we need and can afford.
There are some concrete, constructive steps the Council should take if it wants trust for any SRV:
Publish a clear staff-by-service breakdown
Residents should be able to see, in plain English, how many FTEs are in roads, parks, planning, wastewater, corporate overhead, etc., and how those numbers compare with Penrith, Blacktown and The Hills.
Independent benchmarking against neighbours
Commission an external review to benchmark Hawkesbury’s cost per kilometre of road, per DA processed, per bin serviced, per sewer customer, and per library visit against surrounding councils. If we’re more expensive, explain why and fix it.
.Tie the SRV to specific internal reforms
Any long-term rate rise should be accompanied by measurable commitments: for example, capping corporate overhead growth, reducing back-office costs as a proportion of total spend, and publishing annual efficiency targets.
.Be honest about the wastewater sell-off
If Council transfers the sewer business – and the $170 million asset base attached to it – to Sydney Water for nothing, while residents bear the associated debt, the justification for higher general rates must be revisited from scratch.
Right now, Hawkesbury risks the worst of both worlds: big-council prices without big-council services, and a staffing profile that doesn’t clearly align with either our population growth or our service mix.
The community deserves better than “trust us, we’ve already cut everything we can”. We deserve hard numbers and honest comparisons – and a council willing to put its own structure under the same scrutiny it applies to every household and business in the Hawkesbury.
