City of Hawkesbury

This article is about the city in Australia. For other places, see Hawkesbury (disambiguation).

The City of Hawkesbury is a local government area that is located on the far northwest fringe of the Greater Sydney area in New South Wales, Australia. The local government area is located in the Hawkesbury and Blue Mountains regions. Hawkesbury City is named after the Hawkesbury River. Major suburbs in the City of Hawkesbury are Windsor, Richmond and Pitt Town. It is a member council of the Hawkesbury River County Council.

City of Hawkesbury New South Wales
Location in Outer Metropolitan Sydney
Coordinates	33°36′41.42″S 150°48′53.68″E
Population	67,207 (LGA 2021)[1]
Established	1 January 1981
Area	2,776 km2 (1,071.8 sq mi)
Mayor	Les Sheather (Independent)
Council seat	Windsor
Region	Hawkesbury Blue Mountains Greater Western Sydney
State electorate(s)	Hawkesbury Londonderry Riverstone Upper Hunter
Federal division(s)	Macquarie Greenway Hunter
Website	City of Hawkesbury
LGAs around City of Hawkesbury: Mid-Western Singleton Cessnock, Central Coast Lithgow City of Hawkesbury Hills Blue Mountains Penrith Blacktown

The mayor of the City of Hawkesbury is Cr. Les Sheather, an independent associated with the Liberal Party.^[2]

Suburbs and localities in the local government area

Suburbs and localities in the City of Hawkesbury are:

• Agnes Banks (shared with City of Penrith)
• Berambing
• Bilpin
• Blaxlands Ridge
• Bligh Park
• Bowen Mountain
• Bucketty (shared with Cessnock City Council)
• Cattai (shared with The Hills Shire)
• Central Colo
• Central Macdonald
• Clarendon
• Colo
• Colo Heights
• Cornwallis
• Cumberland Reach
• East Kurrajong
• Ebenezer
• Fernances
• Freemans Reach
• Glossodia
• Grose Vale
• Grose Wold
• Higher Macdonald
• Hobartville
• Kurmond
• Kurrajong
• Kurrajong Heights
• Kurrajong Hills
• Leets Vale (shared with The Hills Shire)
• Lower Macdonald
• Lower Portland (shared with The Hills Shire)
• Maraylya (shared with The Hills Shire)
• Mcgraths Hill
• Mellong
• Mogo Creek
• Mountain Lagoon
• Mulgrave
• North Richmond
• Oakville
• Perrys Crossing
• Pitt Town
• Pitt Town Bottoms
• Putty
• Richmond
• Richmond Lowlands
• Sackville
• Scheyville
• South Windsor
• St Albans
• Ten Mile Hollow (shared with Central Coast Council)
• Tennyson
• The Devils Wilderness
• The Lowlands
• The Slopes
• Upper Colo
• Upper Macdonald
• Vineyard (shared with City of Blacktown)
• Webbs Creek
• Wheeny Creek
• Wilberforce
• Windsor
• Windsor Downs
• Wisemans Ferry (shared with Central Coast Council, The Hills Shire and Hornsby Shire)
• Womerah
• Wrights Creek
• Yarramundi

History

The original inhabitants of the Hawkesbury district were the Darug tribe of Aboriginals, also spelt as Dharug or Daruk. The river, which they called Derrubbin, was a focal point as a source of food and transport. The Darug people used the river to farm for fish, eels, water birds, and mussels. They also used the river as a mode of transport in bark canoes.^[3]

It was first settled by Europeans in 1794 in a bid to acquire arable land to feed the increasing population of the penal colony at Sydney. In April 1794, Lieutenant Governor Francis Grose submitted plans for the first 22 farms on the Hawkesbury River in the present Pitt Town Bottoms area. In June 1795, Lieutenant Governor William Paterson deployed troops to engage with Aboriginals inhabiting land along the Hawkesbury River.^{[4][editorializing]}

By 1811 Governor Lachlan Macquarie established the five Macquarie Towns in the area. They are Windsor, Richmond, Castlereagh, Wilberforce and Pitt Town. Many of the early 19th century buildings still survive today. Ebenezer has the oldest surviving church and school building in Australia. Windsor District Council was formed in 1843 and disbanded in 1846. In 1871 the Borough Council of Windsor was founded and the Richmond Borough Council followed in 1872. The two councils amalgamated in 1949 to become the Municipality of Windsor. Colo Shire Council was established in 1906 and joined Windsor Municipal Council from 1 January 1981 to become Hawkesbury Shire Council.^[5][6] On 1 July 1989, Hawkesbury became a City.^[7][8]

On its creation in 1981, Hawkesbury was largely rural, but urban expansion within Sydney has since transformed the southern part of the area into dormitory suburbs. The northern part of the local government area still contains some farmlands and national parkland.

Demographics

At the 2021 Census, there were 67,207 people in the Hawkesbury local government area. Of these, 49.8% were male and 50.2% were female. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people made up 4.8% of the population, which was 1.6% above the national average. The median age of people in the City of Hawkesbury was 39 years. Children aged 0 – 14 years made up 19.1% of the population and people aged 65 years and over made up 16.6% of the population. Of people in the area aged 15 years and over, 49.3% were married and 12.4% were either divorced or separated.^[9]

Population in the City of Hawkesbury between the 2001 Census and the 2006 Census decreased by 0.54%; and in the subsequent five years to the 2011 Census, population growth was 2.96%. Between the 2011 and 2016 Census, population increased by a further 1.04%. When compared with total population growth of Australia for the same periods, population growth in Hawkesbury local government area was significantly lower than the national average.^[10] The median weekly income for residents within the City of Hawkesbury has been consistently marginally higher than the national average.^{[11][12][13][9]}

At the 2021 Census, the proportion of residents in the Hawkesbury local government area who stated their ancestry as Australian or English amounted to 80.8%, representing an increase from 62% in 2011. Many people from the Hawkesbury identified as having a Catholic (26.0%) or Anglican (19.3%) religious affiliation in 2021.

Selected historical census data for Hawkesbury local government area
Census year		2001[10]	2006[13]	2011[12]	2016[11]	2021[9]
Population	Estimated residents on census night	60,887	60,561	62,353	64,592	67,207
	LGA rank in terms of size within New South Wales		34th
	% of New South Wales population			0.90%	1.66%	0.83%
	% of Australian population	0.32%	0.31%	0.29%	0.27%	0.26%
Cultural and language diversity
Ancestry, top responses	Australian			32.6%	30.4%	41.1%
	English			29.5%	29.5%	39.7%
	Irish			7.6%	8.3%	10.6%
	Scottish			6.3%	6.8%	9.5%
	Maltese			3.1%	3.5%	5.8%
Language, top responses (other than English)	Maltese	0.8%	0.7%	0.8%	0.9%	0.9%
	Italian	0.6%	0.6%	0.5%	0.4%	0.4%
	Cantonese	–	–	–	0.3%	0.3%
	German	0.3%	0.3%	0.3%	0.3%	–
	Arabic	0.3%	0.3%	0.3%	0.3%	0.4%
	Punjabi	–	–	–	–	0.5%
Religious affiliation
Religious affiliation, top responses	Catholic	26.6%	27.3%	28.2%	27.5%	26.0%
	Anglican	30.9%	29.9%	29.4%	24.6%	19.3%
	No Religion	12.2%	14.8%	16.7%	23.9%	33.7%
	Not stated	–	–	–	8.3%	5.5%
	Uniting Church	5.7%	5.0%	4.4%	3.3%	2.6%
	Presbyterian and Reformed	3.0%	5.7%	2.8%	–	–
Median weekly incomes
Personal income	Median weekly personal income	–	$527	$622	$728	$860
	% of Australian median income	–	113.1%	107.8%	110.0%	106.8%
Family income	Median weekly family income	–	$1,146	$1,598	$1,916	$2,272
	% of Australian median income	–	111.6%	107.9%	110.5%	107.1%
Household income	Median weekly household income	–	$1,290	$1,385	$1,668	$1,980
	% of Australian median income	–	110.2%	112.2%	116.0%	113.4%

Council

Current composition and election method

Hawkesbury City Council is composed of twelve councillors elected proportionally as one entire ward. All councillors are elected for a fixed four-year term of office. The mayor is elected by the councillors at the first meeting of the council. The most recent election was held on 4 December 2021, and the makeup of the council is as follows:^[14]

Party		Councillors
	Liberal Party	4
	Independents and Unaligned	3
	Labor Party	2
	Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party	1
	The Greens	1
	The Small Business Party	1
	Total	12

The current Council, elected in 2021, in order of election, is:^[14]

Councillor		Party	Notes
	Nathan Zamprogno	Independent	Elected Liberal in the 2016–2021 term, now independent
	Sarah McMahon	Liberal	Mayor 2022–date
	Mary Lyons-Buckett	Independent	Mayor 2016–2018, Deputy Mayor 2018–2021
	Barry Calvert	Labor	Deputy Mayor 2018–date, Mayor 2016–2018, Deputy Mayor 2022–date
	Patrick Conolly	Liberal	Mayor 2020–2022
	Paul Veigel	Liberal
	Jill Reardon	Liberal
	Danielle Wheeler	Greens
	Les Sheather	Independent
	Eddie Dogramaci	The Small Business Party
	Amanda Kotlash	Labor
	Shane Djuric	Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party

Election results

2021

This section is an excerpt from Results of the 2021 New South Wales local elections in Outer Sydney § Hawkesbury.[edit]

Elected councillor		Party
	Sarah McMahon	Liberal
	Patrick Conolly	Liberal
	Paul Veigel	Liberal
	Jill Reardon	Liberal
	Barry Calvert	Labor
	Amanda Kotlash	Labor
	Mary Lyons-Buckett	People Not Parties
	Nathan Zamprogno	Ind. Liberal
	Les Sheather	Les and The Doc
	Shane Djuric	SFF
	Danielle Wheeler	Greens
	Eddie Dogramaci	Small Business

2021 New South Wales local elections: Hawkesbury^[15][16]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal		13,577	34.3	+6.0
	Labor		4,783	12.1	−4.3
	People Not Parties		3,846	9.7
	Independent Liberal		3,357	8.5
	Les and The Doc		2,916	7.4
	Shooters, Fishers, Farmers		2,821	7.1	+7.1
	Greens		2,795	7.1	−0.8
	Small Business		1,899	4.8	+4.8
	Andrew Cadman Group		1,070	2.7
	Independent		947	2.4
	Hawkesbury Alliance		944	2.4
	The Locals		448	1.1
	Independent	John Ross	85	0.2
Total formal votes			39,488	94.9
Informal votes			2,135	5.1
Turnout			41,623	86.1

Mayors

Mayor		Party	Term	Notes
			1981 – 27 September 1994
	Dr Rex Stubbs	Independent	27 September 1994 – 30 September 1997	[17]
			30 September 1997 – 29 September 1999
	Dr Rex Stubbs OAM	Independent	29 September 1999 – 27 September 2004	[17]
	Bart Bassett	Liberal	27 September 2004 – 18 September 2006	[18]
	Dr Rex Stubbs OAM	Independent	18 September 2006 – 18 September 2007	[19]
	Bart Bassett	Liberal	18 September 2007 – 20 September 2011	[20]
	Kim Ford		20 September 2011 – 10 September 2016	[21][22][23]
	Mary Lyons-Buckett	Independent	27 September 2016 – 18 September 2018	[24]
	Barry Calvert	Labor	18 September 2018 – 22 September 2020	[25]
	Patrick Conolly	Liberal	22 September 2020 – 23 August 2022	[26]
	Sarah McMahon	Liberal	23 August 2022 – date

See also

• New South Wales portal

• Local government in New South Wales