The 2016 amalgamation of the former Kogarah and Hurstville Councils was the culmination of a series of efforts to merge the local government areas of the Georges River district during the course of the last 120 years.

After an earlier amalgamation proposal, the Hurstville Mayor, John George Griffin, designed the ‘Greater Sydney’ scheme in 1898 which unified an area of approximately 200 square miles to form a single council area bounded by Manly, Ryde, Parramatta, Bankstown and the Georges River in the south. This proposal was never realised.

Efforts to amalgamate St George Councils in 1901 and 1905 had evolved into a call for the creation of a Greater St George by the end of the decade. An advocate of this scheme identified the potential to become ‘one of the most important centres of population in the metropolitan area’.

After revisiting this concept a number of times, in 1946, a Royal Commission into local government boundaries recommended the amalgamation of the municipalities of Hurstville, Kogarah, Rockdale and Bexley. The recommendations of the commission were modified, leading to the merge of Bexley and Rockdale Councils.

In the early 1970s, an inquiry into local government areas and their administration advocated widespread amalgamations of local councils throughout the state. The councils of St George, including those of Kogarah and Hurstville, responded to this drive for amalgamation by referring the matter to the electorate, which in 1977 rejected the proposal for their respective local councils to merge with those of adjoining districts.

In 1999, more than a century after calls for the aggregation of the Councils of Kogarah and Hurstville, the political representatives of St George were again considering the question of amalgamation, this time with their counterparts in the Sutherland Shire.

The NSW Government in May 2016 through its ‘Fit for the Future’ local government reforms then amalgamated the former Kogarah City and Hurstville City Councils to create Georges River Council. To assist with the transition of the new Council Mr John Rayner PSM was appointed as Administrator of the organisation. Mr Rayner remained in the position until the first local government election. During a Council meeting on 7 August 2017, it was resolved that “payments, based in the remuneration set by the Minister for Local Government, to the Administrator for the financial years 2015/16, 2016/17 and 2017/18 be published on Council’s website”.

Over the listed financial periods, the Administrator was paid:

Past Mayors of Kogarah and Hurstville City Councils

The first Mayor of Kogarah Council was Edward Hogben, elected in 1886. Hurstville Council followed not long after, with Alexander Milsop being appointed in 1887. Over the last century, Hurstville and Kogarah have had over 50 mayors.

View our list of past mayors to see a pictorial timeline of the past mayors of Hurstville and Kogarah.

Georges River Council's Logo

Following the amalgamation of Georges River Council, we undertook the important task of creating a strong brand which best reflects the new organisation but also the local area and its people.

Following consultation with the community, design of the logo took place in-house, which resulted in considerable savings to ratepayers. The project was a great example of staff collaboration, which also demonstrated their commitment to making Georges River the best performing Council in NSW.

View the meanings behind Georges River Council's logo.