Popular Wagga City Councillor Tim Koschel will step down from his position on Wagga Wagga City Council in January 2026. Photo: Shri Gayathirie Rajen.
One of Wagga Wagga City Council’s (WWCC) most popular and longest serving councillors, Tim Koschel, has announced he will resign at the end of January 2026.
Mr Koschel has served nearly a decade on WWCC and is the LGA’s second-longest serving councillor, sitting only behind Wagga Mayor Dallas Tout, who was first elected in 2012.
Mr Koschel topped the most popular ticket of the 2024 local government election, which also featured councillor Alana Condron and former WWCC councillor Mick Henderson.
The ticket attracted 22.9 per cent of all formal votes, nearly 7 per cent higher than the next best ticket led by Cr Tout.
Cr Koschel said he made the decision to step down due to his taking on a new position at Commonwealth Bank, resulting in him being unable to regularly attend council meetings in person, which is one of the major new conditions of the Model Code of Meeting Practice for Local Councils in NSW set to be introduced later this year.
“I’ve recently just changed roles into a more senior role in the banking sector, which limits the time I can spend dedicated to WWCC,” Mr Koschel said.
“It shows the impacts that the new changes to the code of meeting practice will have when it comes to that as well, which is why it was the right time to stand down.”
Cr Koschel detailed how the new code would impact councillors and how it would have prolonged the time he would have needed to dedicate to meetings.
“The new code of practice will take away our workshopping time and our ability to meet with senior staff. One of my biggest frustrations, that we get smacked with by the community all the time, is that council’s really, really slow, and they are, when making decisions,” he said.
“This is going to prolong this process even more. These changes, brought forth by Ron Hoenig (NSW Minister for Local Government), are not allowing us to conduct workshops prior to meetings and are limiting the amount of information we’re allowed to gather before making a decision.
“If I’m at a meeting and I ask a question now at a meeting, and they can’t answer that question on the night, it means council staff will have to take it on notice, meaning we can’t make a decision on the night, and then we have to defer that report.
“We won’t make a decision because we haven’t got the information. Then if that comes back to another meeting and we’ve got another question, we have to wait until that night to ask that question, and then if they haven’t got the answer, we have to defer that report again.”
Mayor Tout has also criticised the new code as being city-centric.
The team featuring Mick Henderson, Cr Allana Condron and Cr Tim Koschel received more than 22 per cent of Wagga’s vote during the 2024 local government elections. Photo: Chris Roe.
Due to Cr Koschel stepping down less than 18 months since the election, WWCC will not be required to hold a by-election. Instead, the Australian Electoral Commission will use the results from the previous election and determine the next most voted for candidate, which is expected to be former councillor Mick Henderson.
Mr Henderson said he was yet to make up his mind as to whether he would return to WWCC, but did state the popularity of the ticket he was a part of played a part in his considerations.
“I’m definitely going to be putting some thought into it over the next couple of weeks,” Mr Henderson said.
“I’ve gotten quite a bit of community feedback since the election about how people were disappointed I didn’t get re-elected, and that is definitely something I have to think about.
“However, with the way the new meeting process is set to change, I do have to seriously consider if it is worth taking on.”
Cr Koschel said he was proud of the near decade he had served as a councillor, and it was the unnoticed changes to the LGA he was most proud of.
“One of the biggest things I’m proud of is the way I work individually with the community,” he said.
“Being in the meeting room, that’s what everybody sees. And that’s really not the highlight of the role.
“The highlight of the role is that the really small things that you do when you go and sit in the lounge room with people from around the region, listen to their concerns and are able to go back and work with the internal workings of council to help them resolve their problems.”
Cr Koschel’s last meeting will be on 9 January 2026.
