Conduct submission waved through

The Clarence Valley Council’s input into a discussion paper aimed at improving behaviour in local government has been waved through, despite concerns some of its suggestions might be a “bit too 1984”.

At last Thursday’s council meeting the councillors endorsed the council’s submission Code of Conduct and Meeting Practice Framework Discussion Paper, but voted against some changes suggested by deputy mayor Cr Greg Clancy.

While happy overall with the document, he was concerned some of the suggestions included in the Mayoral Minute went too far and sought to amend the document by omitting some sentences.

Cr Clancy was concerned the submission should take a tougher stance to prevent lobby groups entering local government and including former general managers on privilege committee to investigate councillors was not a good idea.

He also said mandating attendance at Offce of Local Government training sessions for would-be councillors went too far.

Cr Clancy was also concerned with attempts to control dissemination of misinformation.

He said while he had concerns about disinformation in public forums, care was needed.

“I certainly don’t support dissemination of misinformation, because the problem is, who’s going to defne what that is,” he said.

But other councillors were not so worried.

Cr Peter Johnstone said while there could be objections on minor points, the submission was strong overall.

Cr Cristie Yager said the training she received as a new councillor had been excellent and would beneft all councillors.

Cr Lynne Cairns, who seconded Cr Clancy’s proposed amendment, questioned the mayor about a section of the submission about community dissatisfaction with the time taken and costs incurred to deal with complaints.

Cr Smith said that on many occasions the process to ensure compliance was unnecessarily complicated.

“To enforce compliance council must issue an order, he said.

“Following the issue of the order, if there’s still non-compliance, council then has to issue another notice.

“And then if there’s still non-compliance, we have to take it through the court system.

It makes it a very long, arduous and costly process.

“And all we’re suggesting here is that councils be given more authority to enforce compliance in a much more effective manner.”

Councillors voted 7-2 against the amendment and then debated a foreshadowed motion from Cr Johnstone to endorse the submission.

Cr Clancy continued his opposition to it.

“I think some of these statements that are in that mayoral minute are a real concern, and I think councillors need to think about it, if they want to put their name to some of those statements,” he said.

“I think that it’s suggesting that lobby groups going to become an increased issue.

It’s talking about misinformation.

“Who’s going to decide what that is? To me, this sounds like 1984.”

The motivation for the submission came from 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 at https:// www.olg.nsw.gov.au/ councils/misconductand-intervention/ councillor-conductframework/

Public submissions closed on November 15, but the council was granted a deadline extension until November 29.