Labor's leading ladies

In an interview with The City News, former president of the NSW upper house, Dr Meredith Burgmann, together with her niece and State Minister, Verity Firth, said it was time for a more progressive representative to be at the helm the "very left-wing seat" of the City of Sydney.

As a long-standing member of the left faction of the ALP, Dr Burgmann is not expected to win the number one spot she had hoped for as Labor's Lord Mayoral candidate at this weekend's ALP conference.

She told The City News that while her chances of gaining full support from her party are slim, she'll still be heavily involved in the campaign and may well run for number two on the ticket – allowing her to run for a position as councillor.

"I haven't decided yet, but I have to be realistic – I'm not the rightwing's favourite person," she said.

Her decision to chase the City's top job was initially prompted by Clover Moore's announcement that she was going to run again this year and maintain her dual role as State Member and Lord Mayor.

"The state seat of Sydney really only covers about half of the City of Sydney," Dr Burgmann said.

"Those areas [not in the seat] have to put up with a Mayor who is special pleading for the other half of the City.

"I just find that very unequal – particularly as I come from Glebe, which is one of the areas that she doesn’t represent."

As a councillor, Verity Firth shared in the frustration, and said there were similar concerns among some other councillors currently on Council. "There was a sense that the area of Sydney tended to get special treatment as opposed to other areas, especially the South Sydney areas south of Cleveland Street," Cr Firth said.

"It really isn't getting the attention that we [think] it deserve and interestingly enough isn't in the state seat she represent."

While Dr Burgmann and Cr Moore both believe good public transport is the answer to a lot of the problems now facing the City of Sydney, Dr Burgmann said she is much more of a fan of Metro than Light Rail.

But the idea of banning cars from inner-city streets, she said, would be "terrible" for the suburbs surrounding the CBD like Glebe, Newtown, Surry Hills and Chippendale.

"They'll become giant parking lots because people will leave their cars there and not pay money to enter the city. It's interesting that Clover has never talked about the details of that because she knows that the suburbs – who are actually her voters – are going to be very affected by it."

Despite this, both Dr Burgmann and Cr Firth believe Clover Moore will be very hard to beat, with only a few pockets of traditional Labor supporters left in the area.