A 2015 review of local government boundaries[broken anchor] by the NSW Government Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal recommended that the City of Bankstown merge with the City of Canterbury to form a new council with an area of 110 square kilometres (42 sq mi) and support a population of approximately 351,000.

Early indigenous groups relied upon the riparian network of the Georges River and Cooks River catchments towards Botany Bay, with extant reminders of this lifestyle dating back 3,000 years including rock and overhang paintings, stone scrapers, middens and axe grinding grooves.

[3][4] Following the arrival of Europeans in 1788, the new British settlers in the area burned oyster shells from the middens along Cooks River to produce lime for use in building mortar.

[6] With the passing of the Belmore to Chapel Road Railway Act in 1906, the line was extended further to Lakemba, Punchbowl and Bankstown by 1909.

[7] The petition was subsequently accepted and the Municipal District of Bankstown was proclaimed by Lieutenant Governor Sir Frederick Darley on 7 September 1895.

[10] After the council refused to accept these findings, and resolved to award the contract as originally intended, Spooner dismissed the council the next day and appointed the inquiry commissioner, William Robert Wylie, Inspector of Local Government Accounts, as administrator until fresh elections could be held in December 1934.

[13][14][15][16][17] On 8 November 1963, Bankstown council was dismissed for the third time by the Minister for Local Government (Pat Hills), with Dane appointed for a second term as administrator, when five aldermen were charged with conspiracy to demand and receive payment in consideration of doing acts pertaining to aldermanic office.

[18] It was alleged the aldermen William Thomas Delauney, Charles Henry Little, Georgen Allardice Johnstone, Alfred Frederick McGuren and Murt O'Brien, were involved in a conspiracy to seek £5,000 each for ensuring that a Lend Lease proposal for a shopping centre in Bankstown was approved.

[19][20] On 7 April 1965, Delauney and another accused who was not an alderman, Martin Goode, pled guilty to the charges, while the remaining four went to trial at the District Court of New South Wales (prosecuted by John Slattery QC and presided over by Justice Christopher Monahan).

Completed to a cost of £4,000, the new Council Chambers building was designed by prominent architect and mayor of Kogarah, Charles Herbert Halstead, and built by A. G. Swane.

In 1961, the council commissioned a modernist design by architect Kevin Curtin, which envisaged a complex of an Administration Building, a Council Chamber roundhouse, and a Town Hall with the capacity for 1,500 people, to be located on a large block north of the Bankstown railway station between Chapel Road, Rickard Road, Appian Way and The Mall.

[28] It was built to house the majority of council's staff and departments, and was a two-storey square block with an external colonnade and basement level for parking.

The building's main lobby featured a mosaic mural by Michael Santry depicting the history of Bankstown, in addition to marble-clad columns, timber panelling, and terrazzo floors.

[35] In 1963, as part of the works to complete the new Bankstown Civic Centre, the council commissioned sculptor Alan Ingham to create a memorial statue to Sir Joseph Banks.

[28] In 2012 as part of the Bankstown Library and Knowledge Centre project the statue was moved again to a more prominent location further south at the south-western corner of Paul Keating Park.

[38] The final element of the Civic Centre to be completed was the town hall, designed as a theatre for 1,500 people, at the north-western end of the site.

[1][44] At the 2011 Census, the proportion of residents in the Bankstown local government area who stated their ancestry as Lebanese, was in excess of eight times the national average.

The most recent and last election was held on 8 September 2012, and the makeup of the council prior to its abolition was as follows:[45][46][47][48] The former Bankstown City region was approximately 76 square kilometres (29 sq mi) and had a population density of about 21.46 people per hectare.

[186] It took the form of a royal blue and gold heraldic shield quartered into four fields by a white cross charged with a golden lion passant guardant from the Coat of Arms of New South Wales.