“Council is all about that continuity of commitment to the community” – Interview with Mayor Sarah Swan, Woollahra Municipal Council

We sat down with Sarah Swan (now Sarah Dixson), Mayor of Woollahra Municipal Council, to unpack her journey into local government, priorities for Woollahra and her passion to deliver the very best for her community.

Watch the full conversation on Youtube here.

Could you tell us a bit about yourself and your journey into local government?

Yeah, so I am a family lawyer. That’s my job, also my nighttime job and occasionally weekend job, as well. And I also teach yoga. And it was really sort of a combination of those professional experiences that gave me a lot of insight into the loneliness and everyday challenges that people face in our community, often behind closed doors. And so that sort of created the initiative, but my inspiration to run for local government in particular came from my grandmother. She was an amazing woman, like just incredible, and she was dedicated to serving her community in South Africa. First, she was the Mayor of her town of Paarl, and then she later continued that service when she became a senator in South Africa, and also later on in the President’s Council.

Her role in leading reconciliation and negotiations with Nelson Mandela instilled in me from a very young age how important it was to serve your community. There was no such thing as play school with her. It was always question time only and so it was just really part of my upbringing to be thinking about politics and representing your community. She would always talk about her successes and she would most fondly speak about her time in local government. In particular, she would speak with such pride about preserving a mountainside from development and, like Groundhog Day as we know it because they’re the same sorts of issues that I deal with as well today. So that kind of thing has just been in my family for such a long time. Even her mother was a Councillor in Johannesburg as well – in Johannesburg City Council. So it’s very much in the family, in the blood.

Moving on to your community, what are your top priorities for Woollahra?

I think there’s a bit of a thing with people in local government where they want to make a huge impact, do something different. And my focus is really quite different to that and that’s really getting back to basics. What does Council do? What are we supposed to do? And how do we do it in the most efficient and organised way possible?

For me, that getting back to basics mandate is the number one priority. So our DA processing times have got to come down. The state of our roads have to be improved. Pedestrian safety has to get better. We’ve got to be able to walk around our city, cycle around our city. We’ve got to make sure that development is progressive but appropriate as well. Those sorts of things in our community are really important. But in terms of, know, is it sexy? No. But is it essential? Yes.

Linking to that, what would you say are Woollahra’s greatest opportunities and challenges for the next five years given what you just said?

I think we have a major opportunity to develop a really good, affordable housing regime, one that we design, one that we roll out and one which is not forced upon us by the state government. So what I’m seeing at the moment in terms of the housing space is, we are characterised as NIMBYs and not thinking about the future, and I’m 33 years old and I can tell you now I’m thinking about the future. I think that’s one of the reasons that I was chosen to be the Mayor, because people can see that I am thinking about the future. It’s not about forgetting about the community now, but we’ve got to make way for what we need going forward – but we also have to do it appropriately.

I think there is an opportunity there where we can have appropriate development, but at the same time, I think there’s a way to talk about housing, which isn’t, you’re a NIMBY or you’re a YIMBY. There’s a much more nuanced approach, and anyone with a good sensibility and who isn’t in it for point scoring knows that. You can see that. It’s just that housing is so politicised and unfairly so.

The other issue that we’ve got with the housing piece is when we talk about affordable housing, I think there’s a misconception in the community that we’re talking about making it affordable for young people, in particular, to enter the market as a purchaser, which is not at all what the legislation describes affordable housing as being, and as designed to target. Of course, affordable housing is designed to target rental accommodation for essential workers. That’s really what it’s designed to target. And that’s very important. What we see in the media is when people speak about affordable housing, they’re thinking about it in terms of, ‘how do we make it cheaper for people to buy into the market?’ And that’s not what it is. So there’s a bit of a disconnect.

I think in terms of opportunity, there’s a major opportunity in terms of the education piece about what is affordable housing. So that’s a major opportunity. In terms of the challenges, I think the biggest challenge for all local governments is cost shifting. We have some amazing data. In 2023 to 2024, the cost shifting calculations that we did was about $16m and that was an increase of $1.7m, which is about 12% from 2022 to 23. And we’re seeing that year on year on year. And that’s, that’s unsustainable for Councils. That’s not a Woollahra problem, that’s an everybody problem. Especially the state government, because if the state government effectively prices out Councils from doing what they need to do, then is the state government gonna pick up the rubbish? Is the state government gonna fix the potholes? I don’t think so.

Jumping back to your career a little bit, could you tell us what you’re most proud of in your career in local government?

Yeah, that’s quite difficult because there have been a lot of really small things that I’ve done that I’m really proud of, and I think some of them seem – I mean, I don’t want to minimise them – but they’re really small in the scheme of life. But one thing that I get the most feedback about is the rollout of bubblers [water fountains] in certain locations. There’s one in Cooper Park, where there are these dreadful stairs – I mean, really horrifying. But it’s a beautiful park, I think the most beautiful park in the world, this hidden oasis. And then there are some heritage stairs that go up the top, and people go there to run up and down them. As a child, I would use them to exercise. I’m a cross-country skier, so I’d have to do this insane endurance work. And there was no bubbler, and I could never understand why there was no bubbler. So, you know, I just thought, well, my first motion on Council will be putting in a bubbler. I tell you, people still write to me about it four years later. So it’s a really small thing, but that’s local government for you, doing little things makes a huge impact.

We recently upgraded the Lyne Park playground, it is state-of-the-art, and again I came into that project late, but because I got to open it, I feel this particular sense of pride. But again, that’s the collective spirit of local government. It’s many people working over many years to make an impact, and that’s awesome. Those two projects, I mean, Lyne Park wasn’t a little, but those two projects, I am really proud.

I think overall what I’m most proud of is being disciplined and diligent because I think it’s very easy to be distracted. So when I came onto Council, I was very focused on pedestrian safety, making sure we looked after local businesses and really just got out of their way, making it easier for them to have window displays, those sorts of things. Just staying focused on what I wanted to achieve and not sort of, okay, maybe there are a few things here and there, that were outside the initial agenda, but yeah, I think being focused has been the thing I’m most proud of.

What advice would you give to a young woman considering pursuing a leadership role, particularly one in the public service?

Well, I think this applies to any profession, and that’s, I think, you don’t need to be the smartest. You don’t have to be the prettiest. You don’t have to be the funniest. But if you are the hardest-working person and the most prepared person in the room, then you will almost always succeed.

This is a bit of a two-in-one, but looking into the future, what role do you see local government and councillors playing in the next 25 years? And on that, what legacy would you like to leave?

Well, I’ll answer the second part first. This might be really disparaging for some people, but I’m going to say it anyway. I don’t have this sort of legacy complex. I find Councillors who have been on Council for a long time, like much longer than I have – I’ve been on Council for a relatively short time, especially as Mayor. I think that legacy usually finds its way into a major infrastructure project, you know, a car park, a pool, a cinema, that kind of thing. I don’t have that as a sort of, ‘Okay, I must deliver this project, because my mandate that I’ve set for myself is xyz’. It’s a bit more nuanced than that.

If I did a sort of scorecard for myself at the end of my term, I’d be thinking, did DA processing times go down? Are the roads better? Is it easier to walk around? Are businesses more engaged with the community? Do people feel like they can approach Councillors? Have we worked well together as a council? Those are the sorts of things that I would be scoring myself against at the end of a term, not did I deliver a major infrastructure project?

So I’m not sure if that’s what you meant by legacy? But I’m just noticing that on Council, with Councillors who are thinking about retiring this term, I think they don’t want to be forgotten. But as far as I’m concerned, if we do a good job while we’re here, then that will be a job well done.

As I said before, Council is all about that continuity of commitment to the community. It’s about doing the groundwork now so that future generations will benefit. And you may not see that in your time on Council. So it’s a bit roundabout, not very direct, but that’s how I feel about that question.

For the first part of your question, what role will local government play in 25 years? Well, if it were up to me, Councils would be given back their planning powers and the state government would stop taking all their money away, so that we can continue doing the good job that we’re doing. That’s an exaggeration saying, taking all their money away, but you know, this cost-shifting issue is a major issue. It’s preventing us from delivering projects that our communities need.

I think if people remember me as someone who has worked hard and been approachable and responded to their emails, then that will be good. And also just the smaller things that they needed to be done. That to me would be a success.