Respect missing ingredient in councillor behaviour

TIM HOWARD

“This includes refraining from unsubstantiated claims and criticisms in communications, social media, public forums and debate.

“Respectful behaviours and interaction should inform decisions and outcomes, not target individuals.”

The council response lists four other areas where it believe the discussion paper falls down.

It said councils, as the third tier of government must be able to show leadership and independence in decision making.

Restriction on council’s ability to set fees and charge and ordinary rates infuenced decision making and reduced independence.

The council agreed there was more need for transparency, but fagged concerns about banning pre-meeting briefngs.

It said these meetings created a “safe environment” for councillors and staff to discuss issue in an open manner.

It said removing these meeting could endanger a deeper understanding of complex issues, which would not be in the best interests of the community.

There was support for a strong and proportionate local government regulator.

“The regulator rarely intervenes as it is, and when it does it is slow to respond indicating the system is broken or the regulator is severely under resourced,” the council response said.

Key reforms outlined in the discussion paper, some of which would require changes to the Local Government Act 1993, include.

• Establishing a local government privileges committee of experienced councillors with mayoral experience to assess complaints made against councillors for misbehaviour, consistent with practices in other tiers of government (where the conduct does not meet the threshold for police or referral to another investigative body or tribunal)

• Removing private investigators from the councillor conduct process, while strengthening the investigative capability of the Offce of Local Government to investigate and prosecute legitimate complaints (such as issuing penalty infringement notices where confict of interest declarations have not been made)

• Banning private councillor briefng sessions, except in very limited circumstances

• Strengthening lobbying guidelines for local government

• Giving mayors more power to expel councillors from meetings for acts of disorder and remove their entitlement to receive a fee in the month of their indiscretion.

Minister for Local Government Ron Hoenig described the current system as “fundamentally broken”.

“It is too open to weaponisation, with tit-for-tat complaints diverting critical council resources and ratepayer money from the things that matter most to communities,” Mr Hoenig said.

“The sheer volume of vexatious complaints being made is preventing the Offce of Local Government from focussing its attention on getting crooks out of the local government sector.

Mr Hoenig said the options in the discussion paper put the onus onto councils to address and resolve councillor misbehaviour rather than send matters to the state government or private investigators to fx.

“It also puts forward options to strengthen the role of the Offce of Local Government as the sector regulator, including expanded investigation powers for serious confict of interest breaches and the ability to issue penalty infringement notices,” he said.

“For far too long the system has been abused. It’s time to restore public confdence in councils and ensure the dignity of this vital third tier of government is upheld.”

The discussion paper can be viewed via the QR code below.

Public submission closed on November 15.