Tuesday, 25 August 2026

 Anthony MARSH (Nepean) (14:38): There is nothing wrong with experienced people serving the public, but when the same small circle keeps appearing across taxpayer-funded roles, Victorians are entitled to ask: is this an independent integrity system or is this simply Labor’s jobs for mates merry-go-round? These are not ceremonial appointments. Municipal monitors can have enormous influence over democratically elected councils and recommend further ministerial action. That is why their independence and transparency matters. Ironically, that same Whittlesea commission heard that Victoria’s councillor conduct system was too slow, too legalistic and too drawn out, and it recommended an independent local government integrity commission. Instead, what do we get? More process, more regulation, more ministerial involvement, more Labor appointees and remarkably little accountability for the people exercising those powers.

We are now on our third local government minister in just over four months – the member for Bentleigh, the member for Box Hill and now the member for Mordialloc. Ministers come and go but the system remains, and the integrity system that flourished under the former minister deserves serious scrutiny before this Parliament hands Labor even more power. Political interference, jobs for mates, selective inaction and the lack of transparent, contemporaneous records are not the hallmarks of an integrity system that should be handed more power.

Councillors and CEOs of councils should be accountable, but so should the monitors and conduct panels that police them, because an integrity system that cannot demonstrate its own independence has no credibility policing the integrity of anyone else. Before Labor asks this Parliament for more power to police local government, it needs to clean up the integrity of its own integrity system. Who monitors the monitors? Who holds the integrity system accountable? And why should this Parliament hand Labor more power before it can answer those simple questions?

 John LISTER (Werribee) (14:40): It is a delight to speak on this bill, the Local Government Legislation Amendment (Stronger Communities) Bill 2026, a bill that is of particular importance to my constituents in the City of Wyndham as there has been much, much coverage about our local government issues in Wyndham. However, before I begin talking to the bill, I want to touch on a few comments made by the member for Caulfield in his contribution to the debate, talking about the idea of consultation, particularly consultation done by those from the other house.

I think many of us on this side saw Ms Crozier from the other house and her train wreck of an interview where she could not confirm how she had consulted with hospitals about her policy. The member for Caulfield cited the trash policy of the Liberal Party, around bins and the collection of bins. Did they talk to the City of Boroondara, a local government area which many of them are situated in as representatives? The mayor said to one reporter that this thought bubble would cost at least $3 million extra for ratepayers. This is what consultation looks like from those opposite: adding extra cost for ratepayers. On this side we are the party of rate capping and making sure that ratepayers get good value for the services that our local governments offer. This trash policy, the bin collection policy, is something stolen from One Nation in Western Australia. If you are going to steal policies, you can at least be honest with residents on the costs behind them.

That brings me to what consultation should look like and some of the work that I have been doing around this bill in the lead-up to this debate today. I have said on many occasions that my role here is to be the voice of the people in my community of Wyndham, to listen and fight for the changes we need. This Labor government has made it clear that we are taking a new direction on key issues facing our state, including integrity at all levels of government. Local government is so important, and its impact on everyday lives should never be understated. As such, Victorians, particularly people in Wyndham, expect our councils to act with honesty, strong governance and transparency.

Before addressing some of the broader detail of the bill, I want to share how circumstances in my community helped lead to key reforms we are legislating around mayoral positions. Since before being elected I was seeing in my community increasing concern about the governance and actions of councillors in the City of Wyndham. It was clear that some of the decisions being made were not meeting the expectations of all Wyndham residents on both sides of the river: the Kelly Park hall saga, returning state government funding for Wyndham Vale North Reserve, the ratepayer-funded security patrols in Truganina and library opening hours concerns. The correspondence and conversations I have had with the community about a range of curious council decisions have been overwhelming. Throughout all of these issues I worked in government to make sure residents’ voices were heard by both Local Government Victoria and the responsible ministers.

However, there is one decision by a councillor before I was elected that has concerned me and the community the most. Former Liberal candidate, and now former mayor of Wyndham, Preet Singh was revealed, quite possibly by members of his own political party, to have provided a character reference to a person convicted of child sexual abuse. While he tried to apologise for the lack of judgement, there were moments when he further inflamed community concerns by appearing to diminish the offending and pass the community response off as politically charged. On several occasions I stood in this place and called out his inability to read the room. While somewhat delayed, he has finally found his reading glasses and taken a good look around at the damage his staying on as mayor of our city was causing to the reputation of council.

While this was happening, my fellow MPs and I, representing Wyndham, were advocating to government for changes to the law to allow councillors to essentially stand down a mayor or deputy mayor. The reason why we found ourselves in this situation is because of legacy arrangements where we have two-year mayoral terms as defined in the Local Government Act 2020. However, in the City of Wyndham and across many other councils they have moved to only one-year terms for our mayors. The Local Government Act could not be triggered because of that wording.

We were also strong advocates for the appointment of local government monitors to look into the governance of Wyndham City Council. We welcomed the appointment by the minister at the time, the member for Box Hill, of Jim Gifford and Jo-Anne Mazzeo to the role of monitors and the work that has happened since then. We look forward to receiving their independent assessment of the situation and recommendations on how this can be improved.

I want to thank all of those community members who met with me, wrote to me and who I stood with at protests throughout this saga. I would like to take some indulgence and name the amendments regarding mayoral positions in clause 8 the Wyndham amendments, as a reminder of our community’s advocacy to have this change made. These amendments set out a process for councillors to declare a mayor or deputy mayor position vacant, outlining due process for this and making sure that those people who are elected for a term to be the spokespeople of our communities best represent the expectations of that community. I would hope the member for Kew and the Liberal–National opposition support this bill wholeheartedly, in particular these Wyndham amendments. Anything less will show the people of Werribee and our western suburbs that they are happy to see this situation repeat.

This change in clause 8 is one of many this bill goes to in ensuring our local government sector meets community expectations. As has been mentioned by other speakers, it responds to recommendations from IBAC’s Operation Sandon; other government initiatives, including the Whittlesea commission of inquiry; the government’s 2022 commitment to create the local government fair jobs code and the regulator behind that; and it is part of a practical series of reforms to make local government stronger and more accountable. The specific amendments I have gone to are in clause 8, the amendments around the mayoral positions and deputy mayoral positions, but the bill also helps support better council integrity, accountability and governance. It strengthens conflict of interest rules. It improves those councillor conduct processes – something else which Wyndham has seen a lot of recently, with the suspension of our councillors on multiple occasions. It strengthens governance arrangements around CEOs, clarifies operational matters affecting councils and councillors and provides for a local government fair jobs code.

I would like to at this point pause and thank the Australian Services Union for their advocacy in this space. It is so important, when we think about it, when around 54 per cent of local government workers report an increase in insecure work over these past five years. When we talk about consultation and those on the other side talk about consultation with councils, I know I and many of my colleagues on this side have met with many council workers, not only through their advocacy around their enterprise bargaining agreement but also around this local government fair jobs code. I would like to thank the local Wyndham City Council reps who have spoken to me on many occasions about concerns and ways that government can help support workers at Wyndham City Council. And like many others here, I stood just outside in the last sitting week or the week before with local council workers and in fact caught up with a few people who I went to school with, which was rather lovely, and it was good to see that they are involved with the union.

There have also been some house amendments that have been circulated by government. As the minister at the time mentioned, this helps clarify a few different things, particularly around the retrospective application around the private prosecutions issue that we saw particularly play out in the shire of Hepburn recently. Under section 229 of the act, a councillor is automatically stood down when charged with certain serious offences pending the outcome of proceedings. This local government amendment goes to what happens around that process and changes it so that it does not necessarily affect the operations of councils. Several councillors at Hepburn Shire Council – which has been reported quite widely – were stood down at the time around this private prosecution without the intervention of the Director of Public Prosecutions. I thought it was actually a rather interesting process that they used to do that, and credit to them. Councillors would have remained unable to perform their roles, democratically elected by the good people around Daylesford and surrounds to do that job.

These house amendments that the government has circulated address the consequences of those private prosecutions by providing that the automatic standdown provisions will only apply to proceedings for offences commenced by or on behalf of a law enforcement agency and clarifying that the councillor is not to be taken as absent from a council meeting while they are stood down, which would affect other parts in the legislation. If we do not act properly here, there could be delays, particularly around some matters that are before the courts at the moment.

To conclude, this bill puts integrity front and centre. To all of those who have contacted me about this legislation and the effect on Wyndham, thank you. I patiently await the report from the local government monitors at Wyndham, and I look forward to seeing confidence in the governance of our local council improve. The Carroll Labor government knows our local government sector delivers basic services for working people, and we will keep fighting for that.

 Gabrielle DE VIETRI (Richmond) (14:50): I rise to speak on the Local Government Legislation Amendment (Stronger Communities) Bill 2026. The Greens were delighted to hear that Labor said this bill would be addressing integrity issues in local government and acquitting its outstanding items in Operation Sandon. How disappointed we were when we read the fine print to find that it really did nothing of the sort. Operation Sandon was the longest running corruption investigation in Victoria’s history. It found that over a nine-year period, two former Casey council mayors, as well as major parties and their candidates for other levels of government, were paid almost $1.2 million in donations and other payments by developer John Woodman for their support. Among many findings, that IBAC investigation identified that political donations, particularly from high-risk donors like property developers, presented a serious corruption risk in local government given the critical role that they play in planning decisions.

As it stands, there are no caps on the amount that can be donated to a council candidate in Victoria or the amount that they can spend. Lord Mayor of Melbourne Nick Reece received nearly $1 million in donations, including tens of thousands of dollars from donors with property interests and those with pending developments. This is not to say that he has done anything untoward, but at the very least it creates perceptions of conflicts of interest, and it shows how vulnerable councils are to corruption. While other states are looking at further iterations of donations and lobbying laws to protect against corruption in local government, in Victoria we have not even started. If this Labor government were serious about integrity, at a bare minimum they should have introduced donations caps for council candidates that mirrored caps for state elections, introduced real-time donations disclosures and banned donations from high-risk groups like property developers. When this bill was put together, it seems that Labor was still not serious about integrity. That was several weeks ago. Perhaps now under Ben Carroll, the Premier, who is talking a bit more of a big game on integrity, they might choose to support the Greens amendments to this bill, amendments that deal with donations in local government, when we move them in the Legislative Council.

A further glaring omission when it comes to integrity is the failure to address the absurdly undemocratic voting system in the City of Melbourne. Residents get one vote each, while businesses get two votes each, even if they are living interstate or overseas and have never been to Melbourne. Residents make up just 40 per cent of all the votes in the City of Melbourne, with businesses and corporations getting the majority say over what happens there. This bill amends the City of Melbourne Act 2001, and while it is there, it should return it to one resident, one vote, just like every other council. It should also end the automatic enrolment of businesses and nonresidents and ensure that the donation caps and restrictions that I outlined earlier apply in the City of Melbourne as well. We will be introducing amendments in the Council to fix these problems.

A further area of disappointment is the failure to deal with the broken arbitration system. The changes made by this government to the Local Government Act 1989 in 2024 were justified by Labor not only on the basis that they would reduce the number of frivolous code-of-conduct cases but also create stronger protections for councillors experiencing bullying and discrimination. Since then we have seen both inappropriate application of the code of conduct and a total failure of the code to protect councillors from discrimination and bullying. When a complaint is made under the code of conduct, despite the 2024 changes, many essentially go straight to arbitration. Arbiters’ rulings and sanctions have been inconsistent across cases, creating uncertainty for councillors and often disproportionate outcomes.

The parameters of an arbiter are also not well defined. The legislation states that they are free to make their own judgements. There are no guidelines and there is no transparency around how they choose from the suite of penalties that are available to them. Further, code-of-conduct complaints can only be lodged covering a specific instance that has occurred in the last three months, meaning that persistent patterns of behaviour, which we have all heard of in local councils, may not be captured. Behaviours like bullying often occur as a pattern, and the three-month rule stops councillors from being able to provide the context that is often necessary to get a fair decision.

Finally, the appeals process is problematic. In 2024 Labor removed the ability of councillors to appeal an arbitration decision at VCAT. Instead their only option is the Supreme Court. This was one of the many reasons the Greens opposed the 2024 bill. The changes make the appeals process financially out of reach for many councillors, starting at a minimum of around $5000 and ranging to many tens of thousands of dollars at the cost of the applicant. While intended to reduce frivolous appeals, this leads to appeals only being heard for those who can afford them.

These are all issues that we will seek to address in our amendments. This system is stronger when people have confidence in the process. Procedural fairness matters, and if we want the community to have confidence in the councillor conduct system, then councillors need to have confidence that they will be treated fairly within it.

With respect to some of the other changes that this bill makes, we are concerned about the lack of engagement with councils and the local government sector in developing this bill. This includes legislating governance rules that have not yet been written. We strongly support the aims and objectives of the new fair jobs code. Workers deserve security and certainty, and we should be moving away from privatisation and outsourcing. But we acknowledge that there has been concern expressed by some councils about the lack of consultation. As we understand it, all the details are yet to be worked out, and while we have been told that councils will be consulted with, many of them are rightly sceptical given Labor’s terrible track record over recent years when it comes to engagement with councils.

With respect to the issue of councillors who are seeking to run as candidates in state elections, we understand and agree that there need to be guardrails so that someone’s role as a councillor is not leveraged to further their interests as a parliamentary candidate. It certainly seems reasonable that once somebody officially becomes a candidate – that is, when they lodge their nomination with the Victorian Electoral Commission – they should absolutely take leave. However, to require mayors and deputy mayors to stand down when they have declared their intention to run as a candidate is far more open to interpretation and manipulation, and we do not believe the changes that are suggested are in fact justified.

One of the few things that we strongly support in this bill is regarding section 229 of the principal act and closes a loophole in the existing act that created a serious threat to local democracy, as was recently highlighted in Hepburn shire. In 2024 Labor amended the Local Government Act to remove safeguards around the standing down of councillors. The changes meant that any councillor facing a criminal charge, regardless of whether it was initiated by law enforcement or a private citizen, from a certain threshold would automatically be stood down and their allowance suspended. In March this year the mayor of Hepburn shire was automatically stood down under these provisions after a private citizen paid a small fee at the Magistrates’ Court to lodge a private prosecution against him. It was at this time that the minister became aware of the loophole in our laws and the potential risk that existed for other councillors across the state. There was time to introduce a fix then, but the warnings were ignored by the government, and nothing was done. Fast forward a month, and four more of Hepburn shire’s seven councillors were stood down due to the same individual taking out prosecutions against them, while the CEO resigned. This left two councillors unable to make quorum or function as a council. This should have triggered urgent legislation to be brought to the Parliament last sitting week to deal with the situation, and we wrote to both the Premier and the minister offering our support for such an approach. Fortunately, the DPP intervened and dismissed the cases last week, so the councillors have been reinstated, but the stress that they endured could have been avoided. If the process had dragged on, as it may well have done, Hepburn was headed for administration, denying that community their democratically elected representation.

This bill closes that loophole by specifying that only criminal prosecutions initiated by law enforcement agencies and meeting a certain threshold can lead to a councillor being stood down. While there is still time for problems to emerge at other councils given how long it will take for this bill to become law, a fix is in sight. It should not have taken this crisis at Hepburn for this to change though, and the fact that it did, and the broader problems with this bill, speak to the ongoing failure of this Labor government to respect councils as a democratically elected level of government in their own right.

 Nina TAYLOR (Albert Park) (15:01): I am very happy to speak to the house amendments that are essentially seeking to close a loophole and reduce disruption. I will just pick up on a point about our Labor government and the way we engage with local councils. Back in 2022, when the City of Port Phillip sought to close three kindergartens, it was our Labor government that stepped up to save these local services. Through our Building Blocks partnership with the City of Port Phillip we have committed up to $16.5 million to support six projects and up to 307 kindergarten places. The Greens political party are bagging us out on the way we engage with councils, but we provide some pretty significant grants that help to support early childhood education, and I would have thought that that would be an important value to protect, just saying. I did not see them chipping in there. I just thought I should put that out there.

I know that at Eildon Road the renovations are well underway. One little caveat I will put is that I would hate to think that the process of renovating – these refurbishments – would be utilised by the City of Port Phillip in any way to vitiate their responsibilities when it comes to child care. I am not saying they will, but these are just things they might want to be careful about. Hopefully we are steering in the right direction because obviously when we have put forward and are delivering these grants for the local community we expect the council to truly honour that early childhood education and care all the way. If the Greens political party want to throw little bombs our way, they need to take a little bit of care and pay a little attention to detail when it comes to what we provide in terms of pretty significant grants across many fronts – not only early childhood education but many fronts.

Coming back to the house amendments, they are about protecting councils from avoidable disruption, and they are about making sure that private prosecutions cannot be used to throw council governance into chaos. Importantly, these amendments provide for the retrospective operation of reforms to the councillor standdown provisions. There was a particular catalyst involved. The situation was that several councillors at Hepburn Shire Council were recently stood down following private prosecutions brought by a member of the community. Those charges were dismissed after the Director of Public Prosecutions took over the proceedings and reinstated those affected. Without – or but for – the DPP’s intervention, councillors would have remained unable to perform their roles.

What will these house amendments do? The house amendments will address the consequences of private prosecutions by providing that the automatic standdown provisions in section 229(1) of the Local Government Act 2020 will apply only to proceedings for offences commenced by or on behalf of a law enforcement agency and clarifying that a councillor is not to be taken as absent from a council meeting while they are stood down. To address the risk of private prosecutions being brought by individuals before the reforms can come into operation – I am about to speak to the retrospective element – the amendments provide for their retrospective application. Without these arrangements, councillors facing private prosecutions before the bill commences would still be affected by the current standdown provision.

If we do not act properly here, we leave the door open for more disruption in the meantime, and that is certainly counterproductive and really not embodying proper operation of the law. That is exactly why these amendments are needed. It is about making sure standards are applied fairly, properly and in a way that cannot be misused to create dysfunction. So the house amendments are practical, proportionate and necessary, and it is certainly the right and proper thing for us to do, to be putting forward these house amendments. I hope that they are duly embraced by those opposite. It seems, from the tenor of the debate, that there is consensus at least on these matters, though I note that the opposition have a number of other amendments that they are seeking to make. Nevertheless, I do hope that these particular amendments, which are abundantly practical and sensible, will be embraced for all the right reasons.

I did want to pick up on another point made by the member for Caulfield, who covered many issues. It was a wide and far-reaching debate, but I just want to zone in on one point in particular. He was talking I think about the power of councils and planning et cetera, and we have got to cut through and see what is behind that. I think it really was a bit of a smokescreen. It was a smokescreen for, ‘We’re locking down certain suburbs. We’re not touching them. Don’t worry about millennials and beyond and allowing places like Melton and others to carry the load when it comes to expanding housing in our state.’ We know that we certainly do have to think about younger generations, and that is exactly what we are doing, particularly when you think about significant activity centres that are proximate to good public transport and/or sites where we are developing good public transport for all the right reasons. We know that many younger generations, but not exclusively, want in a very pragmatic way to be able to live not too far from where they work and/or they want to be close to accessible transport so that it is as easy as possible, looking at costs et cetera for the daily commute, for them to moderate those costs.

We do have half-price fares. I should note that our government is always thinking about cost-of-living priorities for Victorians. We have half-price fares for the remainder of 2026, but it certainly is a commonsense approach when you are thinking about where people want to live and making sure that they are able to access good public transport. Therefore the corollary of that is the ability to reduce or mitigate congestion on our roads, because we know that the more cars that people take, even if they are electric vehicles – I am a proponent of electric vehicles. I have a hybrid myself, but we know that a vehicle on the road is still adding to congestion, and therefore the more active and public transport that can be encouraged, the better.

Therefore, coming back to the argument about power and councils et cetera, the actual intent of the state government, which is a sound one, is to make sure that we are listening to the needs of Victorians and making sure that they are able to have access to good-quality housing which is proximate to good-quality public transport so that they are not forever reliant on vehicles which add to congestion and therefore also blow out the times for the commute to and from work every day and the other services that they may need. Therefore I think in trying to smear the intent of the state government when it comes to planning and controls with regard to the development of housing now and into the future – it actually has a very sound basis, and it is not about attacking or undermining councils. On the contrary, it is about making sure that we listen to and follow through on the needs of current and future Victorians.

It is all about choice, of course. Victorians can live where they want to. If they want to live further out and have a bigger garden et cetera, that is all fine. I know that where I live, in Southbank, many people are choosing actually to live in smaller properties. They might just have a few plants on the balcony, but they are in very close nexus to local schools, to the arts and to all the good stuff and great public transport. Moving away from this mindset that apartments are sinful and the dregs of the earth to one where they can be quite comfortable living and convenient for people as well would not hurt the opposition – just something to think about. This is broadening out that discussion when it comes not only to obviously the house amendments – which are extremely important, and we can see the catalyst and the very logical solution to close the loophole ‍– but also to the heart of the rationale of what is behind planning controls, which is thinking about fellow Victorians now and into the future.

 Rachel WESTAWAY (Prahran) (15:10): To refer to what the member for Albert Park was talking about in regard to apartments, people over on this side love apartments – no issues whatsoever. We love living in apartments – I live in a townhouse now – and living in the city it is really important. But what we are speaking today about is the Local Government Legislation Amendment (Stronger Communities) Bill 2026. Let me begin where there is common ground. Local government is the tier that is absolutely closest to the people that we serve. It collects the bins, it maintains the parks and it runs the libraries and the maternal and child health services that families in Prahran, in Windsor, in South Yarra, in St Kilda East and in parts of Southbank that I look after rely upon every single day. When integrity fails in local government, public confidence in every level of government is damaged. The Liberals and Nationals do not come to this debate opposed to reform. In fact we absolutely embrace reform. We support proportionate measures that strengthen integrity, transparency and good governance, and we accept that Operation Sandon and the Whittlesea commission of inquiry identified real failings that require a legislative response. Some of what is in this bill is sensible, and frankly it is overdue, but that is not the whole of this bill and that is why we cannot support the bill in its current form.

I want to deal first with the amendments circulated by the government overnight, because they absolutely matter. They do two things. They ensure a councillor who has been stood down is not disqualified from office simply because the standdown kept them from meetings for four consecutive months. More significantly, they remove private prosecutions as a standdown trigger retrospectively so that a councillor stood down because of a vexatious private charge is taken not to have been stood down and is entitled to the allowance withheld from them. The opposition support those amendments, and we welcome them because they are almost word for word the position we have been putting to this government for weeks. We said the prospective operation of this provision was a drafting flaw and that there is no statutory or common-law barrier to Parliament applying it retrospectively to the start of the current council term. The presumption against retrospectivity is a rule of interpretation, not a constitutional limitation. We were told it could not be done. Now it has been done overnight, and I am pleased, but it does rather illustrate that this bill has come to the house before it was ready – no surprise when it comes to my colleagues on the other side.

Hepburn shire was not a hypothetical problem. Five of its seven councillors were stood down on private charges. The council could not function, and the minister was preparing to appoint an administrator. The Director of Public Prosecutions struck those charges out on 5 August but the loophole survived. The same tactics have reportedly been threatened at Latrobe City Council and the Rural City of Ararat. Until this bill passes a person can be removed from an office they are elected to hold by anybody that is willing to file a charge.

That brings me to the heart of our objection. The bill establishes a local government fair jobs code and a fair jobs code regulator. It does not tell this house what the code says. It cannot, because the code has not been written. Members are being asked to legislate a compliance regime, an annual assessment obligation and a public naming power and to take the regulations entirely on trust. We know three things about this code. It received $5.4 million in the 2026–27 budget, without notice to the sector beyond the Australian Services Union. The minister’s own evidence to the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee suggested the sector had not been consulted and the code was yet to be developed. Days later the ASU stated publicly that the code would target outsourcing, labour hire and casualisation. That is not a governance reform, that is an industrial relations intervention designed elsewhere and delivered through a bill about council integrity.

The evidence base does not support it. Municipal Association of Victoria survey data across 54 ‍councils shows permanent ongoing staff average 75 per cent of the workforce, and 92 per cent of councils exceed national benchmarks for long-serving employees. Commonwealth Fair Work protections already cover job security and casual employment arrangements, and the people who will pay are the ratepayers. That is you and I. That is the people of Prahran. If contracted services in waste collection, leisure centres and maintenance are forced back in-house and costs rise, under rate capping, when costs rise and revenue does not, services will be cut. Regional and rural councils already carrying the sharpest workforce pressures will feel it first and worst, and the small family businesses holding those contracts may simply lose their work. Meanwhile the person carrying personal responsibility for compliance is the council CEO, who cannot delegate it and who cannot be publicly named for failing a standard that has not yet been written. The fair jobs code is the most egregious example. It is not the only one. The mandatory model governance rules were developed under non-disclosure agreements and have not been released to the sector or the public at this point in time. One set of rules is to apply to 79 councils, from the City of Melbourne to Buloke shire.

The CEO employment framework is the same story. Greater consistency is broadly supported, but the technical working group has not yet been formed. On conflict of interest, a CEO must report on apparent councillor breaches to the chief municipal inspector, with no requirement to investigate first and no guidance on vexatious reports. That places a matter of political judgement on the administrator and blurs the very lines this bill is trying to sharpen. And ‘council’s premises’ is not defined – not here and not in the principal act – so a council candidate on leave could be caught by an offence carrying 120 penalty units for taking their child to a council library.

The candidate leave provisions go directly to my electorate. The principle is sound – once a person is formally nominated for Parliament, they should not simultaneously exercise public office, draw the allowance that comes with it and campaign for another job. The minister has described that separation as essential and as longstanding best practice. I absolutely agree with him. What I cannot reconcile is why a safeguard the minister calls essential does not apply to the very next election, at which it could absolutely operate. These provisions apply only when election day falls on or after 1 January 2027, that is, after the next state election. In Prahran the Labor candidate is Meghan Hopper, presently the Como ward councillor at the City of Stonnington. Labor has promoted her in both capacities, and she is serving as a councillor and a candidate for Parliament at exactly the same time, which is precisely the arrangement this bill says must end. Labor have brought this forward, and yet they are not prepared to do it until after the election.

This makes no criticism of Meghan Hopper personally. That is from me. I do not criticise her personally. She is doing nothing the law prohibits. That is exactly my point. The government has written the rule, declared it essential and then set a commencement date so that it does not bind the government’s own candidates at an election in front of us. It has left the people of Prahran in an absolutely precarious position. Here we have a local Labor councillor in Stonnington City Council voting on the Labor congestion levy to increase parking fees, implement a paid parking permit system in the City of Stonnington and fund the Labor government’s congestion levy. It is extraordinary – and she stays silent on inappropriate development that the Carroll government’s activity centres are having on our local area. Furthermore, where is her opposition to the unregulated tobacco shops absolutely littered along Chapel Street? That regulation is the responsibility of the Carroll Labor government, and unfortunately while you have got a Labor councillor that is currently also a Labor candidate it is hugely problematic.

We have not simply come here to criticise. The Shadow Minister for Local Government has introduced the Local Government Amendment (Stability of Councils) Bill 2026, and that bill keeps what the sector supports: the improved process for declaring the office of mayor or deputy mayor vacant, the technical corrections to the standdown framework, the continuity of arbiters and conduct panel members whose appointments expire mid-proceeding and the increased differential ratio for the City of Melbourne so it can act on derelict properties. That is a better bill, and it is before Parliament today.

 Nathan LAMBERT (Preston) (15:20): I also rise to speak on the Local Government Legislation Amendment (Stronger Communities) Bill 2026 and the circulated amendments, and particularly, if I can, on those parts of the bill that enhance of course the integrity of our system and also those that deal with CEO appointments and with the important issue of council rates. But as we just heard from the member for Prahran, people have taken this opportunity to, I suppose, speak quite broadly about the importance of local council and also the way in which local council and state government work together, and I do want to perhaps make my case for supporting this bill in exactly the same terms. I think all of us in this place have our first and foremost responsibility to the local communities that we represent. And of course, as all of us who do that know – I know many MPs here, particularly on our side, do that very well, and I am looking across at some of them now – doing so requires working so very closely with local government. And in fact many, many of the things you are trying to achieve you can only achieve when you have a good local government that works well and a local government that can make good decisions. And unfortunately, even in my own experience so far and certainly in my observations, that is simply not always the case.

We have been fortunate in Darebin council, which is our local council, that after the 2024 council elections we saw a real improvement in governance and decision-making across council, and that has really allowed us to get a lot of projects done that are very important to people locally in the community. We are working at the moment together to provide some funding to upgrade Gellibrand Crescent Kindergarten, a very longstanding kindergarten up in the Merrilands area that we are looking to expand because of the changing demographics in that part of Reservoir. We also hope once that work is done to work together with council to further upgrade JS Grey Kindergarten in West Preston for similar reasons. We work very closely with council on urban greenery, which I think is a really important agenda in our part of the world. People would like to see more trees, more vegetation, particularly across those parts of Preston and Reservoir that are currently relatively sparse compared to the metropolitan average. We have some great work that Minister Dimopoulos in a former role set in train, where we are planting a thousand trees across Preston and Reservoir, but that has required working very closely of course with council on the land, the locations and the maintenance. And there is also some work that is being undertaken at the moment with Melbourne Water on the Regent linear reserve. There has been a longstanding challenge in that region, part of Reservoir and Preston, that there has been this reserve there that has simply got nothing on it largely, except for sort of unmown introduced grasses. We are very hopeful that between Melbourne Water and council we can actually get some planting going there. But again, that is part of the important work that we as local representatives try and do with council.

Many people in this place will be familiar with the challenge that we need to work very closely with council on road safety, and often when we are doing so we are working on intersections that literally bring together state roads and council roads in the same intersection. We have a somewhat infamous example, which is the Boldrewood–Broadway roundabout in Reservoir East – unfortunately a very poorly designed roundabout. If we had our time again, we would design it very differently. It has got two lanes. It has got five entries. It is an absolute mess. Three of the roads going into it are council roads and two going into it are state government roads, so we are working closely with council at the moment not only on applying the school zone there, which has improved the safety, but now trying to get some electronic signs up and going so that people who come to the intersection who do not know it as well – and local residents know it very well – recognise that there is in fact a school zone across that particular intersection that we are working with council on.

We are also very pleased to receive some funding to upgrade AG Davis reserve, which is, again, a project that is going to be partly funded by council and partly funded by our Victorian state government. We are still working through some of the details of that upgrade, particularly the need for some shade sails there. It is just another example of the many, many local projects that we need to work together on. As a state government we are collaborating actually in this case with the federal government to put in some significant new social housing at 61 Johnson Street. This is a topic we have discussed extensively with the community. But even a project like that, which is a federal government project, requires us to work with council on the parking arrangements and the local roads, which again are their responsibility.

We are also working on some matters to do with Darebin Community Sports Stadium and the maintenance there. We have somehow ended up in a slightly unusual situation where the Victorian government owns the asset – it is on Department of Education land and we own the building – but Darebin council is responsible for the maintenance. I think some further work is being done and needs to be done to get those maintenance arrangements right at that stadium. We do have a problem for some of the people playing sport there at the moment where some of the ceiling insulation is actually falling onto the courts. As you would well imagine, if you are playing any sort of sport that requires moving around quickly, as most sports do – a lot of basketball is played there – it is a huge problem to have parts of the insulation in the building falling onto the ground. We hope again to work closely with council to see some improvements there. I know Luke Van Rijn and everyone at the Darebin Basketball Association in particular are keen to see some further expansion of that facility beyond maintenance. That will certainly be a matter we will have to work closely with local council on. There is an interesting idea actually that they may want to build a new basketball facility down at TW Blake reserve, which we would really welcome.

We are currently in the process of expanding Preston High to a second campus. The location for that will be on Cramer Street on what was formerly Melbourne Polytechnic land. But again there is a real challenge there: if we are going to get that building right, particularly if we are going to provide the students of that new campus with safe pedestrian and cycling access and also access to the oval and the playground that are there, we will have to work very closely with council to ensure that we maintain the open space and the land corridors needed to provide that access. There will be a need for conversations between Melbourne Polytechnic, Development Victoria, Preston High and Darebin council to get that right. It is an important issue we look forward to working closely with council on.

As you would know, Acting Speaker, the bill also touches on rates, and I would just like to briefly note that this is an area of important consideration – just how we set up rates. A lot of people think a lot about economic inequality, which is a very important topic in our society. Most of the levers that go to income inequality are levers that the federal government has. But I do not think it should be underrated that council rates, as a broad-based land taxation system, are actually really important for inequality. I know something we have spoken to previous ministers about is just whether those arrangements could be more progressive and particularly whether there is an opportunity with vacant land taxes to allow councils, as we do at a state government level, to levy those differential vacant rates on buildings that are not being used. As you would probably know, Acting Speaker, from your own experience, at the moment councils can apply differential rates to vacant properties, but it is a very old-fashioned taxation arrangement. The only way that they can know that a property is vacant is if it is literally a vacant bit of land that they can drive past and see has no buildings on it.

When we look at how the vacant residential land tax is done at a state level, we now have a much more sophisticated approach where the State Revenue Office have access to utilities data and things like that, so they can see when a building is not being used. Certainly something that has been talked about and I think has got some real merit in this space is whether or not we allow councils access to the same system. I know right across Preston and Reservoir there are many buildings sitting very obviously unused. It really frustrates people when they are commercial buildings on High Street. I do not have to think very hard to think of the huge one just up from our office on the corner of Bell and High streets that is just sitting there at the moment providing nothing but a home for pigeons and rats. We would love to see that be put to better use. Allowing council to levy a vacant rate on that would hopefully encourage those landowners to think a little bit more about possibly either developing it themselves or alternatively, if they do not feel they want to, selling it to someone who has the opportunity to do so. There are a whole lot of spaces where I am so pleased to see that we as a government are moving on rates reform, and I certainly commend the components that are here in the bill before us on exactly that front.

Then of course there is the integrity stuff. The member for Werribee is here, and I thought he spoke very well to what I believe he called the Wyndham amendments. I will not cover that territory except to say of course, as the Premier has made very clear, that integrity is absolutely vital in politics. It is vital to us locally in Preston and Reservoir. There are some allegations that sometimes fly around on social media – we probably all get them as MPs – that apparently we are all corrupt. I certainly say and put on the record in the chamber that we do not take donations from anyone seeking to influence government. In fact locally our campaign team do not take any donations except from our friends, our family and from local Labor Party members. I can say on a personal note that I do not own any property except for the house that is our residential home. I have never owned an investment property in my life. I have certainly never taken money from a businessperson for the purpose of influencing anything ‍– not a gift or anything like that. I do not own any financial assets except for our family home. We certainly think integrity is very important in our local campaign, as it is important at a local council level. For that reason I will commend this bill, particularly those measures that enhance integrity, to the house.

 Kim O’KEEFFE (Shepparton) (15:30): I rise to speak and make a contribution on the Local Government Legislation Amendment (Stronger Communities) Bill 2026. The bill specifically seeks to increase the integrity and governance standards of local councils across the state by implementing recommendations from the Operation Sandon report and the Whittlesea commission of inquiry; improving the operation of the Local Government Act 2020; enabling the establishment of a local government fair jobs code and a framework for monitoring and enforcing compliance with the code by council chief executive officers, being the CEOs; and amending the City of Melbourne Act 2001 to increase the ratio between the lowest and highest differential rates for the City of Melbourne.

As someone who served six years in local government, including four years as mayor of Greater Shepparton City Council, I have seen firsthand the importance of ensuring good governance and integrity. Councillors must be held to the highest accountability and expectations. I have also seen the importance of working with the three tiers of government, advocating for your communities and ensuring that state, federal and local government have a really great synergy. I saw the impact that that has on their communities.

It is also worth mentioning, while I think of it, that the Greater Shepparton City Council will be in Parliament House next sitting week, showcasing our amazing region and all the industries and businesses. It is an opportunity to really showcase who we are to the Parliament and visitors coming in during the next sitting week. I encourage everyone in the house to make sure they attend that.

I also understand from local government the opportunities and the challenges that councils can face every day. Local government is the level of government closest to the community. Victorians rightly expect their councils to be well managed, financially responsible and focused on delivering outcomes for local communities. It is where residents often turn to, and strong communities rely on strong local government. Too often we see disruption in councils, and at times councillor issues and behaviours have a significant impact on the council and the broader community.

We must do all we can to ensure that local government does function well and that those given the privilege of being elected representatives of their communities act with the highest level of integrity and in a respectful way but are also supported. It is really important. I did often see firsthand in-house bullying with councillors or the breakdown of relationships. We need to make sure that local government has the measures in place and has the legislation at its fingertips so that that can be managed. It can be a harsh environment when you go into public life, as we all know in this place, but with the role comes an enormous responsibility to the people you serve, something that should never be taken for granted or compromised. Victorians deserve local governments delivering for the people. As we have seen from previous incidents and cases, when governance failures and corruption are brought into the public spotlight, it has a ripple effect on the community and erodes that trust people have in local government and their councillors.

I have two councils in my electorate: Greater Shepparton City Council and Moira Shire Council. With both councils I have a great working relationship. Back in March 2023 the Moira shire councillors were all sacked. At the time this took place there was no doubt there were very serious issues that had to be dealt with, and severe consequences. The community will be left without councillor representatives in Moira shire until 2028, another two years away, in line with the next local government elections. This decision has had an enormous impact on the community, and I know firsthand how much the support of local councillors on the ground means to the locals. It is because of these circumstances and failings that change needs to happen so that this does not happen again.

It is important to acknowledge all the work that the current Moira shire CEO Matt Morgan and the administrators are doing. Having no councillors is a huge gap. I must say that having fly-in administrators who move to a community where they have no connections or history in the town is challenging and also really frustrating for the community. Local government is the level of government, as I have said, closest to the community. The community want to know their local councillors, and they want their local councillors to represent them. There is a reason why we have elected representatives voted in by the people, and it is a shame that the democratic right has been taken away from the people of the Moira shire. It should never get to that, and change is needed.

There was another recent incident where, as we know, municipal monitors were appointed to Wyndham City Council after its former mayor refused to resign despite a unanimous vote of no confidence from fellow councillors. It was clearly a debacle. There needed to be procedures in place that were not there. The community deserved better.

There clearly need to be better processes in place, but we also must have the right protections in place for councillors. The councillor code of conduct has had some serious weaknesses, which during my time in local government I saw firsthand and which caused some significant issues amongst the councillors and the staff. But I do want to acknowledge the many wonderful councillors who do the right thing and who work tirelessly for their communities. We need more suitable people in local government. We need more local community champions that want to come into that space.

A change that did happen in the Greater Shepparton City Council at the last election was that they went to single-member wards, which I feel has not worked well. In two of the wards we only had one candidate, which gave one choice for those wards. Hopefully the result that came from that election will encourage others, because there was a huge amount of feedback, with the community being unhappy with not having choice at that election.

In regard to the bill, both the IBAC’s Operation Sandon in its special report and the Commission of Inquiry into the Whittlesea City Council found a number of deficiencies in council processes. Operation Sandon investigated corrupt conduct involving property developers, councillors and council officers, primarily at the City of Casey. IBAC’s 2022 report made 34 recommendations to strengthen local government integrity and accountability, most of which have already been implemented. The bill implements the remainder, covering mandatory model governance rules, CEO employment arrangements, strengthened conflict-of-interest reporting and enhanced principal councillor conduct registrar reporting. One recommendation not implemented is a ban on political donations. The Whittlesea commission of inquiry, established in 2025 following the return of elected councillors after four years under administration, examined governance, the councillor code of conduct, the CEO role and legislative framework at Whittlesea. It made 17 recommendations, 13 directed at the Victorian government, covering mayoral accountability, councillor code of conduct, CEO arrangements and legislative reform. The government says the bill gives effect to several of these, including the process for declaring a mayoral or deputy mayoral vacancy. New governance rules strengthen CEO arrangements and expand dispute resolution.

We broadly support the governance and integrity reforms arising from Operation Sandon and the Whittlesea commission of inquiry where they clearly strengthen transparency, accountability and local government. However, several provisions in the bill will only be operationalised by ministerial regulation and risk harming council CEOs, councillors, small business and ratepayers. Chief among these are the local government fair jobs code and regulator, which present a major cost-of-living risk for ratepayers and open the door to weakening the rate-capping regime that protects against rate hikes. The government is establishing the legislative framework for the code and regulator before consulting the sector or realising the regulations it will enforce. CEOs will be responsible for compliance subject to annual assessments, with the regulator able to investigate and publicly name noncompliant CEOs. No independent sector-wide evidence supports the government’s insecure work rationale. The Municipal Association of Victoria’s survey data across 54 councils shows permanent, ongoing staff average 75 per cent of the workforce, with 92 per cent of councils exceeding national benchmarks for long-serving employees, and existing Commonwealth Fair Work protections already cover job security and casual arrangements. The code could force contracted services back in-house, undermining service delivery in areas like waste and leisure and raising costs for ratepayers while exposing CEOs to public naming for noncompliance they cannot delegate. Regional and rural councils face the sharpest impact, given existing workforce pressures, and consultation to date appears to have favoured unions over local government and industry peak bodies.

Another amendment the bill seeks to enact is regarding the employment and performance management of a council CEO. It is one of the most important decisions that a council can make, and it is incredibly important that councils approach this responsibly with the attention and detail it deserves but also while having the appropriate independent oversight mechanisms in place to support sound decision-making.

Another aspect of the bill I will briefly touch on that I would like to speak to from personal experience is around some amendments the bill makes regarding when a councillor stands for election in this place. Like me, there are often members that have come to this place from local government. I feel that it was a really great grounding before I came into state government. The bill attempts to deal with introducing a requirement for councillors to take a leave of absence when nominating for Victorian state elections, something which has been best practice for managing conflicting duties and ensuring that there is a clear separation between the role of a councillor and of a candidate.

I did this when I ran for state Parliament four years ago. At the time I was serving as mayor of Greater Shepparton City Council. In announcing my intention to stand for office in this place as the member for Shepparton I resigned as mayor and took a leave of absence, because it was the right thing to do. I really think when you have a conflict as mayor and you are wearing that hat it is difficult to wear two hats. It is important that we have correct measures in place so the council can manage that, because the community have a very high expectation that when a mayor is representing their community they should not be running around campaigning and advocating. They must be very, very clear of their position at that time. I support the amendments to the bill.

 Lily D’AMBROSIO (Mill Park) (15:40): I am pleased to add my comments to this important bill, the Local Government Legislation Amendment (Stronger Communities) Bill 2026. The bill sets out to continue to provide the changes needed so that communities can have confidence in the way that their local government operates and represents their needs and their interests. From time to time we will have bills such as this one presented. Importantly, I rise because my community in Whittlesea had a commission of inquiry into the behaviours, if you like, of one councillor in particular who was also mayor at the time, but also other matters to do with the administration of the council.

There are many other reforms in this bill that arise from other inquiries, including Operation Sandon and the special report that came out of that, and the government’s commitment to creating a local government fair jobs code and regulator. All of these things touch on very critical issues of accountability and expectations around how councils – local government – are to function within a modern frame of understanding and expectations by Victorians.

Councils, we note, shape the everyday lives of Victorians through the services that they provide. They manage significant sums of money that are collected through annual rates. Victorians quite rightly expect councils to operate with honesty, transparency and strong governance. I do want to note the fact that I know that councils have worked very hard, as a general rule, as a level of government over the years to improve training for councillors to ensure that they come to their elected positions with a clear understanding of what we mean by ethics and ethical behaviour and how they can avoid putting themselves in very compromised situations, sometimes simply by wanting to do the right thing. There are stringent conditions around how to manage conflict-of-interest rules; improve councillor conduct processes; strengthen governance arrangements around the CEOs, because they too can sometimes fall short of what communities expect; and support better council integrity, accountability and governance all round. Importantly, the bill does provide for a local government fair jobs code and establishes a regulatory framework for that code.

There are various other amendments that are being made, as the bill makes very clear. I do want to go to issues that occurred in the City of Whittlesea. Sadly, the recent history of the City of Whittlesea has seen the council dismissed after an investigation and report by Yehudi Blacher, a well-regarded senior public servant who was recently retired at that point. The council was dismissed for about four years in late 2020. Democracy was restored, if you like, as part of the regular council elections that were held in October 2024. During that time the work of the commissioners was pretty thorough to ensure that they were able to get the council administration to a point where ratepayers and residents were confidently able to vote and see a new group of people come in in October 2024.

However, sometimes individuals themselves can foul the nest, if I may say that. Unfortunately we had a situation where, as a result of those elections, a mayor was appointed by the councillors by the name of Cr Aidan McLindon, who within a very, very short period of time decided that he was best off to represent the good people of Werribee at the time from the position of mayor and councillor in the outer northern suburbs of Melbourne. That did not go down very well at all with the local community ‍– a community who had only a few months before then actually elected a new batch of councillors with a lot of promise from this particular councillor and mayor. The behaviour of this mayor knew no rhyme or reason. He was a person who put himself first and thought that he could very much plug into what was going on in Werribee. We then had a situation where the councillors with the laws that existed then were able to and did in fact pass a unanimous motion of no confidence in the mayor. I really want to commend each and every one of them, from a whole variety of political persuasions, who understood the gravity of the situation that they were faced with. What happened after that, of course, was that another review was done – a commission of inquiry yet again into Whittlesea. What was found and reported to the Minister for Local Government was that some very serious problems and behaviours had occurred. Further reforms were accepted by way of recommendations to the government, and they are contained in this bill.

Perhaps if I can just go to those particular matters, the laws that were somewhat deficient are now going to be addressed. For example, the bill that we have in front of us enables a council to declare vacant the office of the mayor or deputy mayor where that person was elected for a one-year term, and that is to deal with the very problems that we have seen. This reform gives councils that clarity and flexibility in being able to manage leadership positions when confidence has broken down. I say this advisedly: you had a unanimous vote of no confidence by all of the remaining councillors who passed judgement on one person who was absolutely bringing the City of Whittlesea and its ratepayers into disrepute. They had very limited ways of being able to manage the mayor and the conduct of the mayor, which very clearly blurred the roles and mixed up the loyalties, if you like, of the mayor at the time. I am pleased that the government has introduced these reforms that strengthen local government by supporting continuity and proper governance arrangements and clarify the effect of a councillor being stood down under the act. That continues on throughout this bill. But I do sound a cautionary note that, with the acceptance of the commission of inquiry by this government, a monitor was put back into the City of Whittlesea and they are under notice. Every single one of them is under notice and under watch until at least, I would say, the end of this year. I certainly want to comment on the fact that the councillors and the administration seem to be working more clearly within what is expected in terms of the scope of transparency, good governance and ethical behaviour. That is squarely about representing the interests of local ratepayers and not potential voters on the other side of Melbourne, which is probably about 50 kilometres away. It is very important for the community for us to have delivered this.

With the very little time that I have left, I do want to commend the minister for the fine work that he has undertaken to bring this legislation and also the house amendments. He has worked very, very quickly to be able to deal with some matters that have recently arisen that have caused concern to local communities, and that is around several councillors’ behaviour at the Hepburn Shire Council. This is very important because, again, it is about using the opportunities that are within this Parliament to act quickly to restore integrity.

 Richard RIORDAN (Polwarth) (15:50): I rise this afternoon to talk about the Local Government Legislation Amendment (Stronger Communities) Bill 2026. In speaking on this bill I make the observation that the three councils that sit proudly under the watchful eye of the Polwarth electorate have not exactly been particularly happy with some of the proposed changes in this bill. They have each reached out to me in recent weeks saying they understand why some of these changes are being proposed following on from some of the government inquiries, at Whittlesea and Operation Sandon and others. There is always a need to make sure that when we have inquiries there is some follow-up and some changes are made. But an observation I would make on the operation of councils over recent years is we often talk in this place about how local government is the closest form of government to the community, and that is very true.

There is no doubt that good councils with good councillors provide often a very good service and great representation to their communities. I would say in their defence that Surf Coast shire mayor Cr Libby Stapleton, Colac Otway mayor Cr Jason Schram and mayor Kate Makin in Corangamite shire do a great job representing their communities, and I give the three of them a shout-out. I have managed in my job to maintain good relations with those three representatives. We have regular meetings and contact, and it is an important role that they play. They are at the coalface on many of the minute issues that happen from time to time but at the end of the day, particularly in regional communities, are very, very important issues. Those three mayors and their CEOs approached me and said, ‘Look, we’re happy to accept some of the changes, but once again this seems like state government overstep.’ It is the state government actually trying to busy itself in the operations of these local communities and wanting to have more control, ultimately, over how they operate.

My three shires look after one of Victoria’s busiest visitor areas, that being the Great Ocean Road. When you have your population many, many, many times over double and quadruple over a few months period, you cannot possibly be expected to do that with your normal, run-of-the-mill staff. With the demands that visitors from all over Australia and the world make when they come to our part of the Great Ocean Road, the community still needs to provide some basic services, but that cannot be done all year round. Communities like Lorne and Apollo Bay, for example, sit in their off-peak seasons perhaps in Lorne’s case at 900-odd people and in Apollo Bay’s case at maybe 1200 or 1500 people. Those communities balloon out to many tens of thousands of people over peak periods, and so a good council will need a flexible workforce. They will need to have arrangements in place where they can scale up and scale down, and there is a real concern amongst those municipalities that the local government fair jobs code and the associated bureaucracy – really only a 12-year-old Victorian Labor government could dream up the level of bureaucracy – to match a new regulator are really quite a costly, burdensome imposition on a system that most of the community does not believe is broken.

The desire of those communities to be able to flex basic services – waste, rubbish collection, cleaning up after major events and operating extra services over peak periods are all pretty normal, run-of-the-mill types of operations that the community and ratepayers would expect their council to operate with. Yet this government is saying to them, ‘Well, hang on a minute, we’ve done a backroom deal with the Australian Workers’ Union and we’re going to sit in the back blocks and we’re going to sort of force employment options onto you, so we’re going to tell you how and when and why you’re going to employ people and how much you’re going to pay them and how you’re going to operate.’ Unfortunately, if we look at the model that most councils have been forced to offload in our communities, and that is around many of the aged care services, with changes to aged care reform, many of our councils provided those services but it had just become too cost prohibitive. So one of the problems that we are finding in more remote regional communities is that it is a real struggle to find the workforce to provide those services, because the council operating structures, which are so much more burdensome than many other service providers, just are not able to necessarily provide the workforce at a cost that the community is prepared to bear.

One of the concerns I have about this is where the state government finds itself in a position where it wants to force a cost structure and an operating structure onto, at times, very small councils. I mean, Corangamite shire, at around 15,000 people, Colac Otway at around 20,000 and Surf Coast at around 25,000 people, are relatively very small municipalities that have very big flexing up responsibilities at certain times of the year. And the rest of the year they simply cannot afford some of the cost implications that a bill like this is likely to force upon them. So that has been one of the main concerns, and it is a shame that the government has not seen fit to separate out the two issues, because it is important, as I said in my opening comments, that the opportunity for reforms around Operation Sandon and the Whittlesea commission of inquiry come before this Parliament and get sorted out. Operation Sandon, of course, has been going on forever – since 2022, since the last election – and here we are at the death knell of this current Parliament and we are finally getting some action on it at a parliamentary level. So it is important, but it is a shame that this Parliament again is having to deal with a bill that is neither one thing nor the other, and it is mixing good and bad. It is mixing oil and water. It is creating a situation that many of us just cannot support because it is going to deliver perverse, unintended consequences. It is disappointing that, when you talk to the Municipal Association of Victoria and you talk to other interest groups in local government, they have all pointed this out to the government, which has been slow to pick it up.

We accept that this bill that is presented today is the first bill of a new minister, and I understand that he has been attempting to listen to the concerns from the industry and others, both in this house and the other, to see what we can do. So there are some amendments being proposed, but the opposition cannot see a reason why the local government fair jobs code and regulator cannot be dealt with separately to some of the other proposed changes in this bill.

Just as a more general rule when we talk about local councils, it is certainly my experience, in dealing with local councils now for quite some time, that they operate at their best and they provide the best services to the community when the local skills and expertise of the councillors from the community have an opportunity to operate at their best, and increasingly we have seen a dilution of influence of local councillors. We have seen government continually put restrictions and controls over the way councils operate, and I have always been very firmly of the view that, like all democracies, those that get elected rise and fall on the decisions that they make and the way they conduct themselves and how well they relate to and communicate with their community. I have often felt that we regularly try and bring regulation into local government that speaks to the worst performers rather than the best performers.

I would have to say at the moment that across my local councils, while many ratepayers might have their particular views on the wise operation or other of some councils, by and large they do a pretty good job. They manage to keep the three councils in Polwarth operating quite functionally, but they are regularly hamstrung in the decisions they can make and in the way they liaise and communicate and work with their community simply because at some point in the past some councillor somewhere in the state has behaved poorly or badly and, as a result, the government has tweaked and changed and restricted all councillors’ ability to communicate with their ratepayers. I think that is actually not the best outcome. I have a view that where possible we should embrace the councils that we have, allow them to function operationally and hold them to account at election.

 Mathew HILAKARI (Point Cook) (16:00): I would never accuse the member for Polwarth of fake news, but I wish Hutch Hussein all the best in the upcoming election. The reason I do so is because the member of Polwarth seems to have missed a really significant problem in his community. He lauded Colac Otway council as having no issues at all – no issues ever, totally fine, ‘Nothing to see here’ – except on 31 January 2025 the monitor’s report for that council landed. And what did they say? This is from the monitor’s report:

In summary I observed the following:

A lack of understanding and/or acceptance by Councillors of their role, with Councillors focused primarily on operational rather than strategic matters.

Richard Riordan interjected.

Mathew HILAKARI: I notice the member for Polwarth is keen to interrupt because it goes counter to exactly what he said a few moments ago. He said, ‘Nothing to see here. All my councillors are great. They’re going wonderfully. This is other people’s problems.’ It also says:

A failure by Councillors to fulfil their roles as leaders and stewards of the organisation …

A culture of mistrust, blame and on occasion hostility, with very low to no trust existing between Councillors –

the member for Polwarth thought it was all a CEO problem; it does not sound like it, not according to the monitor –

some Councillors and the CEO, Councillors and Council staff, and Council and the community – resulting in dysfunctional relationships, inappropriate behaviour and poor governance

Oh dear, that is a little bit embarrassing, isn’t it? I will continue:

A lack of accountability –

again, the member for Polwarth interrupted to say it was all a problem with the CEO –

Councillors were unable or unwilling to hold their peers to account in a constructive way, enabling poor, and in some cases harmful, behaviour to occur

Remember, this is all a CEO issue – definitely the CEO! – except according to the monitor who provided this report. It continues:

Poor decision making and delegation practices contributing to poor outcomes and inadequate risk management

I wonder what that is all about. I look forward to reading the rest of the report later. It continues:

Breaches of Council’s governance framework including obligations outlined in legislation …

Richard Riordan interjected.

Mathew HILAKARI: I cannot believe you are lauding this council, member for Polwarth. I cannot believe the member for Polwarth is interjecting and was lauding this council in his speech – you can check Hansard in a moment – when this says:

Poor decision making and delegation practices …

Breaches of Council’s governance framework …

A failure to exercise Council’s obligation as an employer …

I will just take a moment to talk about councils as employers. Of course we should talk to the ASU, the appropriate union that supports workers, because sometimes the leadership at council, both councillors and the CEO, get it wrong, so they need a robust, supportive union. I note the member for Polwarth is walking out of the chamber now. He has had enough. Number 8:

A lack of understanding and/or concern in relation to the financial management of the organisation …

Well, there we go. That is what good governance looks like, according to the member for Polwarth. It is all the CEO’s fault – except when it is all the councillors’ fault. It is all about the community, except for the poor relationship that they had with the community. This is a community – and I do not know if the member for Polwarth got this right – of over 22,000 residents. They deserve a good council. They deserve a bill like this to pass through this Parliament, and they deserve the amendments which the minister has fortunately put together in a very timely manner. They deserve that because we deserve good governance at our councils.

By the way, the member for Polwarth said there is very little need for monitors and overadministration and a total burden on ratepayers. Well, five of 79 councils are currently under monitoring, and 17 of 79 were previously under monitors. That is 22 out of 79. Let that sink in for a second. That is more than a quarter of councils requiring monitors. That is a big deal, and that goes to all communities, not just metropolitan councils. It goes to all communities across the state, and Colac Otway council is a good example of it.

Now I would like to talk about the community that I represent. Both the councils, over the term of Parliament that I have been elected as a member, have been under monitors, and for good reason, Wyndham particularly so. I want to talk a little bit about Wyndham. Over the course of this term of Parliament, Wyndham City Council has transferred $36 million in developer contributions out of the area that those were produced in. That means householders in the community that I represent have had funds – money that has been delivered to build the sporting facilities, to build the swimming pools, to upkeep the area and make sure we have an even greater community than we have today – taken by council across to another part of the municipality.

I do not mind that councils make good decisions about the needs of particular parts of communities, but I do mind if they take developer contributions, because developer contributions absolutely should be spent in the community that collects them on the resources and facilities that they need to make our communities even greater than they are today. This $36 million of developer contributions, the only reason that it had the opportunity to be taken from our community is because some of it was collected 30 years ago. The law has changed since then, and for good reason: to prevent exactly this. Why was it that this $36 million was not a going political concern for the last 30 years? Because the budgets that are provided by Wyndham City Council are so opaque. There is a line item called ‘Reserves’ and it has over $3.7 billion in it. The notes to their budget talk about how it is mainly developer contributions, and of course that $36 million got lost in that. Of course they never extrapolated that out, unlike state government budgets, which go through all manner of projects and time out when they are due and when they need to be delivered and even look at the out years – because I know a member might raise this in just one moment – so we can account for the projects that we do. We set that out on a yearly basis for the forward estimates and beyond. This $36 million got lost behind the couch, according to the council, and suddenly they found it, and suddenly they decided with a change of the council to spend it somewhere else, not in the community that I represent, not in the community that put together those contributions as part of the developer contributions.

What does it mean in a practical sense? It means no pool in Point Cook of course, because if they spent the money at that time, they could have built a pool. It means that we are 12 basketball courts short in just the suburb of Point Cook alone. That means kids over at Eagle Stadium in Werribee have a 500-person waitlist just to play basketball. It means kids in the Altona Sports Centre have shortened games. What does that mean for the community that I represent? It means young people with not as much to do. It means young people not working in a team sport. It means young people without access to wonderful mentors who are coaching or referees who are setting norms of behaviour. So it goes deeper than just being able to play basketball on the weekend or other affiliated sports; it goes to how our community progresses.

I did have Wyndham council in this Parliament appearing in front of the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee some time ago, and at that point I did ask the CEO and the then deputy mayor, who has just announced that he will be resigning next year, what they had spent on IT processes, and they could not tell me. They could tell me all manner of things. They could tell me that the cost estimates that I had were wrong, but they could not tell me the actual cost to the community of these IT services. The real problem was not that they escalated in costs and that they had to cancel the contract and do another contract. That was not actually the real problem. The real problem was they were never up-front with their community about what had happened and it was hidden away in their budgets. Still today we do not know how much Wyndham council has spent on these IT processes. Good IT processes? Sure, but it should not have cost tens of millions of dollars on the way through and certainly should have been disclosed to the community. This is the sort of bill that helps to bring about some of the reforms that are required.

I also want to acknowledge the member for Werribee’s declaration, in the limited time that I have left, that the Wyndham amendment is part of this bill, which relates to how you get rid of your mayor or deputy mayor when they have lost the confidence of the council. This is an important thing for the community that I represent. All of the councillors barring one, the mayor himself, said that that mayor should go because of his behaviour, and eventually he did after a long community campaign supported by the member for Werribee and supported by others. Eventually he did go, but he should have gone straightaway. This bill strengthens our accountabilities and our governance at councils. I do commend this bill to the house, and I look forward to its speedy passage.

 Peter WALSH (Murray Plains) (16:10): I love following the member for Point Cook. You do not even have to write a speech after you follow the member for Point Cook, because you can just talk about the things that he just raised. The thing that comes to my mind initially is that very old saying, the pot calling the kettle black. He talked about IT upgrades and cost overruns. Could I rhetorically ask the member for Point Cook: what happened with Myki? How many billions of dollars was Myki over? How was that reported? He talked about the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee. Has there ever actually been a straight answer from a Labor minister at PAEC? I doubt very much that has ever happened.

Mathew Hilakari: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, the member is struggling to understand that there is a budget set out every year and delivered to this Parliament.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Lauren Kathage): That is not a point of order.

Peter WALSH: Yes, there is a parliamentary budget, and it is very detailed, but why have we constantly got cost overruns? Every major project in Victoria has blown out in cost, so despite what may be printed in the budget, they are not managed well. There has been a litany of projects. We could speak for hours on all the projects in Victoria that have had cost overruns.

If I come back to Myki, we are finally catching up with the world, where you can tap your credit card to get on a tram. We have finally got that. But hang on, on the two train lines that run into my electorate we have not even had Myki yet. Come on, there are a lot of people that live outside your little bubble here in Melbourne that do not get any of the services that you just take for granted.

You talk about IT upgrades. Greater Western Water – that went brilliantly. Being a customer of Greater Western Water here in Melbourne, I wondered why I had not got a water bill for a long time. Finally a water bill bobbed up in my email saying, ‘We just had a little bit of trouble with our IT upgrades. We’re not sure if we’ve billed you or haven’t billed you, but could you please pay this bill?’ If I remember rightly, I think the Victorian Treasurer actually had to give a letter of comfort to Greater Western Water for $200 million because they had not collected their water bills. That was a way of making sure they were still solvent.

The member for Point Cook painted a litany of problems with the two councils in his electorate, but I think we can say there is an equal litany of problems with the state Labor government. I am not sure who we can appoint as a monitor. Perhaps the Carroll government, given it is a new start. Everything matters now: ‘We’re not going to have pot plants that we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on for years.’ That is going to be cut out. ‘We’re going to cut out the waste and corruption.’ Oh, that is right. There was $15 billion worth of corruption on major projects – $15 billion. Yes, the member might have talked about some money going from one part of his local government area to another, but it did actually go into something. ‘Oh, sorry, the $15 billion went into someone’s pocket, but not the people that actually counted through that particular time.’ Perhaps there should actually be a monitor for the Carroll government.

If you think about the spend in regional Victoria on infrastructure, member for Point Cook, it is 11 per cent of the infrastructure spend consistently year after year, with the independent Parliamentary Budget Office reporting that the spend in regional Victoria is way below the percentage of the population in regional Victoria. That is why we have our fair share guarantee, going to the election, to make sure that there is actually more money spent in regional Victoria so it actually equates to the percentage of the population that lives out there. We want to see that money spent in regional Victoria.

On local government, I feel sorry for councillors. Every time a Labor government mess with the Local Government Act 2020, they actually make the life of a councillor worse. I think there were a lot of people who held out hope when Adem Somyurek, as the minister at the time, actually had a review of the Local Government Act and was going to rewrite the Local Government Act. I thought there might have been some hope there that councillors could actually get some power back into their elected positions in their own municipalities. But that new act that the minister brought in at that time actually made it worse for councillors. Yes, local governments are constitutional creatures of state government and therefore the Parliament makes legislation that hopefully helps them manage their processes in a local government area, but what has happened under Labor is that councillors are constantly being disempowered from actually making decisions to run their own council.

Jade Benham interjected.

Peter WALSH: As the member for Mildura interjected – it is unruly to take it, but I will – they are decorative, and the CEOs are empowered as they are disempowered. That does not lead to people wanting to be in local government. It does not lead to constructive debate in the council chamber. Not having sat in a council chamber, as I understand it there are briefing meetings that are done in private where everything is laid out for the councillors. I have had complaints in my electorate from ratepayers that go to an open council meeting in front of the public and something is moved and seconded and goes through without any debate. Unfortunately at one council a councillor actually let the cat out of the bag and said, ‘Well, I move the motion as per what we discussed at the briefing session.’ That just blew the whistle that, yes, they had been told what was going on but he could not do it in public, because the CEO did not want him to. There is a whole issue about councillors being disempowered and the CEO and the senior staff being empowered.

You cannot raise anything with a council. We have got an issue in Echuca at the moment, and I actually rang up one of the councillors and said, ‘Can I talk to you about this?’ I got a rocket from the office saying, ‘You cannot talk to councillors. You have to actually go and talk to council staff.’ Why can’t I, as an elected member representing that particular area in this Parliament, talk to a councillor about a particular issue? But ‘No, no, no, you can’t do that, you’ve got to actually talk to the director in that portfolio area.’ What has the CEO got to hide? What has the CEO got to hide that they will not let councillors talk? This is a problem with the Local Government Act. This is a problem that the Labor Party has brought on local government here in Victoria. They have disempowered councillors. They effectively have no rights. Yes, they will get it wrong at times, but they are accountable to their electorate. It is no different to the fact that a Labor government makes a mess of Victoria. They will be accountable to the electorate at the end of November this year. They will get unceremoniously thrown out of office, and a Liberal and National government will have to come in again to clean up the mess and try and manage our way through an absolute mountain of debt, a litany of contracts that have been signed that are bad contracts and a litany of projects that have been mismanaged over time.

I can remember from our time in government – to finish – that we actually invested funding into the Murray Basin rail project. It was a great project for regional Victoria and a great project to get trucks off the road, get freight onto rail, get it to the port and make the whole system a lot more efficient for our export industries. What happened? One person, former Premier Jacinta Allan, was the minister in charge of that project, and it went from bad to worse. It was mismanaged and the money was spent. Michael McCormack, as the federal minister, put in an additional $200 million to try and finish that project. That just fixed up the botches without going to any of the other new railway lines that needed doing. What was the minister’s comment at the end of it all? It was a mess of a project, and with all the government funding spent, trains from Mildura were actually running slower to Melbourne than before the project was done, and what did the minister say? ‘Well, that’s a project for a future government, because I’ve stuffed it.’ The last little bit is my words, but that is effectively what she said. Paraphrasing: ‘I’ve stuffed this project, so a future government can sort it out sometime in the future.’

The Liberals and Nationals will be opposing this legislation. We believe it is time that the Labor government actually let local government manage their own affairs more and be accountable to their ratepayers, rather than be accountable to some faceless people and particularly some of the Labor hacks who are put in as monitors to oversee local government.

 Melissa HORNE (Williamstown – Minister for Ports and Freight, Minister for Jobs, Minister for Industry and Advanced Manufacturing, Minister for Defence Industry) (16:20): I move:

That the debate be now adjourned.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.

Ordered that debate be adjourned until later this day.