The Fairfield City Council is a
local government area
A local government area (LGA) is an administrative division of a country that a local government is responsible for. The size of an LGA varies by country but it is generally a subdivision of a State (administrative division), state, province, divi ...
in the
west of Sydney, in the state of
New South Wales
)
, nickname =
, image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates:
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, es ...
, Australia. The council was first incorporated as the "Municipal District of Smithfield and Fairfield" on 8 December 1888, and the council's name was changed to the "Municipality of Fairfield" in 1920, before being proclaimed a city in 1979. The City of Fairfield comprises an area of and as of the had a population of .
The
Mayor
In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well ...
of the City of Fairfield is
Cr. Frank Carbone, the first popularly-elected
independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s
* Independe ...
mayor of Fairfield.
Fairfield is considered one of the most
ethnically diverse suburbs in Australia. At the 2016 census, the proportion of residents in the Fairfield local government area who stated their
ancestry
An ancestor, also known as a forefather, fore-elder or a forebear, is a parent or ( recursively) the parent of an antecedent (i.e., a grandparent, great-grandparent, great-great-grandparent and so forth). ''Ancestor'' is "any person from w ...
as
Vietnamese and
Assyrian
Assyrian may refer to:
* Assyrian people, the indigenous ethnic group of Mesopotamia.
* Assyria, a major Mesopotamian kingdom and empire.
** Early Assyrian Period
** Old Assyrian Period
** Middle Assyrian Empire
** Neo-Assyrian Empire
* Assyri ...
, was in excess of sixteen times the national average. The area was linguistically diverse, with
Vietnamese,
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
,
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic
Suret ( syr, ܣܘܪܝܬ) ( �su:rɪtʰor �su:rɪθ, also known as Assyrian or Chaldean, refers to the varieties of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) spoken by ethnic Assyrians, including those identifying as religious groups rather than eth ...
, or
Cantonese
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding a ...
languages spoken in households, and ranged from two times to seventeen times the national averages.
The ''Smithfield–Wetherill Park Industrial Estate'' is the largest
industrial estate
An industrial park (also known as industrial estate, trading estate) is an area zoned and planned for the purpose of industrial development. An industrial park can be thought of as a more "heavyweight" version of a business park or office park ...
in the Southern Hemisphere and is the centre of manufacturing and distribution in GWS, with more than 1,000 manufacturing, wholesale, transport and service firms.
Geography
A few small areas of the original
bushland
In Australia, bushland is a blanket term for land which supports remnant vegetation or land which is disturbed but still retains a predominance of the original floristics and structure.
Human survival in bushland has a whole mythology evolving ...
remain, including examples of
, which is listed under the Threatened Species Conservation Act. There are 580 parks (60 of which are major parks), including one of the
largest urban parks in the world,
Western Sydney Parklands
The Western Sydney Parklands is an urban park system and a nature reserve located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The NSW government has spent around $400 million for the park. The park is governed by the NSW National Parks and Wildlife ...
, which has a precinct that lies in the Fairfield area, called the
Western Sydney Regional Park. Fairfield City is mainly residential in nature with large-scale industrial estates at Wetherill Park and
Smithfield.
Fairfield Showground
Fairfield Showground is a multi-purpose indoor-outdoor venue situated in Prairiewood, New South Wales, Australia. Since in the 1970s, it has been a popular venue for multicultural festivals, horse racing, carnivals, markets and club meets at ...
is an important cultural venue. Prominent roads such as
Cumberland Highway
The Cumberland Highway is a long urban highway located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The highway links the Pacific Highway (A1/B83) and Pacific Motorway ( M1) at Pearces Corner, Wahroonga in the northeast with the Hume Highway (A22/ ...
and
The Horsley Drive
The Horsley Drive is a urban sealed road located in the City of Fairfield in Greater Western Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The road's northwestern terminus is located at the entrance of Western Sydney Parklands in and its southeastern te ...
wind through it.
Suburbs in the local government area
Suburbs in the City of Fairfield are:
History
For more than 30,000 years,
Aboriginal people from the
Cabrogal–
Gandangara
The Gundungurra people, also spelt Gundungara, Gandangarra, Gandangara and other variations, are an Aboriginal Australian people in south-eastern New South Wales, Australia. Their traditional lands include present day Goulburn, Wollondilly Shire ...
tribe have lived in the area.
One of Sydney's oldest trees, the
Bland Oak
The Bland Oak, or Bland's Oak Tree, is a historic Southern live oak situated in Greater Western Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, that is approximately over 170 years old, making it one of Sydney's oldest living introduced trees and also one ...
, was planted in the 1830s in Carramar.
European settlement began early in the 19th century and was supported by railway construction in 1856. At the turn of the century the area had a population of 2,500 people and with fertile soils, produced crops for distribution in Sydney. The council was first incorporated as the "Municipal District of Smithfield and Fairfield" on 8 December 1888, becoming the "Municipality of Smithfield and Fairfield" from 1906. On 26 October 1920, the council's name was changed to the "Municipality of Fairfield", in recognition of the changing centre of business in the council area.
Rapid population increase after World War II saw the settlement of many ex-service men and European migrants. Large scale Housing Commission development in the 1950s swelled the population to 38,000. From 1 January 1949, under the ''
Local Government (Areas) Act 1948
Local Government (Areas) Act 1948 was a landmark New South Wales statute that was notable for its wide-ranging reforms for and amalgamations of the Local Government Areas of New South Wales within the County of Cumberland. Largely informed by t ...
'', the
Municipality of Cabramatta and Canley Vale
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
The term ''municipality'' may also mean the g ...
was amalgamated into the Municipality of Fairfield. In the , the population had reached 114,000 and was becoming one of the larger local government areas in New South Wales. On 18 May 1979, the Municipality of Fairfield was granted
city status City status is a symbolic and legal designation given by a national or subnational government. A municipality may receive city status because it already has the qualities of a city, or because it has some special purpose.
Historically, city status ...
, becoming the "City of Fairfield".
On Friday 29 June, 2001 the former Deputy Mayor of Fairfield and councillor from 1987 to 1998,
Phuong Ngo
Phuong Canh Ngo ( vi, Ngô Cảnh Phương) (born 1958) is a Vietnamese murderer and former businessman and politician who was convicted of ordering the killing of Australian MP John Newman on 5 September 1994, a crime which has been describe ...
, was convicted of the 1994 murder of the local state MP for Cabramatta (and former Deputy Mayor),
John Newman, a crime which has been described as Australia's first political assassination. Ngo's alleged accomplices, Quang Dao and David Dinh, were acquitted and the identity of the killer who shot and fatally wounded Newman remains a mystery. Controversy has arisen in the years since then of the presence of Ngo's name on various council plaques from his time on council.
In September 2006, Fairfield Council announced the introduction of a trial ban on
spitting in public on
public health
Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals". Analyzing the det ...
grounds. However, it was reported that advice provided to council from NSW Health was that spitting does not impact on the transmission of infectious diseases. The law proved difficult to prosecute.
Heritage listings
The City of Fairfield has a number of heritage-listed sites, including:
* Bonnyrigg, Cartwright Street:
Bonnyrigg House
Bonnyrigg House is a heritage-listed homestead complex at Cartwright Street, Bonnyrigg, New South Wales, Bonnyrigg, City of Fairfield, New South Wales, Australia. It was designed by possibly Francis Greenway and built from 1825 to 1826 by A. Ki ...
* Bonnyrigg, Lot 1 Cartwright Street:
Male Orphan School land
The Male Orphan School land is a heritage-listed former vineyard and orchard and now vacant land at Lot 1 Cartwright Street, Bonnyrigg, City of Fairfield, New South Wales, Australia. It was built during 1803 by James Busby. It is also known as ...
* Fairfield, Great Southern railway:
Fairfield railway station, Sydney
Fairfield railway station is a heritage-listed railway station located on the Old Main South line, serving the Sydney suburb of Fairfield. It is served by Sydney Trains T2 Inner West & Leppington and T5 Cumberland line services. It was de ...
* Horsley Park, 52–58 Jamieson Close:
Horsley complex
* Lansvale, Hume Highway:
Lansdowne Bridge
The Lansdowne Bridge is a heritage-listed road bridge that carries the northbound carriageway of the Hume Highway (route A22 at this point) across Prospect Creek between Lansvale and Lansdowne. Situated in southwestern Sydney it is located on t ...
Business and industry
Fairfield is a centre of manufacturing and distribution for Greater Western Sydney and home to the Smithfield-Wetherill Park Industrial Estate, which is the largest industrial zone in the Southern Hemisphere. It is also home to the
Yennora industrial zone, where key operators in the area include
Toll,
Woolworths
Woolworth, Woolworth's, or Woolworths may refer to:
Businesses
* F. W. Woolworth Company, the original US-based chain of "five and dime" (5¢ and 10¢) stores
* Woolworths Group (United Kingdom), former operator of the Woolworths chain of shop ...
,
Linfox
Linfox is an Australian transport and logistics and supply chain business founded in 1956 by Lindsay Fox.
History
Linfox was established in 1956 by Lindsay Fox as Lindsay Fox Cartage with one truck in Melbourne. In 1958, a contract with Schwep ...
, Australian Wool Handlers,
Qube
QUBE was an experimental two-way, multi-programmed cable television system that played a significant role in the history of American interactive television. It was launched in Columbus, Ohio, on December 1, 1977. Highly publicized as a revolutio ...
and Hume Building Products.
Demographics
At the there were people in the Fairfield local government area, of these 49.3 per cent were male and 50.7 per cent were female.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...
made up 0.7 per cent of the population; significantly below the NSW and Australian averages of 2.9 and 2.8 per cent respectively. The
median
In statistics and probability theory, the median is the value separating the higher half from the lower half of a data sample, a population, or a probability distribution. For a data set, it may be thought of as "the middle" value. The basic f ...
age of people in the City of Fairfield was 36 years; slightly lower than the national median of 38 years. Children aged 0 – 14 years made up 19.1 per cent of the population and people aged 65 years and over made up 13.8 per cent of the population. Of people in the area aged 15 years and over, 48.1 per cent were married and 12.4 per cent were either divorced or separated.
Population in the City of Fairfield between the and the declined by 0.78 per cent; and in the subsequent five years to the , population growth was 4.38 per cent. At the 2016 census, the population in the City increased by 5.89 per cent. When compared with total population growth of Australia for the same period, being 8.8 per cent, population growth in the Fairfield local government area was a little over half the national average.
The median
weekly income for residents within the City of Fairfield was lower than the national average,
being one of the factors that place the city in an
area of social disadvantage.
As at the 2016 census, the influence of
Vietnamese culture
The culture of Vietnam (Vietnamese: Văn hoá Việt Nam) is highly multicultural. The early culture in Vietnam started with the Bronze Age Đông Sơn culture considered to be one of its most important progenitors for its Ancient history. Vie ...
and
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
was statistically strong, evidenced by the proportion of residents with
Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making ...
ese
ancestry
An ancestor, also known as a forefather, fore-elder or a forebear, is a parent or ( recursively) the parent of an antecedent (i.e., a grandparent, great-grandparent, great-great-grandparent and so forth). ''Ancestor'' is "any person from w ...
(nearly twenty times higher than the national average), the proportion of residents who spoke Vietnamese as either a first or second language (also nearly twenty times higher than the national average), and the proportion of residents who stated a
religious
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatur ...
affiliation with
Catholicism
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
and
Buddhism
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
(the latter being in excess of nine times the national average).
Council
Current composition and election method
Fairfield City Council is composed of twelve
Councillor
A councillor is an elected representative for a local government council in some countries.
Canada
Due to the control that the provinces have over their municipal governments, terms that councillors serve vary from province to province. Unl ...
s, including the Mayor, for a fixed four-year term of office. The Mayor has been
directly elected since 2004, while the twelve other Councillors are elected
proportionally to two separate
wards, each electing four Councillors. The most recent election was held on 2 December 2021, and the makeup of the council, including the Mayor, is as follows:
The current Council, elected in 2021, in order of election by ward, is:
Mayors
Town Clerks/General Manager/City Managers
Sister cities
*
Palmi, Italy
*
Zhenjiang
Zhenjiang, alternately romanized as Chinkiang, is a prefecture-level city in Jiangsu Province, China. It lies on the southern bank of the Yangtze River near its intersection with the Grand Canal. It is opposite Yangzhou (to its north) a ...
, China
References
External links
*
{{NSW Local Government Act 1948, state=collapsed
Fairfield
Fairfield
Hume Highway
Fairfield City Council
The Fairfield City Council is a local government area in the west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. The council was first incorporated as the "Municipal District of Smithfield and Fairfield" on 8 December 1888, and the counc ...
Georges River