Michael Regan


Michael Regan is an Australian public servant and local government politician. He served as Mayor of Warringah Council from 13 September 2008, until May 2016 following its amalgamation into the newly proclaimed Northern Beaches Council. In September 2017, Regan was elected as the first Mayor of Northern Beaches Council.

Mayor of Warringah

Regan was elected as mayor at the election on 13 September 2008 with 19.6% of the vote which meant that his ticket votes in C Ward flowed on to elect a councillor, while Wake Up Warringah candidates won a seat on A Ward and B Ward. Regan's main platform for election was to run "Council as a ‘Board of Directors’" to expunge the council's previous reputation for infighting and to encourage the better management of council.
In August 2012, Regan and his wife Bronwen, gained attention over a council code-of-conduct matter where a fellow councillor had launched into a tirade at Ms Regan in the councillors lounge in the Civic Centre following a council meeting. At the 2012 local government elections, Regan stood again for mayor and C Ward Councillor under the newly renamed "Your Warringah" ticket. Regan was re-elected as mayor with 56.3% of the vote and his ticket in C Ward took 60% of the vote, enough to elect two councillors on his personal ticket. Your Warringah candidates also took two seats in A Ward and one seat in B Ward to make six seats for his party on the council.
In March 2014, Regan's administration of council came under fire for maintaining a $1.7 million council car budget which included a Jaguar XF as the mayoral car while requesting a 24 per-cent rate rise over four years. October 2014, Regan replaced this car with an eco-friendly Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV.
In June 2014, the Independent and Regulatory Pricing Tribunal rejected Regan's attempts to increase Warringah Council rates by 26.2%, by way of a special rate variation. Instead, IPART permitted an increase of 19.7%.
In December 2014 Regan led a push within council to pass a motion to support a merger proposal of Warringah with Pittwater and Manly Councils to form a Northern Beaches council: "It would mean better value for rate payers and better ability to plan for the entire region. Concerns about loss of local representation are a red herring – as this can be maintained, and even increased, depending on the governance model that is adopted. I call upon our neighbours to support the recommendation for the creation of a new northern beaches council for our community."
In March 2015 Regan passed through a proposal in the council to lease council land at Dee Why for affordable housing despite a staff report that noted that it would not provide the best financial return noting that it was intended to be provided for nurses, teachers and police who often had large commuting times to the region as they could not afford to live in the area and that the social benefits could not be underestimated. In October 2015, Warringah Council was awarded by Local Government NSW the A. R. Bluett Memorial Award, which recognises the best-performing council in the state, an acknowledgment of the work of the council under Regan and council staff: "Warringah Council’s submission highlights included excellent infrastructure renewal programs, high resident satisfaction, a sound financial position, a range of organisational improvements, staff engagement and professional development, collaboration with community groups and other organisations, an active youth program, art and cultural projects, environmental and planning initiatives, and specific community infrastructure such as the Narrabeen Lagoon Trail, Collaroy All Abilities Playground and Forestville Sporting Facilities."

Northern Beaches Council

On 12 May 2016, with the release of the Local Government Proclamation 2016, the Northern Beaches Council was formed as per Warringah's submission, from Manly, Pittwater and Warringah councils. At the first meeting of the new council at Manly Town Hall on 19 May, Regan was appointed, with Manly mayor Jean Hay and Pittwater Deputy Mayor Kylie Ferguson, by Administrator Dick Persson as a member of the Implementation Advisory Group, one of several advisory committees composed of former councillors and mayors of the three councils, and as Chair of the Economic Committee.
In early 2017, Regan announced that he had registered a successor to his "Your Warringah" team in anticipation of running for the council elections scheduled for September 2017. The "Your Northern Beaches Independent Team" would field 15 candidates, with Regan expressing interest in serving as mayor. Regan has supported changing the mayoral position to a directly-elected one, following the system when he was Warringah mayor. At the council election on 9 September 2017, Regan was elected in the first position as a Councillor for Curl Curl Ward, while five other Your Northern Beaches councillors were elected including former deputy Roslyn Harrison in Frenchs Forest Ward, whose personal vote was enough to elect a second councillor, Penny Philpott, former deputy Sue Heins in Narrabeen Ward, former Pittwater Deputy Mayor Ian White in Pittwater Ward, and Sarah Grattan in Manly Ward. The campaign leading up to the election was marked by several attempts by the Liberal Party to smear independent candidates, which Regan labelled "gutter politics": "It is a sad day when they try to bring this into a local government election. Frankly, the community is over negative politics, which is why they are unresponsive to politicians in general. It is not parliament. There is no opposition leader. We are supposed to be here for the community."
At the council meeting held at Dee Why Civic Centre on 26 September 2017, Regan was elected as the first Mayor of Northern Beaches Council for a two-year term, alongside Deputy Mayor Candy Bingham. He was re-elected for a second one-year term to September 2020 on 24 September 2019.