Thursday, 23 June 2022

Local Government Legislation Amendment (Rating and Other Matters) Bill 2022

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Ms D’AMBROSIO:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Mr RIORDAN (Polwarth) (10:44): I am here to speak this morning to the Local Government Legislation Amendment (Rating and Other Matters) Bill 2022. The Local Government Legislation Amendment (Rating and Other Matters) Bill is an interesting bill that this government has brought through, and it comes from a long line of discussions that the government has been having in recent years about doing a better deal for Victorians and ratepayers across the 79 municipalities here in Victoria. This bill is made up, I guess, of feedback and responses by this government to the Fair Go Rates system that began back in 2016 and the Local Government Act 2020. There was the Local Government Rating System Review: Report of the Ministerial Panel in2020 and a 2021 Ombudsman’s report on hardship provisions. In this body of work that has been undertaken now over the last eight years there have been lots of recommendations to the government about how rating could be fairer and how rating could be less impactful, particularly for many rural and regional ratepayers. Of course those of us who represent regional electorates know only too well the effect that the annual rate notice has in our community when it goes out, particularly on our ratepayers on farming properties. This year is no exception, and there is great concern from one end of the state of Victoria to the other, whether you are in Gippsland, central Victoria or out west and beyond, where I am, where there have been significant increases in land values—and of course that has its corresponding flow-on effect to rates.

This government has very crudely, it could be described, tried to intervene and bring in some degree of fairness to rates with its rate capping, but after five or six years now that has proven to be quite ineffective. It does not really address the long-term systemic problems that exist in the rating system or the local tax system, for want of a better description. In fact the ministerial panel report on the Local Government Rating System Review in 2020 went to some lengths to give recommendations that the sector was hoping to see in this legislation that is before the house now, and they were many elements about how to build in an inherently fairer approach to rating local properties. Sadly, this bill does not address any of those, and in fact much of the feedback I have had from the Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV), from local council officers and others is that this bill actually represents a missed opportunity by this government to actually build on the reforms it attempted back in 2020. This was the missing piece: how do we make rates fairer in Victoria? How do we raise the revenue that we need to keep local communities and local services available to all Victorians, and how do we do that in the fairest way? The opportunity has been missed, because unfortunately this Local Government Legislation Amendment (Rating and Other Matters) Bill really is very, very silent; it is deafeningly silent.

It is not just me saying that. I will just quote some of the feedback, particularly from the MAV. Before I read into Hansard what the MAV had to say about, it is also worth noting that considering that rate collection in the state of Victoria is one of the largest taxes or collections of public monies for public benefit that we have in the state, you would think that this government, if it was genuinely concerned about making these improvements, would have actually engaged with the sector. Like the opposition, the local government sector only found out through the press release the minister put out on Wednesday, 8 June, that this legislation was even being put forward. There had been almost zero contact with the sector, and the media release that went out was in many ways quite scathing of local government. Of course like everything in government, and particularly when you are wanting to have such an important sector as the local government sector on side, coming out and publicly demonising them is probably not the best way to go. So it comes as no surprise then that the MAV’s commentary I think says it all in its press release response to the government, and that was that they ‘received a kick in the guts by the Andrews Government’. That is in the headline from the MAV on their view of this legislation.

Local communities benefit hugely from consistent policy and practice across councils, so there was a desire by local government to work with the government to get a fairer and more equitable rating system. Councils were very quick, at the outbreak of COVID, to work with their local communities through hardship concessions to small business, helping those who were genuinely under stress. The sector is of the belief that they did a pretty good job of that, and I think that the Ombudsman’s report plays that out. The Ombudsman, while noting some exceptions, overwhelmingly found that the local government sector did the right thing. Certainly, as the Shadow Minister for Local Government, there was basically no feedback to me at all that councils were overly heavy-handed. People do not like paying rates at the best of times, but it is the view that rates are a necessary evil. They need to be paid, and therefore local governments need to have some measures in place to collect. It is also worth noting that if people do not pay their rates and councils have to spend extraordinary sums in an effort to collect those rates, it is in fact the other ratepayers who pick up the bill, so there is an equity question. We need to have fairness in hardship provisions, but at the same time rates still need to be paid.

Speaking to the lost opportunity that this bill is, I will just quote the MAV again. They feel that this bill is a cheap shot from a state government hell-bent on grandstanding about its attempts to improve rates rather than leading with some good governance that will allow local government to do more:

The proposed legislation will be as useful to the sector as arriving at the football at full time, the game has been won and everyone is heading home.

I think that is a very colourful description of where I feel this legislation is heading as well. The opposition will not be opposing this legislation because there is not a lot to oppose. The sector generally finds that the hardship provisions are entirely embraced by the sector already. This legislation just seeks to go through the motions of legislating guidelines and activities that the sector basically agrees with. It is worth noting that the government put a lot of effort into this bill without talking it through with the sector. It is also worth noting that in the period that the government was doing the research on hardship provisions there were 28 properties sold for debt collection across the entire state, which equates to 0.00001 per cent. It is an absolutely minuscule percentage of rate collection and rate notices that go out in the state of Victoria. They were the ones that were sold up. In the greater pool of cases that ended up in debt collection or further legal intervention, there were 7000 cases across the entire state in the financial year 2018–19, which equates to 0.002 per cent of all properties valued. As is demonstrated by the MAV, this bill is seeking to solve a very, very, very minuscule problem in the state of Victoria. But on the big, big problem, which is rate fairness—equity for people across metro and regional areas—it is completely silent.

It is also worth noting that the other key stakeholder in putting together a better and fairer rating system is the ratepayer advocacy group. That group certainly did not have debt collection and ratepayer recovery as its highest priority, but it did give feedback to the government that ratepayer groups feel that hardship provisions are important, but it is also important that ultimately rates are collected and there needs to be a very transparent way of determining hardship. For example, the government is silent on having an independent view on what hardship means, and some of the feedback I received from the councils was that it is the local councils that currently make that interpretation.

There would be no objection to having an independent body that determined if there was hardship, because, sadly, while there are definitely people in our communities that suffer hardship—and councils are certainly prepared to work with them on working through their rate debts based on those hardships—there are also people that for whatever reason are slightly malicious or mischievous about their inability to pay rates. And it is always necessary to be able to verify the genuine hardship that people may feel, because a rate not paid is a rate cost picked up by other ratepayers and it prevents local governments providing the services that everybody benefits from. It is also a fact that the sizes of rate collections across our various municipalities vary enormously. One missed payment in an inner-city municipality would not have the same effect as one large ratepayer not paying in a rural or regional capacity. The cost of non-payment of rates of course will vary across the various municipalities.

Moving to some of the points that I think are worth noting as concerns about this bill—they are not reasons to not support the bill, but they are worth just bringing to the house’s attention—I guess the first bit is getting back to rebates and concessions. The two main local government acts that oversee the sector already speak very clearly about rate exemptions in terms of schools, benevolent institutions and others; that is already clearly allowed for in the rates system. What this bill does under clause 7 is bring in another new category of rate exemption, and it is around public benefit. The need for public benefit was mentioned in the Victorian government’s rating system review. There was a little bit of uncertainty about what public benefit means and who gets to decide that. It appears that the government’s intention is that local councils will decide what agency or organisation or property owner delivers a public benefit. The ideas around public benefit are relatively clear. These are agencies or organisations that would provide a direct provision of goods or services to the public, or a substantial portion of the public, free of charge or at a nominal charge, where the land is not used, or will not be used, primarily for the distribution of profit to an owner. I think they are entirely reasonable aspirations.

The only concern that was raised with me around this provision is that it may seem benign at the moment, but the local government sector of course will recall very clearly that only a few months ago the government tried to move legislation that would see their public housing stock exempt from paying rates. This caused a huge concern to the local government sector. It was going to come at a cost shift of some $100 million to $120 million a year to the sector, and they quite rightly were very concerned about that.

I would also raise the spectre that the government is looking to undertake other various actions of public benefit, perhaps in negotiations on its treaty act or other elements that may creep into government over time that the government may deem as public benefit. My concern really would be most particularly for rural and regional councils or smaller councils that may in fact have large tracts of rateable property where in isolation what sounds like a public benefit and a good idea could in fact come at a huge financial cost to those local ratepayers. Any decision by government to exclude the payment of rates of course will have a flow-on effect and a cost effect for the remaining ratepayers. That is an issue on which hopefully the government stays true to its word—that it is purely an element for the local government municipality of the time to make those decisions. I guess we will have to see, and perhaps the upper house in committee may in fact be able to tease that out more with the minister in that place.

I would also just raise—this was another common problem or issue raised by the secretary at the time—that in the government’s attempt to make hardship provisions more concrete what they have done is put in place a train of mechanisms that will actually cost local government, depending on the case, quite a bit to actually recover funds. There is a payment plan process that has been put in, which most councils are doing already. This payment plan process is quite extensive. The main core of it is that a ratepayer who has not paid can take up to two years to enter into a payment plan with very modest capacity for the municipality to charge interest on unpaid sums. So the ratepayer will enter into a payment plan that could take quite some time. They can then stay in that payment plan, but if they default on the payment plan it is then another further two years before the municipality can in fact undertake legal action to reclaim that. If you look at that over a period, you could be looking at a four- or five- or even six-year period of unpaid rates, which is not helpful to the ratepayer and is certainly not helpful to the other ratepayers who are having to chase those funds.

I would make the observation that for a debt that is at that level and under that much hardship, a six-year period of waiting to deal with it is not really the best way to go. In fact I would offer the observation that other elements of government do not have such generous and unwieldy approaches to collecting debts, whether it is the tax office or whether it is the State Revenue Office or other collection points for public funds through the government. I would make the observation that in future this area could be a concern, because a malicious or actively recalcitrant ratepayer could in fact see this as a very cheap source of money, a cheap source of funds, and a very legal and effective way to avoid paying their rates in a timely and appropriate manner and could in fact use the legislation in a rather malicious way. So I make that observation.

All in all this bill seeks to clean up many other elements. In a bit of wording, it is essentially codifying what local government already does. The biggest change is potentially in the public benefit element. Also it does put quite a handbrake on the way councils can attract their overdue rate payments. With that, the local government sector do not really find anything overly offensive in the bill apart from the tone and tenor of the government’s engagement with them in the lead-up to this bill.

I guess it does leave this state Parliament and this legislature really a greater challenge of moving on with a more genuine attempt at improving the rating system and the lot of many people, in particular the farming community and the agricultural community, who have long suffered from a rating system that skews to that industry very heavily compared to many other industries. It has been acknowledged many, many times by various reviews of the rating system that there is a huge discrepancy across the state in the way that we collect these very important funds that provide those basic levels of local government. So the opposition will not be opposing this legislation, and I draw my comments to a conclusion.

Ms CONNOLLY (Tarneit) (11:04): I too rise right to speak on the Local Government Legislation Amendment (Rating and Other Matters) Bill 2022. I am really pleased to hear from the member for Polwarth that the opposition will not be opposing this bill today, but I was pretty surprised to listen to the member for Polwarth talking here about how we are putting on a handbrake for the way in which councils can go ahead and recover fines and other things like that. I think it is particularly offensive. He mentioned this morning it was the Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV) talking about this being like turning up to a football game at full time after the game has already been won and it is time to go home and it does not do much more.

This type of legislation, and certainly this bill going through the house today, is more like turning up to the end of a football game when one team has won and everyone is going home with 1600 bucks in their pocket due to the great work that we did in this area around rate capping back in 2015–16. This is protecting people in our community—the most vulnerable people in our community—and putting in place a framework for people to apply for a hardship framework in order to be better able to pay down and address debts that they have.

I want to start by reading something out. I was reading through the notes, and there was a media release on 9 June 2022 with comments from Financial Counselling Victoria. I want to read this into Hansard because this is really important and I want my community to hear this. This is about protecting you and the most vulnerable people in your streets and your neighbourhoods.

Financial Counselling Victoria … today welcomed the announcement of new legislation that will require Councils to be more consistent and community-minded when dealing with rate payer debt.

…

“For … years, financial counsellors have observed Councils behaving harshly and aggressively towards residents in hardship,” said Dr Sandy Ross, FCVic’s Executive Officer.

…

“We have been advocating for some years, alongside community law centres such as WEstjustice—

Westjustice, by the way, is very, very, very well known and very well respected in the western suburbs and in particular Wyndham—

for improvements in Council responses to hardship … there have been a number of Councils, across rural, regional and metro areas, that have chosen to use disreputable debt collection agencies, take away people’s houses, or bankrupt people over relatively small debts.”.

So I completely, completely disagree with MAV. This is a very important bill to come before the house particularly at this point in time, because what else is going up? The cost of living is going up. I do not know if the member for Polwarth has filled up his car recently or gone to the grocery shop to see the rising cost of fruit and vegetables or seen what it actually costs to fill up your vehicle at the moment—again more economic hardship on working people, on vulnerable people, on some of the most vulnerable people in Victoria’s community.

This bill introduces one of the biggest reforms to the operation of local government since the amalgamations in the 1990s and the introduction of the Local Government Act 2020. The biggest focus of this bill is helping some of our most vulnerable Victorians who are experiencing financial hardship. And let us be honest, after the last two years of a global pandemic there are a lot of people in our community, in our neighbourhoods and in our streets—they might be family members of ours—experiencing severe financial hardship and struggling to get back on their feet. We know that the pandemic has been a tough time for the most vulnerable in our communities, and this affects governments at all levels; this affects us at all levels. That is why the Victorian Ombudsman conducted an investigation into how councils responded to ratepayers who were experiencing financial hardship and struggling to pay their rates.

In 2018 our government committed to a review of Victoria’s council rates system to see if rates were fair and equitable for our community. That was back in 2018. What this review found was that our rates are an important source of funding for local services and infrastructure. I do not think anyone in this house or anyone in our local community would deny that. Fortunately for Victorians our rates system is not broken—that is what we found—and it is in fact in line with many of the principles that underpin a good taxation system. So that can be a tick for local government. In relation to the recommendations made by this review, our government has committed to 36 of them, with a priority of reforms that support ratepayers in financial hardship—we are making that our number one priority—improve transparency and consistency of decision-making and build greater equality and fairness. This bill is the first step in that process, with another bill to continue this process in the works and expected to be introduced in 2023. What this bill does is act on recommendations 28, 30 through to 34 and 36, all of which focus on financial hardship measures and assisting vulnerable ratepayers. I say to the ratepayers of Victoria and most certainly folks in Wyndham: we have your back; this bill is about you.

In addition to this review, the Ombudsman’s investigation into how councils in Victoria respond to ratepayers in financial hardship tells us more about the story of how the system is faring. It is not equal across the board. The investigation looked at how accessible the payments were for ratepayers, how fair the assistance offered was and whether it was fair and reasonable, as well as what we can learn from the COVID relief schemes. I think in this country and indeed this state the amount of things we have learned over the past two years in grappling with, tackling and trying to come through a one-in-100-year global pandemic—there is a lot to be learned from that. Some of the processes can be improved, and where they can, we should go ahead and do it.

What the investigation did find, first and foremost, was that council assistance was not really easy to access for those who were looking for it or may have needed it. I recall really early on in the pandemic—it might have been around March or April—that my office was getting lots of calls from constituents, and I was taking lots of calls, from folks worried about whether councils were going to be implementing rate relief or some other form of assistance. Whereas you might have a utility company that can actively identify customers in hardship—utility companies know who their hardship customers are—with councils you need to go to them and put your hand up to say you are in hardship.

What this report found was that of the 79 councils in Victoria, all but two utilise debt collectors to chase up unpaid fees. That is 97 per cent of all Victorian councils. In some hardship cases the interest built up—this is just unbelievable—to the point that it accounted for 25 to 50 per cent of the total debt owed by ratepayers. That is a poverty trap. That is why Westjustice in Wyndham, its office in Werribee mind you, were working overtime, to try and get people out of this financial trap that they found themselves in. It is clear now more than ever that hardship relief to help Victorians get on top of their local rates is an absolute priority, and it should be a priority of governments at all levels. This bill is about getting that underway.

I wholeheartedly support this bill. This is about Victorians. It is about Victorian families. It is about trying to make sure that you are protected in your hour of need. It is not about not having to pay your debts, it is about finding a way for you to pay them off and hopefully not incur them in the future. It is about you being able to still have some money in your pocket to put some fuel in your car and food on the table for your family. This is a really good bill. It is the first step in what will be a longer process of introducing reform in this sector to ensure all levels of government are looking out for all Victorians.

Mr McCURDY (Ovens Valley) (11:14): I am delighted to rise and make a contribution on the Local Government Legislation Amendment (Rating and Other Matters) Bill 2022, which we are not opposing. As we have heard, the bill is largely technical in nature, with the majority of the provisions being minor amendments to tidy up other legislation, which is what we have become used to in this 59th Parliament—tidying other bits of legislation as we go along.

This bill is a long overdue response to two reports: the Ombudsman’s Investigation into How Local Councils Respond to Ratepayers in Financial Hardship in 2021 and the Local Government Rating System Review of 2019. It does, however, make a few reforms in key areas. A portion of the bill is dedicated to implementing payment plans by adding to the Local Government Act 1989. That allows councils to determine the terms of a payment plan, including the duration of the plan, the amount of the repayments and the frequency of those repayments.

As a former councillor myself and a former deputy mayor of the Moira shire, I do understand the matters of local councils and how they operate and some of the challenges they face. I think in that respect there is certainly some room to move to try and assist people in how these repayments can get developed and support people rather than use the big-stick approach—which is not what most councils do, but certainly just anything that gives more flexibility is a step forward.

Councils can also determine any other payments or terms of a payment plan. This reform will mostly affect a small number, as we have heard, of ratepayers. In amongst the Ovens Valley electorate we have three councils: the Rural City of Wangaratta, the Moira shire and the Alpine shire. There is $5.3 million listed as rate debtors—and this is an accumulation over many years of debtors—and the combined rate revenue of those three councils was $94 million within the Ovens Valley in the 2020–21 fiscal year. Council already has ways of dealing with those people in arrears, so this is not new. But as I said before, any flexibility will certainly assist for those who are most vulnerable and need financial support and would like other ways to try and be able to pay the debt without the debt collector coming knocking at the door. Only eight properties were sold for debt collection in Victoria in 2018–19, which is obviously a small fraction of the properties. There were also 7000 cases of debt collectors being used by councils in that 2018–19 period. So to me, this reform, as I said, improves what is already in existence. It can certainly assist to help handle outstanding dues. It is a small group of people that it affects, but again, to those people it is very important.

The bill also takes away council’s ability to impose rates or charges on the provision of water supply or sewerage services, and that is further justified by the fact that councils no longer supply these services, so I think that is common sense in that respect. There are also amendments to the act that allow the minister to make guidelines relating to the payment of rates and charges. We know there is already room for the minister to make guidelines following the 2020–21 Ombudsman’s report. The bill makes changes to rebates and concessions, and the bill inserts into the Local Government Act 1989 that councils may grant a rebate or a concession to land being used for public benefit. Good examples of public benefit are charitable organisations and religious, educational and social support services. It provides more flexibility for councils in that rating regime for land specified as being used for the direct provision of goods and services free of charge or for a nominal fee. So again it just offers flexibility along the way. It then lists a variety of ways a person could receive profit from the specified land, which leaves an ambiguous definition of what does and does not constitute public benefit in some ways.

Councils are already able to offer concessions and rebates, providing concessions to pensioners and others under the State Concessions Act 2004. We already know that the councils in regional Victoria are feeling the strain of trying to provide more services whilst also maintaining and building thousands of kilometres of new roads. At the end of the day, we want to support our vulnerable ratepayers, we want to make sure councils have flexibility in terms of being able to offer various ways for them to make payment plans, but at the same time we do not want to expose councils to more costs, because they simply do not have the funds. There is a new structure required, we all know that, and however that will pan out into the future—whether it is funded federally or it is the state coming to the party—there is no doubt particularly regional councils are battling to pay their way and keep their roads up to date. This is just the maintenance rather than new builds and new infrastructure and new investment; this is about just maintaining what we have already got. The rate base is not as high, for example, in the Moira shire or the Alpine shire. In the Alpine shire 92 per cent of the area is public land. If you compare that to, for example, Whitehorse shire or a council in Melbourne that has a much larger ratepaying base, that certainly makes life a lot easier from a financial perspective, but obviously with that come more concerns and different issues as well. Council will try to fill the gaps in the budget that come as a result of the concession. That is why I say we need to be careful that we do not make life too difficult for councils. This is most likely going to get passed on to other ratepayers, so in terms of the amount of money that is available, if you put it in one pocket, it has got to come out of another one, and we just want to make sure that we do not create a heavier burden for other ratepayers.

The legislation also amends the Local Government Act 1989 to require the minister to fix the maximum interest rate on unpaid rates and charges from councils. It is another minor amendment, and whether that needed any change or not, I am not sure, but the interest rate was previously fixed under the Penalty Interest Rates Act 1983, which provides that the Attorney-General will from time to time fix that penalty interest rate. Again it is in place, but if this can make changes, that is certainly fine by me.

As I said, I am a former councillor, with the Moira shire. I have three great councils in the electorate of Ovens Valley: the Rural City of Wang, the Alpine shire and the Moira shire. I recently had the mayors in—just last sitting week actually—Dean Rees, mayor of the Rural City of Wang; Sarah Nicholas, Alpine shire; and Libro Mustica, the mayor of Moira shire. Those three came in with other mayors from the north-east to talk to the member for Euroa and me about the many issues that are going on, not just specific to their municipalities but more broadly in the north-east. Certainly they highlighted health care, aged care and roads as massive issues.

While we want to always assist vulnerable ratepayers in our electorates, at the same time we have got to make sure that we do not make life more financially challenging for the councils themselves because it is not as easy as you would think for them to put their rates up and cover that base, because there are more and more challenges for a council all the time. I work closely with those councils, and they continue to ask me to make sure that the cost shifting does not come to them. They are the third tier of a three-tier system—federal, state and local—and they often see themselves as at the bottom of the tree. They end up with the ‘what’s left’—they have to fix what is left. They are at the coalface and they continue to say, ‘Make sure that we do not have all this cost shifting continuing to go on’, because they just do not have that ability to increase rates and the revenue streams that maybe a metropolitan council does. If you look at car parking or fines, for example, in a larger Melbourne council versus what you could get in the Moira shire or the Alpine shire, it is quite insignificant; in fact it is nearly a cost to the council to have a car parking inspector because the revenue is just not there versus what you can accumulate in the larger councils in Melbourne.

But on the bill, in the last couple of moments that I have, it also makes amendments to the Local Government Act 2020 with the purpose of changing some of the requirements around the release of confidential documents. The focus has been on documents to be used during internal arbitration and councillor conduct hearings. This is a change that will allow for more evidence and documentation to be used in these hearings. Also mentioned are council integrity and the code of conduct. The bill, as I said earlier, is largely technical. It does make some moderate changes, needed changes, but most of those provisions are available under the current act. I commend the bill to the house.

Mr EDBROOKE (Frankston) (11:24): I rise to speak on the Local Government Legislation Amendment (Rating and Other Matters) Bill 2022. This bill forms part of a set of legislative reforms arising from the Local Government Rating System Review in December 2020. It also incorporates recommendations from the Ombudsman’s 2020 report, which was entitled Investigation into How Local Councils Respond to Ratepayers in Financial Hardship. I have an intimate knowledge of this, living in Frankston and seeing how some ratepayers, some of our constituents, have been treated when they owe money, especially people in fairly financially and socially insecure positions. So it is with great delight that I am standing here today to see a bill like this come through this house. We will get to that, though.

The Ombudsman’s report basically shone a light on the way that many councils respond to ratepayers in need. Some councils have clearly improved their practices out of a need during COVID, but overall I think the local government sector has fallen behind many other sectors in the compassionate stakes and their proportionate treatment of people who are vulnerable and facing financial difficulties as well. I would put on the record, though, Frankston City Council—we have been through some times, that council and I, since I was elected. We have got some councillors now who are amazing people, but during COVID they bucked the trend. They stepped up, whether it be with call centres or whether it be approaching me and ministers asking, ‘How do we stimulate our economy?’, with outdoor dining programs and things like that as result, and they did a really good job.

This bill amends the Local Government Act 1989, and basically it improves council practices for imposing rates and ensuring ratepayers experiencing that financial hardship are actually treated fairly. That means providing alternate means of paying rates via a payment plan, which we formalised in this legislation, especially for those even experiencing things like family violence. The bill provides a new requirement for the Minister for Local Government to set a maximum rate of interest that may be levied by council on unpaid rates and charges, making sure that that maximum interest rate, which is currently 10 per cent, does not place those experiencing financial hardship under even more financial strain and making sure it is proportionate for unpaid local government rates and charges.

When I say my community has experience with this and I have intimate experience with this, it is because my office is an open door to the community. People come in for referrals and for help, and we will get them that help or tell them where they can get the help. One place we found that a lot of people were going was the amazing Peninsula Community Legal Centre (PCLC) run by CEO Jackie Galloway and her amazing team. It was this government that actually paid for the fines clinic pilot down there in Frankston, and that was because we were hearing these incredible stories—just incredible stories—like the woman who came to my office with a bill and then came to my office once again, thinking she was going to go to jail. The back story which I do not think anyone had heard, and there was probably no conduit to hear it at the time, was that in her family her partner, her male partner, got cancer and had to go to Peter Mac for treatment. In their household he took care of most of the bills, which is not uncommon. So when she was visiting him every day at Peter Mac, going up and down EastLink, she was accruing fine after fine after fine, not knowing that she actually had to buy a pass because they did not have an e-tag.

Roll on a couple of months—a lot of grief, caring for her partner, bills stacking up, and she starts getting letters of demand. And she starts hearing that some of her options are actually going to jail, because these fines have stacked up and stacked up and stacked up. That is when that great advocate for our community Jackie Galloway and her team at PCLC came and said to me, ‘Let’s start a fines clinic. Let’s actually have a table that people can come to. They can tell us the issue’. They can have lawyers negotiate with different companies, usually multinationals, and get payment plans. That was unheard of, and that had great success. It has relieved so much pain for my community. I mean, can you imagine coming home from visiting your partner in hospital, who is terminally ill with cancer, and getting a letter saying that if you do not pay a fine, which was maybe $1000 but is now $10 000 because you have not paid it, you might go to jail? It is not proportionate, it is not fair, and that is why we fully backed PCLC and that fines clinic.

Today we are bringing this to councils as well—that kind of mantra that it has got to be a fair and proportional response when people owe money. The bill will also allow the Minister for Local Government to make ministerial guidelines for councils on the collection of unpaid rates and charges under financial hardship. The ministerial guidelines will require councils to proactively work with ratepayers experiencing financial hardship to explore different arrangements and solutions, and more punitive actions such as legal actions and the application of penalty interest will be only available when ratepayers refuse to engage and all other approaches are exhausted. Sometimes when people refuse to engage, ‘refuse’ is a pretty clear word, but through my experience and through that of my office, sometimes people have not refused, they just have not realised. They have got a letter that is fairly plainly written, and because of other things that are happening in their life it has gone onto the desk. I think there is a way to actually engage those people. There is a way to ensure that they pay their rates, or they even pay their fines in the dialogue that I was speaking about before, and councils and companies get their money but without jailing people and without exorbitant fines attached as well. Currently 77 out of the 79 councils routinely use debt collectors to recover unpaid rates. The new arrangements will ensure that people are fairly treated and that the use of court actions and forced sales of property are an absolute last resort.

This bill also makes amendments to the Local Government Act 2020 which will affect the processing and handling of FOI requests by councils. Essentially it improves the transparency of council information by ensuring that councils process FOI requests for certain categories of confidential information under the Local Government Act 2020 in accordance with the applicable exemptions under the Freedom of Information Act 1982.

I stand here today after reading the local newspaper, the Frankston Times, and reading on the front page—sadly again to one extent—‘Councillor sent to arbitration again’. That was in the Frankston Times of 14 June 2022. I could be angry about that—that Frankston has to see that again—but we have been through a stage where Frankston council had monitors there basically doing a lot of the duties of the council for them, and I think that showed. At the last council elections only one person was returned out of nine councillors, and we have got a fresh bunch of people. The good thing about seeing this in the newspaper is that this council has been empowered, I guess, by this government to deal with bad councillor conduct on their own terms. They have got the power to do that, and they have taken action. We have read articles recently about the amount of money that is spent on legal fees by councillors because of stoushes between councillors.

This bill makes technical amendments to improve aspects of the Local Government Act in relation to council electoral provisions and councillor conduct processes without significantly altering the policy objectives of the legislation. That is certainly something that I know every councillor, every council officer, the CEO and members of my community in Frankston would love to know—that our council is empowered, that when they see someone do the wrong thing or something that is not up to the standard befitting of a councillor in our community of Frankston they can be held to account by the council and that there are processes they can go through which are much improved on what happened last time with the council.

In saying that—you know I support this bill, it is quite obvious—but I did just want to shout out to the current Frankston councillors. We have, like I said, come a long way over the years, but if you look at Frankston now, there is a shared vision between the state government, the federal government and our council for Frankston for the future. That is rolling out before our eyes, and that is because of a fantastic relationship and consultation on bills like this. They are not backwards in coming forwards, I am not backwards in coming forwards. We respect each other, and that is probably resulting in the best relationship between the three levels of government we have ever had in Frankston, I think. I commend the bill to the house.

Ms COUZENS (Geelong) (11:34): I am pleased to rise to contribute to the Local Government Legislation Amendment (Rating and Other Matters) Bill 2022. I want to thank the minister for his work on this bill. It is really important to people in my electorate, obviously ratepayers. Many people are being challenged by the increasing cost of living. The bill really does support ratepayers who are doing it tough. Mortgage rates, fuel costs and energy and food costs—all those things—are impacting on communities and in particular my community of Geelong. I share the comments of the member for Frankston, who just spoke on the bill. We have very similar communities, so I understand where the member is coming from in that aspect.

This government has put in place a range of supports for people doing it tough in our community. We have just got to look at free TAFE, free kinder, the $250 energy bonus and a range of other supports that we have put in place. The reason we have done that is that we do know that people are struggling with the cost of living at the moment. We are trying to put in place everything possible. And again, this bill does the same thing—it is protecting people from losing their homes and from being intimidated and harassed for overdue rates.

I understand that councils have a really important role to play in our communities and they have challenges as well. But where we have councils outsourcing debt collection that impacts enormously on people. I know in my community when that happens. We talk to financial counsellors in my community. They see this bill as a really important part of their support that goes to assisting ratepayers in the Geelong community and how important that is to them when they are negotiating on behalf of those people that are doing it tough. I think one of the things that is really clear to me and is outlined in this bill is the fact that often people do not know where to go; they do not know that they can contact the council to negotiate. Some councils probably do it very well and some probably do it very badly. I know the City of Greater Geelong have done some great stuff during COVID, but one of the first things they did was sack their workforce. There was a bit of a campaign, and local members who sit in this place, on this side of the chamber, lobbied to ensure that those workers got their jobs back. I think that was a bit of reminder to the council that they have a responsibility to everyone in our community, and to make decisions like that is certainly not a fair and just process.

There has been a lot of consultation with councils about this, and they generally support the bill. But the bill is about ensuring people struggling to pay their rates are not being driven further into debt or out of their homes, and that is the key to all of this. As I said, our financial counsellors in Geelong do a lot of work around these things. But as a government we are committed to having a rating system that ensures ratepayers facing financial hardship are treated fairly, and this bill does just that. As I said, our local governments play a significant role, and I think the fact that it is generally welcomed by local government is really important.

The Local Government Legislation Amendment (Rating and Other Matters) Bill 2022 implements a range of recommendations from the Local Government Rating System Review: Report of the Ministerial Panel and the Ombudsman’s Investigation into How Local Councils Respond to Ratepayers in Financial Hardship. The bill will empower the minister, in consultation with the Essential Services Commission, to set a maximum amount of interest that may be levied on unpaid rates and charges, which currently can be as high as 10 per cent, and develop ministerial guidelines councils must follow in dealing with ratepayers experiencing financial hardship. Councils will be limited to using Magistrates Court orders for recovering unpaid rates in situations where rates or charges have not been paid for two years or more. The bill makes a range of improvements to the ability of councils to provide rate rebates and apply special rates and charges. It also makes technical changes to a number of acts.

The Ombudsman’s investigation in 2021 on how local councils respond to ratepayers in financial hardship made a range of recommendations in response to concerns from ratepayers, financial counsellors and community lawyers about the way councils treat people who cannot afford their council rates. The report found that people who were struggling to pay their rates were often met with debt collectors, high penalty interest and in some cases costly court proceedings.

It is really concerning that that has been happening. That is why this bill is so important, because we do not need people to be losing their homes, particularly now. There needs to be a system in place whereby they are given an opportunity to come to some arrangement—payment methods, whatever it might be—to ensure that they do not end up highly stressed by what is going on. Often it is not just the rates that are building up for people, there are a whole range of issues around that. When we look at mental health issues, family violence—I talk to many women who have experienced family violence, and often they are the ones that are left with these big debts, having to try and manage and deal with that along with their experience of family violence, and often there are children involved, and the costs of that. This is really important for people who need it the most.

As the bill indicates, if someone refuses to pay, that is a different scenario. This is about people who cannot afford to pay and who are potentially at risk of losing their homes. We cannot encourage that. We cannot encourage councils to continue to do what they are doing—we have to have this legislation in place. The court proceedings that have occurred have created more stress and fear of losing their homes for those who are already struggling financially. Other entities, including water corporations, have found that through implementing early intervention and flexible approaches to payment collection methods they reduce outstanding debts and legal costs overall. I have to give a shout-out to our water corporation, Barwon Water, and the work that they have done in making sure consumers have every opportunity to make arrangements to pay when they cannot afford to, and to the work that is done by our financial counselling services. Barwon Water has done an extraordinary job in making sure that people have every opportunity to come to some arrangement to pay their debts. By bringing debt collection back in-house they are often able to work with people who are behind and find a way forward.

During the pandemic we saw councils adopt more flexible and compassionate approaches to those experiencing financial hardship, and that has been a really good thing. As I said, the City of Greater Geelong have put some great programs and great supports in place. I would like to think that they will embrace this legislation when it is passed, because it means that they can work directly with people in our community, people who are struggling and doing it tough—whether it is just an inability to pay for whatever reason, financial hardship, family violence or mental health issues, whatever it may be—that they are there supporting our community, which is so important for people in my community of Geelong. This will be further strengthened and supported through this bill.

The awareness of ratepayers that they can approach their council and seek assistance will also be strengthened through a uniform approach to hardship. Again, it is important that those experiencing financial hardship know that they can approach the council and know that they can get the support they need. Councils need to be playing a huge role in the education and awareness area as well so that when people are getting their rate notices, whether they are behind or not, they are advised that if they are struggling, this is what they can do—these are the things that can be put in place to help cover that. I commend the bill to the house.

Mr TAYLOR (Bayswater) (11:44): It is with great pleasure that I rise to speak in support of the Local Government Legislation Amendment (Rating and Other Matters) Bill 2022. I thank the Minister for Local Government in the other place, his team and the departmental staff who have done some great work in crafting this important legislation and a great deal of work in consulting with stakeholders, the sector and people who needed to be consulted with. I acknowledge the previous speaker, the member for Geelong, for her contribution and for talking about the importance of this bill not just for her community but for ratepayers right across this state and, as I will do in brief, talking about some of the key measures in the bill and the key outcomes it seeks to achieve to make our rating system fairer for Victorians, particularly for Victorians who are doing it tough.

We know the Andrews Labor government has a strong and proud record of making our rating system fairer for Victorians. The most significant piece of legislative reform in this space is rate capping, providing more surety for ratepayers, for Victorians, in terms of what their rates bill will be each and every single year by making sure it only increases by the CPI. Before this councils were getting away with extraordinary rate rises, putting significant pressure on people’s budgets each and every single year. The rate cap applies to the overall rating base and is much, much fairer. It is making sure that people who are paying rates are getting a fair go. We know that our government is committed to ensuring that people who are struggling to pay their rates are not driven into further debt or out of their homes.

This bill implements a range of recommendations from the Local Government Rating System Review and the Ombudsman’s Investigation into How Local Councils Respond to Ratepayers in Financial Hardship, more on that in a tick. The bill will also empower the minister, in consultation with the Essential Services Commission, to set a maximum interest rate that may be levied on unpaid rates and charges, which currently can be as high as 10 per cent—that is absurd—and develop ministerial guidelines that councils must follow in dealing with ratepayers experiencing financial hardship. We know that this legislation means that councils will also be limited in using Magistrates Court orders to recover unpaid rates in situations where rates or charges have not been paid for two years or more. This bill makes a range of improvements to the ability of councils to provide rate rebates and apply special rates and charges, and it also makes a number of technical amendments.

In 2018 the government committed to a review of the local government rating system, and that, as it should have, involved extensive consultation with ratepayers, all 79 local government areas—all the councils—and peak bodies throughout the state, including the Municipal Association of Victoria and the like. The government responded to the review. In its response it supported 36 of the recommendations and committed, as we are seeking to do here, to prioritising the recommendations that relate to support for ratepayers, particularly those in financial hardship, which goes to the very heart of this bill. This bill is the first stage in these reforms and is, as I said, focused on ratepayers experiencing financial hardship and improving the ways that rates are collected. The second stage of these reforms relates to structural improvements to the way the rating system operates. It will be further explored in 2023, again in consultation with ratepayers and the local government sector.

The bill also implements recommendations of the 2021 Ombudsman’s Investigation into How Local Councils Respond to Ratepayers in Financial Hardship. We know the Ombudsman’s report found that people who were struggling to pay their rates were often met with debt collectors, high penalty interest and in some cases costly litigation, all extremely unhelpful for people who are doing it absolutely tough. We know this creates more financial stress and fear of losing their homes for those who are already struggling financially and may be dealing with a range of other issues. As the member for Geelong touched on, these may be people who are dealing with family violence or with mental health issues, and this is further locking them into a place of really struggling to get out of a tough spot in their lives while dealing with a range of other issues.

I will say as well that over the last 2½ years we know that councils have had to pivot—like most in society, particularly every level of government—as we have all had to deal with people going through financial hardship, particularly during this one-in-100-year global pandemic. The seat of Bayswater is now just Knox City Council. I will note that Maroondah City Council did a reasonable job. I was disappointed in some of the layoffs of their staff, and that was addressed. However, given that Bayswater is now in Knox I will stick to dealing with Knox. I will say that Knox did not get everything right, but I think that Knox City Council did a very decent job. They certainly streamlined a lot of their processes in terms of dealing with their ratepayers and with local residents going through financial hardship.

This legislation will seek to enshrine that, provide those guidelines and provide surety for ratepayers, whether it be in Knox or anywhere else in the state for that matter. I think Knox council provided not just support for ratepayers going through financial hardship but also support to sporting clubs through a range of grants and businesses through reducing some of those levies, fees and charges. They provided a significant amount of food relief—another way that we can support locals at council level. So I congratulate them on some of that fantastic work they were doing. They continued the work of Meals on Wheels. And Knox City Council—correct me if I am wrong here—I believe did not see anybody lose their job. They kept employing their entire workforce, which I absolutely commend them on. As I said at the start of my speech, I know that there were some difficulties with different councils and the different facilities they run, own and manage due to the complexities of JobKeeper, but supporting your workforce is supporting locals, and I commend Knox council for doing that. Councils can often be seen in some parts of the media and elsewhere in other parts of the world as all roads, rates and rubbish. I can tell you that is just not the case. I was a local councillor, albeit very briefly, and the good Minister for Planning there also has a strong background in the local government sector—

Mr Wynne: But yours was a stellar career.

Mr TAYLOR: A stellar career, the Minister for Planning says.

Mr Wynne: Yours was a stellar career.

Mr TAYLOR: Mine was a stellar career? I was giving you a gee-up, but I will take it. A stellar career—short albeit, from 2016 to 2018, and one of the briefest stints as deputy mayor I think on record, but I will claim it. One of the best things I got to do was work alongside the fantastic staff at Knox City Council. Often it is a popular thing, a bit of council bashing, from time to time. I must say I have never done that. Some may—I guess it is subjective—but I have always tried to work constructively with councils. I understand the challenges they go through. The staff often are at the receiving end of some of that bashing, and I will say that they do a fantastic job in what is often a thankless task. It is not just roads, rates and rubbish. We are talking about significant responsibilities with open space precincts. Pretty much whenever people say, ‘What do local governments do?’, I go, ‘Look out your window, mate. It’s pretty much all of that’. It is your nature strips, it is your roads, it is your parks, it is your gardens, it is your sporting clubs—

Mr Wynne: Your social services.

Mr TAYLOR: Social services—absolutely, Minister for Planning. There is just so much. And kinder—Knox council is one of the best councils when it comes to providing early years services. They do a fantastic job. If you are in Knox, you want to be in a Knox council run kinder. So it is kinders. It is the promotion of health, particularly around domestic violence and around women’s health outcomes. It is mental health support. It is support for people who are victims of domestic violence, and we know the majority of them are women and children. Ageing and disability—Knox council have a fantastic program when it comes to supporting the ageing sector, and Knox in some parts is quite an ageing community, particularly down the southern end of it. They do a fantastic job. And there are millions of dollars of assets that need to be maintained each and every single year. So I am no fan of council bashing. I think councils have done a tremendous job in providing support for those going through financial stress.

This legislation will enshrine new processes that will make it easier for people to get support when they need it without bringing in the wolves, the debt collectors—making it fairer and making it easier. And that is exactly what this government is about. We are about supporting everyday Victorians and making sure we provide the legislation to ensure councils are doing the right thing so people who are doing it tough do not have to do it any tougher. I commend the bill to the house.

Mr SOUTHWICK (Caulfield) (11:54): I rise to make some comments on the Local Government Legislation Amendment (Rating and Other Matters) Bill 2022 and to say at the outset that the opposition is not opposing this bill. One of the biggest issues that many of my constituents talk to me about is the issue around cost of living. It has become such a huge issue for many Victorians—not just for my constituents in Caulfield but for many Victorians. Cost-of-living issues include especially many of the taxes that many Victorians have to pay, and basic food—you only have to visit the supermarket now and have a look. If you can get lettuce and other vegetable items, you pay just an exorbitant amount, and that continues to rise.

When your food costs are high and when your energy prices continue to increase—on 1 July there is another 5 per cent increase, thanks to the Victorian government, in energy prices, with foreshadowed additional pricing increases, particularly around gas supply—you are seeing cost of living being a real burden for people. Rates are just one of those things that many people struggle, quite frankly, to pay. They continue to rise. The burden of other cost-of-living issues for many households, just to balance the budget, is very, very difficult, and that is why it is important to look at things that can be done better. The last thing you want on top of a forever-increasing rates bill is compounding interest that might be charged for a rate notice that might be late, and potentially debt collection and getting yourself into a worse mess than you are currently in, so we need to do more around that. That is why it is very important to have more remedies in place and many supports in place to ensure that we can support many of those residents that are really struggling.

In this bill there is talk about when land or property could be used for other benefit, for public benefit, and that there could be rate relief for that. I think that is important. It is important to consider what that might be. I know that again in my electorate of Caulfield there are a number of properties that are not being used, some of which just remain empty, including some where the houses have been bulldozed and the land is vacant. In a situation like that there could be a good opportunity for that piece of land to be used for parks or for some other benefit to the community for a time. We have got the lowest amount of open space of any municipality, which I talk about quite often. I know the council has been exploring pocket parks. If you try to purchase in some areas of my electorate just the smallest of blocks of land to then bulldoze the home and turn the land into a pocket park, you are talking millions of dollars just to be able to create that opportunity. We should be looking at other ways to utilise these pieces of land while they are sitting idle, doing nothing.

There is a real issue around rooming houses, which I have mentioned many times. These are not those that are run responsibly, those that are run legally and with the best of intent. These are effectively profiteers. These are people who come in and take an old home. While that old home is waiting to be demolished and a new house put on the land, the owner of that home says, quite often, ‘Get whatever you like for it. It’s yours’. In that time, what you will find is that people who are vulnerable are squeezed into these homes and taken advantage of. Quite frankly it creates a whole lot of issues around the neighbourhood. I have spoken about it numerous times: we desperately need legislation to fix that. I note that in those homes, while people are waiting, there is an ongoing rates obligation. In many of those instances those that own those homes are paying those rates, and therefore whatever they can get in rental benefit they take. There might be an opportunity again, pointing to my earlier comment, if this property could be bulldozed and the land utilised for a number of years—until such time as those people are ready to develop—for public benefit, opened up for public benefit in that time.

What I am saying is that what we are doing at the moment is not working. The cost of living continues to increase. In my area open, green space is one of the key problems that we talk about time and time again. We need better opportunities to use open, green space. Whatever I can do to think about this laterally, being a bit more creative in that, I will certainly be proposing that to this chamber. As I say, when we talk about this social housing, the profiteers that are trying to go in there and take advantage of vulnerable people need to be closed up. That needs to be fixed.

So cost of living is a massive issue. You only have to look at things like car registration. It is over $800 now just for your car rego. Energy prices continue to increase. Food prices continue to increase. And then you have got your rates and you have got your other stamp duties. If, heaven forbid, you want to scale down or scale up or just even pay the bills when you need to sell, all those property taxes are huge. I know there are many elderly people in my area that talk about issues around land taxes and stamp duties and what have you. Many of those self-funded retirees really are struggling, absolutely struggling. They do not have superannuation. They do not have a pension. Their superannuation and their pension are effectively the one or possibly two properties that they have saved all their life for. They are paying rates, they are paying property taxes, and in many cases they are struggling to even put food on the table. I know that is hard for some people to believe, but I can tell you I see it absolutely every day. Every time when the valuations come out and the land tax appraisal comes out, I can tell you I have a queue lining up outside the front of my office of people really trying to say, ‘What can you do to actually help?’. It really is a problem, and I can tell you most of those people are over 80 and have saved every single penny and really desperately need that help.

So it is a real issue—cost of living is a real issue. I have no doubt that will be a big issue heading into the election where people are looking for solutions. There have been 42 new taxes under this government—42 new taxes—when the government said they would not increase any taxes. Well, I tell you what, they have just whipped them out and away they have gone, just one after the other—tax after tax after tax. A lot of them are complex. A lot of them you just do not even understand—a lot of the business taxes. Again, you wonder why you would even bother in terms of the cost of the bureaucracy of collecting them versus what you actually get at the end. We desperately need reform in that space.

We must do everything we can to support many of the struggling residents out there, the households that are barely able to put food on the table. They cannot buy their groceries. They are struggling with their rates. They are struggling with all of the new taxes. They are struggling with their car rego. They are struggling, effectively, to make ends meet, so they desperately need help. As I said, the energy crisis at the moment is not helping them one bit. That will continue to bite them at the moment, as we see. I never would have thought—even in the last term we were talking about people that were at a point where they were not even able to have hot showers. They were sitting there in the cold and in the dark because they could not afford to heat and light their home. I tell you what, fast-forward to now, it has actually got a lot worse, and you are hearing more and more of those stories. You only have to talk to many of those people that provide basic food services, many of the charities that are out there. They are servicing people that they have never serviced before. It is quite surprising. I go out there and do a lot of food drives. It is not just the commission homes where we are delivering food parcels anymore. You would be absolutely surprised who is on the other side of the door when you are delivering a food pack. It would absolutely surprise you to think that families that have never, ever—out of pride—asked for one thing are now asking at this given point in time. Why? Because they are desperate. Why? Because governments have failed them, and the costs are at a point where they need help. They need help, they need certainty, and they just cannot afford things any longer. So I say we need to do more. This state is the highest taxing state in Australia. We are absolutely taxing people to the nth degree. It has got to change, and therefore whatever we can do to make life easier for people, we should be advocating to do.

Mr HAMER (Box Hill) (12:04): I too rise to make a contribution on the Local Government Legislation Amendment (Rating and Other Matters) Bill 2022. I would like to begin by acknowledging and thanking the minister for bringing this important bill to the Parliament. I do believe that I am catching up with the minister in the next few days to talk about the fantastic outdoor activation program that was delivered through his office, and I am sure that elements of this bill will also be canvassed through that time.

The bill does make a range of amendments to the Local Government Act 1989, the Local Government Act 2020 and a range of other legislation. Similar to many other speakers beforehand, I do want to focus most of my contribution on the amendments contained in the bill that seek to create a fairer system for rate collection, particularly for those experiencing financial hardship who are struggling to pay their council rates. I suppose similar to the member for Caulfield, it might not be apparent initially to say, ‘Well, where would I have this area of disadvantage in a seat like Box Hill?’, but if you drill down a little bit into the demographics, there is a disproportionate number of retired people who are living in large family homes. The median price of homes is significant in many of our suburbs, and that translates to a very significant rate burden. So in a suburb like Mont Albert, based on the current median price, you are looking at close to $4000 a year in rates. Across a lot of the suburbs these rates have gone up 4, 5, 6 per cent in the last year. This is based on the council’s draft budget that it has recently released.

For those who are retired—they may be on a pension or they may be self-funded retirees through one or two investments—finding that money is tough. Finding that money can be really difficult. They might have what on paper is an expensive asset, but finding that annual cost along with all the other costs—electricity bills, petrol costs—can be really tough. I do get quite a lot of traffic into my office even when the rates notices come out about how people might be struggling to pay them. Certainly the introduction of the $250 power saving bonus that the government announced a few weeks ago is hitting these homes really importantly, because anything that can help with the cost of living is certainly appreciated.

Looking in terms of this specific bill and how it is going to assist ratepayers and assist people who are struggling to pay their rates, it seeks to implement a range of recommendations from the Local Government Rating System Review and the Ombudsman’s Investigation into How Councils Respond to Ratepayers in Financial Hardship. It will create a fairer system for rate collection. While many councils offered a rate deferral process during the pandemic for those experiencing financial hardship, for some, as I have explained, these hardships persist even though the worst of the pandemic is over—and those supports have also been removed. Some of the collection processes have actually exacerbated the hardship rather than offering relief.

Just looking at the Ombudsman’s investigation in 2021, the Ombudsman launched an investigation after fielding some concerns from financial counsellors, ratepayers and community lawyers into how some councils treated people who were struggling to pay their council rates. The Ombudsman found that the councils relied too heavily on debt collection agencies, charged penalty interest which increased the debt burden on those already experiencing hardship, and in some instances launched legal action against ratepayers who were victims of family violence or were experiencing mental health issues.

The government agreed with the Ombudsman that you should not have to fall within a particular local government area that has a fairer approach to ratepayer hardship if you fall on hard times and that a fairer and more equitable system was needed. The amendments presented here in the bill do create a fairer system, where the maximum amount of interest is set by the minister and is not arbitrarily applied depending on which council area you live in. The present system under the Local Government Act 1989 allows for penalty rates of interest up to 10 per cent to be charged, while this amendment will cap that rate to a rate that is set by the minister.

I was pleased to see in the Ombudsman’s report that the local government area that Box Hill is in, Whitehorse, were one of the lowest charging councils in terms of the rate of interest that they applied—it was only 5 per cent—but they do use debt collection agents, which does threaten to further snowball the costs imposed on ratepayers who are doing it tough. If a ratepayer cannot pay their rates on time, the Local Government Act 1989 currently grants councils powers to collect the unpaid rates through a range of mechanisms beyond penalty interest. This can include rent diversion—if a property is rented out—to council, and a council can compel the tenant to pay their rent to council rather than to the landlord, through to court actions and forceable sale. To its credit, Whitehorse council decided that it would not pursue any ratepayers for unpaid debts during the COVID-19 pandemic, but prior to the last two years and the COVID pandemic Whitehorse had increased its use of legal action for debt recovery according to the Ombudsman’s report, which does greatly exacerbate the stress on people who are already struggling financially. Legal costs along with debt recovery agency costs are a menacing combination which threaten people with the loss of their homes. This bill does limit councils’ right to take legal action for recovery of unpaid rates in a situation where rates or charges have not been paid for two years or longer. This will buy ratepayers some time to negotiate debt payment plans and seek hardship relief. In the specific case of Whitehorse council, it does offer rates deferral but it does not offer fee waivers, and they are not offering any residents who may be struggling the full suite of options that the legal framework provides for. This bill does facilitate a more commonsense approach by formalising payment plans agreed upon between council and ratepayers as an alternative way for ratepayers to pay their outstanding rates and charges.

I do want to just also touch on another element of the bill, which is a change to the Local Government Act to insert a definition of ‘waste, recycling and resource recovery services’, which really goes to the heart of how our circular economy is changing. Council is not and probably has never really been just about roads and rubbish, but particularly in the rubbish space there is so much more than just your weekly collection of waste that goes to landfill. I am pleased to see that Whitehorse council has finally introduced a food and organics waste collection. Numerous other councils have done this. I know we have had it in Boroondara for a couple of years, and it is just amazing how much food waste and other waste that was previously going to landfill is now being diverted, is being treated and will be reprocessed for use in council’s parks and gardens and other assets.

There are many other opportunities through the circular economy that this government and particularly the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change has been leading very strongly where councils will partner with the state government to deliver major changes in the environment. This is just one of a number of areas where councils provide fantastic services to the community, and I commend the bill to the house.

Mr CHEESEMAN (South Barwon) (12:14): It is with pleasure that I rise this afternoon to make my contribution on the Local Government Legislation Amendment (Rating and Other Matters) Bill 2022. I must say I do so having had, albeit a number of decades ago now, some experience on the City of Ballarat as a councillor way back when I was in my early 20s. From that period through to now I have taken a real interest in all of the various taxation measures that we use in Victoria, whether it be from the perspective of the state government or whether it be from the perspective of local government.

There are a few things that very much occurred to me at that point in time back in the late 1990s when I was given that great opportunity of being a local government councillor. One was that the various rates arrangements that we had in place at that point in time very much saw a very fair way by which people would contribute through their rates to the services delivered by local government. Of course at that moment in time in 1999, when I was given that great opportunity, local governments were enduring, and being challenged very much by, the Kennett government and the compulsory competitive tendering arrangements that that government imposed all on local governments. At that point we saw a whole lot of services that had historically been generated and delivered by local government workers outsourced. I had the responsibility of being the secretary to the Labor government’s policy committee which decided the platform that we would take to the 1999 election to remove compulsory competitive tendering and to have a best-value approach, which addressed a lot of the challenges experienced by local government through that Kennett period and saw services brought back into local government. I certainly know from my observation that we saw a lot of work had been outsourced from local government, not through any desire of local government but because of that rather brutal approach adopted by the Kennett government. It enabled us as a community and as a council to bring those services back in house.

From the perspective of a big regional centre, I think that very much did see a return of the opportunity for people to establish a career in local government to support the delivery of infrastructure and services to the community. I certainly know through that period, with the consultation that I had with councillors in writing that policy and indeed my experiences in local government, that the profound impact of compulsory competitive tendering was endured even more so by rural and regional councils, because indeed what that did see was the work, previously delivered by local government workers living locally, being delivered by, more often than not, Melbourne-based contractors who did not live in the town and who would not pay that little bit of additional effort to deliver a service.

You know, if you were an outsourced gardener and your responsibility was gardening and there was some litter left in the street, because it was not in your contract, because it was not recognised in that way, you would not take that extra 2 minutes to pick it up and to appropriately deal with it. We saw a lot of care, delivered previously by local government workers, neglected as a consequence of that rather brutal approach adopted then by the Kennett government. So I, through that period of time of course, not only reflected on those particular models but also thought about our rates base and the important role that it very much does play in giving local governments the tools and the resources to be able to deliver that infrastructure and indeed the revenue needed for those local government bodies to do their work. My reflection on rating is that in so many ways it is a very fair tax delivering a service.

In South Barwon and in some of the seats particularly in our tourist areas we have some new and emerging challenges, particularly in terms of key worker accommodation. What we have seen is a real increase in the number of residences that are being taken up through either Stayz or Airbnb-style services. And what we are seeing in so many ways as a consequence of that is that it is becoming even more difficult for key workers in our coastal hotspots and tourist areas to be able to secure the accommodation they need to live in that community so they can work in the cafe or work as a hairdresser or a teacher or a nurse in the local health setting.

What I would say in terms of reflecting on the rates circumstance is I think there is some further reform that I would like to see. This reform is to make sure that for those residential properties that do have a commercial application perhaps in the years to come we might see the opportunity for local government to recognise those properties as commercial properties and perhaps for there to be incentives for those residential properties to have a different rate at some point to recognise that they are for a commercial purpose. I would like to see at some point an opportunity for that reform to be looked at. I think not only will that see a supply of properties for key workers but it will make sure that we have and we continue to maintain a fairer rate system that recognises both private use and future commercial use. Those challenges need to be looked at.

I would also say that one of the great challenges that we do have, particularly in the peri-urban areas, where the value of farming property goes through the roof, is that land remains zoned as farming and it becomes very, very difficult for that property to turn over because of that increased value. Yet the commercial reality is that the return on that land as farming land may well not accelerate to the extent that the value of that property does, and we need to think about that. I think it is a bit of a challenge, certainly around the Surf Coast and I am sure in other areas as well. There is some opportunity in the years to come to reflect on and look at that.

People’s circumstances change from time to time. They find themselves not able to meet their obligations under the rates arrangement, and I think we need to make sure that where that does happen there is a fair way for people to repay those rates.

Mr RICHARDSON (Mordialloc) (12:24): It is great to rise on the Local Government Legislation Amendment (Rating and Other Matters) Bill 2022 and speak to a really important reform and a journey of reforms around a fairer rating system for all Victorians. It will be a chance to also reflect on the wonderful work that is done by our councils across the 79 municipalities and also reflect a little bit on some of the work that the Environment, Natural Resources and Regional Development Committee did in the previous Parliament under the stewardship of the member for Thomastown and the member for Sunbury in assessing the rateable base that our councils have and the challenges that particularly regional and rural councils face in rating.

I want to firstly put on record our deep appreciation for all the work that our local governments have done—well, they do it each and every day—through the course of the last two years. It has been incredibly challenging to maintain services to the standards that all Victorians expect in their local communities, but CEOs, their representatives, their leadership teams, their local councillors—indeed by no less than having an election in the middle of the pandemic as well—have shown how nimble and how flexible our local government sector is. They are at the front of so many different services and interactions, with more complexity than we have seen before in the work that they do and the services that they provide to their constituents, so a big shout-out to our local government sector, particularly in the communities that I represent, the City of Greater Dandenong and the City of Kingston, for the work that they do. The efforts that they made to support communities, small businesses and health services through those challenges of the pandemic were inspired. It was a collaborative approach that was taken, a once-in-a-hundred-year approach that was needed, and we commend their representatives as well.

This work to get to a fairer rating system is really important as we come back from some of the challenges of the pandemic with a more compassionate and supportive approach to how we engage with people doing it tough. We saw that with the important policies around JobKeeper and JobSeeker, the billions of dollars that we used as Victorians to support businesses and communities during their times of need—so much in relief, so much in support that saw us obviously have to go into more debt to support the efforts to keep businesses afloat and keep people in their jobs across state and federal efforts. But that comes with an approach now of needing to reflect on a more compassionate and supportive way of dealing with people who are facing financial hardship. We saw this recently in legislation that we worked on in this place around toll road operators and making sure that there is a fairer and more balanced approach to how we support people.

This was work that was started by the Victorian Ombudsman. I want to place on record our appreciation for their office and the work that they have done in getting to this point in time. That work was undertaken, I believe, in 2021, with the investigation into how councils respond to ratepayers in financial hardship. That was a really important review embarking on some of those lessons to be learned. Some of the key findings are worth reflecting on. While 96 per cent of councils have a financial hardship policy in some form, only three-quarters of those councils published their standard hardship policy on their website, so for people who are already under the pump, who are already struggling to make ends meet and feeling like the debt collectors are going to knock on the door rather than taking a compassionate approach, they do not know where to turn for support. One in four councils were not offering that support. Forty-eight per cent of councils did not include rate waivers as part of their standard hardship policy despite having the discretion to do so. So one in two were not putting that forward—rather, debt collectors knocking on the doors, interest payments exploding, people being taken to the wall or, in extreme circumstances, a summons to the Magistrates Court. That is not how we treat people in Victoria going through duress and under a lot of pressure.

So that review was a really important moment. Twenty-six councils limit the use of deferrals as part of their standard hardship policies, and this is usually only applied to aged pensioners as the debt can remain on the property until it passes to the new owner. A lot of that work that was done and a lot of that engagement was really critical as well. This is a really interesting stat—before COVID as well: between 2018 and 2019 councils sued ratepayers for unpaid rates more than 7000 times. So rather than, as one in two do, having a hardship policy, having a deferral policy, one that is agreed by council and that is put forward as a policy through the Municipal Association of Victoria and other peak bodies as well, they went the legal angle—rather than with the values that their councillors put forward as well.

So we needed to have a look and a review of what could be done better to support people in financial hardship and struggling, and that is what this legislation does. It is really important legislation. It will expand the criteria for councils to provide rate rebates and concessions for properties that provide a public benefit. It will repeal some of those redundant service rates and charges powers that sometimes sit on rate notices as well and amend the powers for councils to declare a special rate or charge to ensure that services remain relevant and modern waste management activities are covered. That is particularly critical in the City of Kingston area where we are experiencing a significant transition for waste-based industries and areas into some of the work that we are doing with the chain of parks through the south-east suburbs.

This is the first part of these reforms. There will be a package of work that is done. I want to place on record my appreciation to the Minister for Local Government, who was out only recently meeting with the CEO, Peter Bean, and the mayor, Steve Staikos, of the City of Kingston in Mordialloc. We caught up to hear about some of those priorities. The minister is at the absolute front and centre of wanting to get out and hear directly from those representatives. I appreciated that time and the frank and open discussion that we had in the presence of the mayor and CEO; it was a great opportunity.

Importantly, the Ombudsman’s report found that people who were struggling to pay their rates were often met with debt collectors, high penalty interest and, in some cases, costly court proceedings. Interestingly, the report highlighted cases where the interest charged built up over time to be in the vicinity, for some people, of 25 to 50 per cent of the total debt from the original charge. You have got people who are really struggling to make ends meet. We saw this during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was interesting that the first response from the government came on 31 March 2020. That is an interesting point. Our first COVID case was in January. We went into the first restrictions in April. We would not have imagined what was to come and the pressure and the impacts that would overwhelm communities, and the impacts on Victorians as well. This comes at a really good time when we are thinking about how to be more compassionate in the support of Victorians and how we engage them. Rather than, as I said, debt collectors and summonses to the Magistrates Court, we try to find ways to provide that support and provide that care.

There have been great success stories where part payments or collaboration with residents, with ratepayers, and being compassionate in that approach has led to better outcomes. Whether that is payment plans, whether that is deferrals, that is the culture that we want to set. We know it is a really challenging environment, the rate-capped environment, for local government, with a lot of extra services that we have seen. We have seen that impact in aged care. We have seen it with home and community care funding. We have seen that in the national disability inclusion space as well. We have seen so many different impacts. During the inquiry that we undertook on behalf of Victorians, the parliamentary committee inquiry, we saw that many councils were under extreme pressure in regional and rural areas.

This came at a good time, this review, when we were assessing the rate system as well. That work will continue into 2023 and beyond, so beyond the current Parliament there will be more work to be done in that space. The first tranche and I think the critical focus that has come out of the department and the minister’s office is how do we support Victorians facing financial hardship? It has been a value of this government to be supporting people. The power saving bonus that has been recently announced is an example of that, as well as free kinder, lowering the cost-of-living pressures on Victorians to make sure they can make ends meet, they can flourish and do the very best that they can on behalf of themselves and their families. It is really important work, it is great to see it hit the Parliament, and I wish it a very speedy passage through the house.

Mr FREGON (Mount Waverley) (12:34): I rise to make my contribution on the Local Government Legislation Amendment (Rating and Other Matters) Bill 2022. It is always such a pleasure to follow on from the member for Mordialloc. He is an eloquent chap, my colleague from the sand belt. Whenever you are following someone of that esteem you know no-one is going to expect you to rise to that level, so it just makes you feel comfortable, as I am sure the shadow minister at the table, the member for Murray Plains, would agree.

This is an important bill, acknowledging cost-of-living pressures and what we can do, and I thank the minister for his work in this area, following on from other work that the Ombudsman has obviously done, to get us here. When others were speaking about the cost of living it reminded me of a phone call I got early this year, before the federal election campaign had ramped up, before everyone was talking about the cost of living, before petrol prices had gone over $2, before inflation was starting to go up and before rates were going up. Before all that, I got a call from a constituent, who told me that she was struggling financially and she had been struggling for some time. Obviously the last couple of years have been very difficult for everyone, including this woman that I was speaking to. She wanted us to know, as state lawmakers—but also the federal lawmakers—that the cost of living for her had risen significantly in the last two years. She told me that she lives on staples; week to week she lives on pasta, rice, flour, milk—very basic foodstuffs from the supermarket. She said she does not buy bread; she makes bread because it is cheaper. She does not drive a car anymore because she cannot afford petrol, and this is, as I said, before it was over $2.

What she said that sticks in my mind and will do for I think a very, very long time is that she keeps every receipt from Coles and Woolies. I am sure she is not the only one—I am sure there are many others in our community that do the same—but she keeps every receipt. She tallied them up for the last two years. In the year 2020 this woman spent $3600 on her food bill. I do not know about you, Acting Speaker Settle, but I am pretty sure I spend more than that; I am sure most of us would spend more than that. That is what she spent on her food bill for the year. In 2021 the same food bill cost her $4800. By my maths that is a 30 per cent increase for her basic foodstuffs. Now, I am lucky enough that I can go to Coles day by day and grab what I need and that I do not necessarily have to think about whether I am going to buy the $1 pasta or the $1.50 pasta or the $3 pasta, but for a lot of people in our community that is an ever-present thought for them to keep in their mind, like it is for this woman I spoke to. At the end of the year she is tallying it up and working out how she is going to get through next year. That was the point of the phone call. It was not to say even, ‘My life is very tough and this is unfair’. She was not saying any of that. She just wanted us to know that this is her daily experience, this is her lived experience.

The bill today, which deals with some of the collection of debts in regard to local government, is an opportunity for us all to remind ourselves that a 30 per cent increase for staples, like for this woman in Mount Waverley—without any of us doing anything to make that happen or to not make that happen but just because that is what has happened over the last two years to the cost of living—is a real and ever-present problem for people in our community. So anything we can do assist with that I am sure will make a big difference in those people’s lives.

A lot of the factors that lead to these costs of living are global. COVID has caused all sorts of problems with absenteeism, supply problems and logistics problems. The war in Ukraine is causing issues with energy prices all around the world. There are many factors that are beyond our control, but domestic factors play a role too—capacity constraints in some sectors and a tight labour market. Having policies at a federal level to keep wages low on purpose for a decade eventually does not work and wages will come back to a sense of where they probably should have been in the first place. You cannot hold everything down without eventually expecting it to come back up again. I think we are in for a challenging decade on all sides of politics as we all make that work and we try and rise to the challenge of the economy that we are looking towards, which will be a more inflationary economy. I have no doubt that our government will do that and we will help those who are in need, like we are today.

In regard to this bill today, we are talking about local government. I am lucky to represent an area that is in the Monash area, and I have a very good relationship with our friends at Monash. I noticed one of my colleagues talked about council bashing, and I will not do that because I think Monash really have done a lot of great work, especially over the last two years. As the member for Mordialloc said, every day our councillors do an amazing amount of work in their roles, and I thank all of them from all sides of the political divide. It is often a thankless job for them, and on record I do thank all of those councillors in our area of Monash. Stuart James is the mayor at the moment, with deputy mayor Tina Samardzija. My ward councillors for Mount Waverley are Brian Little, Rebecca Paterson and Anjalee de Silva. I note all of their work over the last couple of years, which have been very tough, and I thank them for that and also every other councillor at Monash.

I do have one small thing with Monash at the moment that we disagree on. They have a draft strategy at the moment for off-leash dog areas. I have had a lot of constituents in my area who have prompted me to advocate for a fenced off-leash dog park in our area of Monash, and this is something I support wholeheartedly. I do not think I would let my dog off in it because she does not necessarily respond to us all of the time, as dogs need to do, but for other people who have great control over their dogs it would be a fantastic addition. Submissions are being called for at the moment from the public, and I am using this little bit of time to encourage everyone to talk to Monash and give them your opinion about what you think about this fenced off-leash area. It is something that I am sure I will say more about over the next few months.

But getting back to the bill, this is an important bill because it will provide a sense of comfort for people who are struggling to know that councils will need to keep this in mind. Not necessarily Monash—I have not had any complaints about their collection—but some might have been a little bit overexuberant in their use of debt collectors and the legal system. I think this is a very good bill that puts the comfort of those who are vulnerable and in need at heart, and I commend the bill to the house.

Mr MAAS (Narre Warren South) (12:44): It gives me great pleasure to rise and to make a contribution on the Local Government Legislation Amendment (Rating and Other Matters) Bill 2022. As has been said by many of my colleagues here, there are really some very, very sound objectives behind this bill. Firstly, the objectives are to implement reforms to the local government rating system, including the arrangements for ratepayers facing financial hardship. Secondly, they are to amend the Local Government Act 2020 to address concerns raised by the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner in relation to confidentiality provisions which affect the processing and handling of freedom of information requests by councils and to make other minor and technical amendments to improve the operation of the Local Government Act. Thirdly, they are to make minor and technical amendments to the Workplace Injury Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2013, the Accident Compensation Act 1985 and the Essential Services Commission Act 2001. Finally, they are to make a minor amendment to regulation-making powers under the Domestic Animals Act 1994.

The bill itself forms the first part of legislative reforms arising from the Local Government Rating System Review from December 2020 and incorporates recommendations from the Victorian Ombudsman’s 2021 report Investigation into How Local Councils Respond to Ratepayers in Financial Hardship. These reports have really shown the way many councils respond to ratepayers that are in need. Some councils have clearly improved their practices as a result of the pandemic, but overall the local government sector has fallen behind other sectors in the compassionate and proportionate treatment of those who are facing financial difficulties. In essence the Andrews Labor government is ensuring people that are struggling to pay their rates are not being driven further into debt or indeed out of their homes. It implements a range of recommendations from the Local Government Rating System Review and the Ombudsman’s Investigation into How Local Councils Respond to Ratepayers in Financial Hardship.

The bill will actually empower the Minister for Local Government, in consultation with the Essential Services Commission, to set a maximum amount of interest that may be levied on unpaid rates and charges, which currently can be as high as 10 per cent, and develop ministerial guidelines councils must follow in dealing with ratepayers experiencing financial hardship. Councils will be limited in using Magistrates Court orders for recovering unpaid rates in situations where rates or charges have not been paid for two years or more. The bill makes a range of improvements to that ability of councils to provide rate rebates and apply special rates and charges. It also makes technical changes to the acts that I have previously mentioned.

In essence, councils will just no longer be able to send the debt collectors around after ratepayers except in extreme circumstances under new protections to ensure that struggling Victorians will not be driven out of their homes. It will explicitly define financial hardship and require early engagement from councils with ratepayers in that regard. The Andrews government has introduced legislation that will force councils to be fairer on ratepayers who are finding it difficult to make payments. It will spell out a clearer definition of financial hardship and require councils to deal with ratepayers early to address stress on their budgets. Under the changes, the Minister for Local Government will consult with the Essential Services Commission to set a maximum on the amount of interest added to unpaid rates and charges, because we know that many Victorians are doing it tough, and that is why we are working to reform the rating system. The minister recently said:

Good hardship relief schemes strike a balance where the rate burden is shared while ensuring people in hardship are not driven further into debt or out of their homes.

That is what this bill is seeking to achieve. The government has introduced new laws to ensure the highest standards of integrity in local councils, including appropriate, respectful behaviour amongst councillors as well. The act includes a suite of provisions to improve integrity in local government, including improved gift policies, tighter controls on the use of private council meetings and new rules covering conflicts of interest.

The minister has also announced further support for women in local government, increasing the government’s support for the Australian Local Government Women’s Association’s mentoring program to $41 000. The funding will help support 60 women councillors in this term of council and provide opportunities for leaders in the sector to be trained as mentors.

A new rate cap of 1.75 per cent has been set for all Victorian councils for the 2022–23 financial year, and that will help ease cost-of-living pressures for all Victorians. Before the Fair Go Rates system was introduced, residents faced an average rate increase of about 6 per cent every year, and the current rate cap of 1.5 per cent is the lowest since the system was first introduced. Councils collect rates from residents annually to fund and deliver essential community infrastructure and services such as local parks, libraries, community centres, roads, kindergartens, waste collection and sportsgrounds. During the pandemic many councils expanded their hardship policies to provide relief to those doing it tough and started engaging earlier with ratepayers who fall into debt. This bill ensures that councils do not revert to those past practices.

It also comes following the release of the Local Government Rating System Review and the Ombudsman’s Investigation into How Local Councils Respond to Ratepayers in Financial Hardship report, with recommendations relating to greater support for ratepayers in financial hardship. The Ombudsman report found that people who were struggling to pay their rates were often met with debt collectors, high penalty interest and in some cases very costly litigation too. That created a great amount of stress for those ratepayers and a great fear for those who were already struggling financially and/or dealing with a range of compounding issues—for example, family violence or other associated mental health issues as well. As I have said, the bill will allow the minister, in consultation with the Essential Services Commission, to set a maximum amount of interest levied on unpaid rates and charges, and ministerial guidelines to assist ratepayers assisting financial hardship will also be developed for councils to follow.

In essence this is an excellent bill. It does cover a wide range of matters, but its objectives are very clear and focused on better supporting ratepayers who are dealing with financial hardship and on improving council operations. On that basis, I commend the bill to the house.

Ms WARD (Eltham) (12:54): While I recognise we have got about 5 minutes and 30 seconds before lunch, I will do my best to fit in all of the information that I need to—everything I want to say—within this 5-minute period. Like the speakers before me from this side of the chamber, I welcome this legislation. There are some terrific things in here, including the support that there is going to be for councils to help those who are experiencing rates stress.

There is a particularly interesting dynamic within my community. I represent two municipalities, which are Banyule and Nillumbik. In the case of Nillumbik there is a bit of a historical context to go around our rates. While I know that those opposite get a bit frustrated when we talk about the Kennett years, there is a need to talk about the Kennett years in this context because we used to have the Shire of Eltham, the Shire of Diamond Valley and the City of Heidelberg. When Jeff Kennett decided to amalgamate all of our councils he did quite an odd thing with Nillumbik. He made it long and skinny. He took out the commercial centres of Greensborough and Montmorency and he created a municipality where only 10 per cent of it is urban. That means that there is a huge amount of land mass in Nillumbik that needs to be managed but there is a very low rate base through which to do it. We end up in Nillumbik in a situation where our rates are quite high. They are really quite high, and there is quite a contrast between Nillumbik and Banyule. In the suburb of Eltham North you can have people on one side of a street paying Banyule rates and people on the other side of the street paying Nillumbik rates, and there is hundreds and hundreds of dollars difference. With what we are doing here there is a recognition that that quarterly rates bill that you get in the post is not always easy for people to manage, particularly when you are talking about rates like those that Nillumbik charges.

Also, in a circumstance where people may not necessarily be on high incomes or where they have retired and they are now on fixed incomes, property values have gone up quite a lot in the last few years. This means that people’s rates have gone up, and there can be some real challenges in paying a quarterly bill for rates that can be anywhere between $600 and $800 or $900. To be able to have a mechanism that encourages councils to work through how to support people to pay their rates, and not only that but also work through the penalties or the interest rates that might be applied to any late rate payment, is really important. It will be important for people in my community, it will be important for the people in the electorate of Yan Yean, but it will also be quite important for the people within the seat of Eildon in that northern part of Nillumbik. I really welcome these changes and I think that they will be incredibly important.

I also welcome the changes that relate to councillor conduct processes. I think it is really important that we do have some pretty straightforward and clear processes as well as expectations of councillor behaviour. We have been hearing quite a bit lately about the disappointment that there is with some councillor conduct. We hear about frustrations around bullying and around inappropriate conduct that happens across a number of municipalities. With your indulgence, Acting Speaker, I will talk about the previous council at Nillumbik, where we had a councillor—a former vice-president of the Liberal Party, Peter Clarke—who upset a lot of local people with his behaviour. There were a number of local people who felt that he was a bit of a bully. We even had a circumstance where he—and he is quite a tall man—was towering over a group of children, waving his arms, yelling at them for walking on grass near council chambers, because grass is expensive.

To have a process where there can be a conversation around councillor behaviour and where they can be instructed, spoken to, counselled on how to behave better and what community expectations are, but also have some accountability, is really important, because we do want to have a community where respect is mandatory. We want to have councils where respect is mandatory. We want to have a situation where people feel comfortable running for council because they know that they will be in a respectful environment, but we also want people to be able to engage with council and know that council and councillors will be respectful back to them.

I look forward to this legislation being passed in our chamber because I do think that it is an important framework. It is something that will help people navigate council and work through any challenges they might have with council, especially financial but also behavioural, which is something that is very important. Our councillors need to be respectful.

Sitting suspended 1.00 pm until 2.01 pm.

Business interrupted under standing orders.