🔵 How fare thee, North Sydney?

HEARD THIS WEEK👂

📈 Six months on from its 87% rate rise rejection, how is North Sydney faring?

What’s the damage in North Sydney?

When North Sydney Council asked residents to consider an 87 percent rate hike earlier this year, Mayor Zoë Baker warned of an impending “liquidity crisis” without the increase.

Despite this, many residents rallied against the proposition, which while approved by council was later rejected by the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal.

So what does North Sydney’s crisis now look like?

The Lorikeet caught up with Mayor Baker to find out.

Read more below.

🍻 Beer, beer, beer

The beer excise freeze introduced by Labor earlier this year was intended to help small pubs and bars around the country.

But if you have a look at the beers on tap at your local, you’ll probably notice that most, if not all of them, are actually owned by multinational companies like Kirin and Asahi.

So what about our local brewers?

Bradfield MP Nicolette Boele reckons they should be given a break too. Find out more about her amendment to our beer taxes in the video below.

🏌️ Pymble Golf Club set to knock down its clubhouse after apartment complex approved by NSW government

Pymble Golf Club has succeeded in its bid to build residential apartments overlooking its fairway. 

• The project will turn what was once the course's clubhouse and parking lot into a mid-rise housing complex looking onto the upper North Shore golf course. 

• Golf has been played in the area since the 1920s, when upper North Shore areas like St Ives were still used for cattle grazing. 

• When the club was formed in 1926, one of its earliest actions was to fence the greens to keep cows and the occasional bull off the fairway

Read the full story below.

LOOKING NATIONALLY 👀 

🚬Tenants’ crime, landlords also do time

The NSW state Government is set to introduce new laws in an attempt to combat the illegal tobacco trade that has been flourishing across the state in recent years.

Discount illegal cigarettes are being sold for as little as $8 for a packet of 20, compared to $40-$50 for a packet of 20 legal smokes.

The booming demand for illegal cigarettes, which have names such as Manchester and Double Happiness, has been credited to the huge excise tax smokers pay in Australia for legal cigarettes.

On September 1, the excise tax paid per cigarette in Australia rose from $1.40 to $1.50. On a packet of 20 cigarettes, that is $30 in tax.

The illegal cigarettes are typically sold via sparsely furnished, independent shops that also sell vapes, drinks and lollies.

The new offence would have a maximum penalty of either one year in jail, a fine of $165,000 or both.

NSW Health Minister Ryan Park says it’ll further minimise the opportunities for illegal tobacco and vape sales.

Between January and the end of October 2025 NSW Health Inspectors have seized more than 11.8 million cigarettes, over 2,000kg of other illicit tobacco products and around 170,000 illegal vapes, which the state government says has a combined estimated street value of around $18.9 million. Which seems to be a drop in the ocean.

The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission and the Australian Institute of Criminology revealed on Friday that federal, state and territory governments had lost about $4 billion in tax revenue to illegal tobacco in the 2023–24 financial year.