Tuesday, 18 June 2024

Bills

Local Government Amendment (Governance and Integrity) Bill 2024

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Lizzie Blandthorn:

That the bill be now read a second time.

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (15:13): I am pleased to rise and make a contribution to this bill, the precise title being the Local Government Amendment (Governance and Integrity) Bill 2024. It is a bill that does many things, and I want to start by indicating that the opposition will not oppose this bill. We have some severe reservations about it, and I retain the right to change that position if we do not get satisfactory circulation of amendments, but the government has indicated that there will be house amendments here in the chamber. Those amendments will seek to make some significant modifications to the bill. We are pleased with those amendments. It does not mean we like the bill overall. They are improvements to the bill from where it is, and my colleague Peter Walsh in the other place has certainly worked with the government to improve aspects of the bill.

I want to say at the start that we think there should be a proper focus on standards for local government councillors. Local government is an important area of democratic activity. Councillors are elected by their local community, and they by and large have the support of most of us. There are councillors who go off beam from time to time, and we have seen that through some of the IBAC reports, a series of council sackings – this government seems to be making it a habit to sack councils almost every second week – and the inordinate, I think, use of monitors.

Enver Erdogan interjected.

David DAVIS: It is pretty regular now, isn’t it? How many have you introduced? Have you brought those bills forward? No. There has been a flurry of them. Traditionally it was a very rare and unusual event that a council would be sacked by this Parliament, but now it is not a rare and unusual event. It is not quite commonplace but it is an all-too-common event for a council to be sacked by this Parliament. The minister seems to not have in place a proper regime which supports councillors on the one hand but guarantees better outcomes on the other. The minister has also got massive powers, powers that have been broadened repeatedly over recent years, to appoint monitors. And the minister has again and again appointed monitors at council and ratepayer expense to a series of councils, with the beady eyes and the peering view of the monitors breathing down their necks on every step of their journey as councillors.

I hasten to add – and I remember when the bill went through that put monitors in place initially – I was very sceptical and very nervous, and people can go back and read what I said at the time. I was suspicious and not trusting of these monitors. I can understand that there are occasions when it is an appropriate way, I can understand that some monitors will do very good work and I can understand that there are occasions when councils have gone off the rails and a monitor might be the appropriate way to go forward. However, I can also understand examples where monitors are put there as spies of the government, where they breathe down the neck of councillors and council officers as well, and I can understand cases when the chief municipal inspector is not a person to be fully trusted. I put it on the record now that I have always been doubtful about that role, and from my earliest contribution when the chief municipal inspector was elevated to head honcho – not just a person over to the side but suddenly with an influential role on other inspectors and so forth – I have always indicated that there are deep concerns about the potential misuse of that role.

We are concerned, many are concerned, that the government will use this set of powers in this bill – the new powers, the new authority that comes with this bill – to politically intervene in councils. Given this government’s tawdry performance on integrity, we think there is a significant prospect that these appointments of municipal inspectors and the process associated with them will see the Minister for Local Government with huge powers, able to make these appointments, able to do this – I will not say ‘willy-nilly’, because it is actually not willy-nilly but in a more sinister way – in a very targeted way through a very refined use of these special powers to shoot, figuratively, political opponents at council level, whether they be Liberals, Nationals, Greens or independents. I do not think we are going to see as many of these appointments made to oversight and control Labor councillors and the machinery that is put in this to drag in and lay down a whole set of points.

It might be appropriate now for me to talk about the Local Government Act and the changes that are being made here. It:

provides for ongoing mandatory training for Councillors and Mayors –

and I am reading here from the Alert Digest on the Local Government Amendment (Governance and Integrity) Bill 2024 –

improves the Councillor conduct framework and clarifies the responsibilities of Councillors;

provides for the suspension and disqualification of individual Councillors …

and this is the bit that makes us very, very, very nervous about the misuse of these powers. We want clean local government, we want strong oversight, but at the same time few of us have confidence that the Labor Minister for Local Government will apply these matters appropriately. It:

provides further powers to the Chief Municipal Inspector …

the same municipal inspector I have just been referring to, which I traditionally have not had overwhelming confidence in. And it:

makes miscellaneous and consequential amendments to various Acts.

Again, I am reading from the Alert Digest, and I want to draw the chamber’s attention to some of the points that were raised by the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee (SARC) on this matter. One of the first points that they raise is the issue of the removal of appeals to VCAT. This has a series of comments, and I invite people in the chamber and elsewhere to note these points. We have not seen the amendments that have been negotiated by the shadow minister Peter Walsh and the minister. We have a promise that they will be circulated in the chamber very shortly. I have just said to the minister at the table that we are supportive of those amendments in theory, but I am not quite as trusting as to support amendments unseen. None of us have seen them. We want to see them, and I do not know why the government is dragging its feet on circulating these amendments in a reasonable way.

Members interjecting.

David DAVIS: No, I am making a fair point, I think. Let us see them. Let us see the substance of them. Let us make some decisions on the substance of them once we have actually seen them and read them carefully. Please, Minister, bring them forward. I know you are doing your best and I know you are the minister at the table but not the minister responsible, so you have got to wind the machinery to get the government bureaucrats to bring forward the proposed amendments. But SARC makes some very clear comments about this and the issues around client legal privilege that are part of these matters, and SARC has written to the Minister for Local Government to seek some clarity on a number of these issues. We are also very concerned that the arbitrary decision that can be made by the minister – you know, ‘We are going to go after this councillor, we are going to shoot, figuratively, and knock them out’. This could happen right near a council election, for example. It could happen –

Sonja Terpstra: You’re missing the point.

David DAVIS: No. That is why Peter Walsh and the opposition have sought changes in the bill. That is why we have sought changes. We have said that the Parliament should be able to see those issues and should be able to disallow them. A disallowance provision has been negotiated. Again, sight unseen – we are waiting with bated breath for the minister to crank the machinery and get the bureaucrats working. Bureaucrats in the department, can we please see the proposed amendments? You are dragging this out. We think, in good faith, you should be placing those amendments before the chamber forthwith. I am happy to provide leave, as the chamber would be, for the circulation of those amendments at any point.

I note the negotiation of a disallowance provision which would allow either house to disallow the actions of a minister in taking an extreme or unwarranted step, and we say that is a significant improvement. I pay tribute to the work of Peter Walsh on this, negotiating some significant improvements to a bill that we do not much like. We like the intent of the bill – to clean up councils – we just think that there is a lot of woolly thinking in the bill. Nobody thinks, for example –

Sonja Terpstra interjected.

David DAVIS: Do you think the re-education mode that is proposed here is really going to solve this?

Sonja Terpstra: Yes.

David DAVIS: Oh, well, good luck to you. I am more sceptical. You go along for a couple of weeks here or a day here and an hour there – is that actually going to change the behaviour of a poor councillor?

Sonja Terpstra: Yes.

David DAVIS: I am more sceptical; you are more hopeful. That is one side of it. A councillor who is targeted unfairly by a minister – by a powerful Labor minister who has a vested interest in misbehaving – might well be drawn over the coals inappropriately. At least the chamber will now have a capacity to disallow some of those actions. We think that that is an improvement and a better bit of oversight. Whilst we agree with higher standards in local government – we agree that local government is a place that is elected democratically and is accountable, and it should be accountable to its electorate; that is, the municipality from which the elections occur – at the same time we are sceptical and cautious in our views about how the Labor Minister for Local Government will apply some of these points.

I draw the chamber’s attention to the reservations expressed by SARC, and I would request, after we have finally seen the amendments, that in committee the minister might address the SARC points. I will put on notice here –

Sonja Terpstra interjected.

David DAVIS: No, no, you will be interested to hear as well. The minister, on the parliamentary record, should address the matters that SARC raised and some of the concerns that were raised. The client legal privilege issue is a real one, and I think there is a useful list for those who have a look at the SARC report. The committee certainly has written to the minister, and I will, as I say, raise these matters in the relevant section of the committee stage.

Just to return to the bill, it is said that it will enhance the powers of municipal monitors and inspectors, and it certainly does give them more powers: it enables the suspension and disqualification of councillors, it changes the councillor conduct framework and it adds new procedures for misconduct applications. We all agree with improved standards at local councils and the impact on council governance, and there will be a model code of conduct. Codes of conduct at least are helpful in this matter, and – how can I say – I am hopeful that this will have some positive effects. I am hopeful that the codes of conduct will be well applied. I am hopeful that the codes of conduct will strengthen the oversight of councillor misconduct, because I openly indicate here that there are many examples of councillors who have gone off the reservation in some way or by some means, and they do need to be shepherded back onto a better track. So sensible ways of doing that without compromising the integrity of local government, the independence of local government and the democracy involved in local government are important.

At the same time there are fears that I think many in local government have about a powerful state. I mean, this is the most powerful government in many respects in the state’s history. It has been in power since 1999, with the exception of four years, and it has huge, overweening power. It has got massive control of many sectors of the economy, massive control of the bureaucracy and massive control of many of the independent institutions of this state, and it is seeking to assert further, deeper control into the independence of the local government sector. This is a government that is absolutely out of control when it comes to taking more and more and more power, overriding independent institutions, overriding individuals and putting in place draconian and strong approaches that actually weaken democracy in this state.

By all means strengthen local government accountability, but at the same time the concerns are there. I pay tribute to the work of Peter Walsh in reining back, in pulling back the grab for power of this government – clipping it, reducing it. It does not mean that the government is not getting more power in this bill – it is – but at least it has taken the worst edges off the ability of the Minister for Local Government to act without any oversight. On the original bill, the bill we are debating now, we still have not seen the amendments, but when the amendments come, presumably they will restore the right of affected local councillors to appeal to VCAT. The idea –

Sonja Terpstra interjected.

David DAVIS: No, no, I am deadly serious. We are talking about the local government bill. We are saying that this bill actually takes away, as it is structured now, the right of those councillors to appeal to VCAT.

Sonja Terpstra interjected.

David DAVIS: It does. You might say ‘whoop-de-do’. Let the record record that you said ‘whoop-de-do’ to that. I take seriously the democratic rights of Victorians, including councillors. I take very seriously the oversight of the courts and the ability of people to appeal to VCAT or ultimately to the Supreme Court, to have their day in court and to challenge government decisions. You might want to link yourself up with the push for more power for this government, the push to override local government and independent institutions – I certainly do not, and I am glad that Peter Walsh has negotiated some very significant changes to this bill.

Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (15:30): I rise to speak on behalf of the Greens on the Local Government Amendment (Governance and Integrity) Bill 2024. Robert W Flack once famously said:

Local government is the foundation of democracy; if it fails, democracy will fail.

I do not think that is an overstatement. One of the Greens’ founding four pillars is participatory democracy, and in Australia no level of government provides a greater opportunity for people to participate in decision-making. Local government is the closest level of government to the people and enables the diversity of different communities to be reflected and given voice. Having had the honour of serving as a councillor for five years before entering this place, I have seen this in action, as have in fact most of the Victorian Greens MPs. It is from that vantage point that I am flagging at the outset that the Greens have significant concerns about some key provisions being put forward in this bill today, particularly the ministerial power to remove a councillor, because we believe they undermine this keystone of our democracy.

We have heard just now that the government plans to move some amendments that we have yet to see, so I am unable to make comment on those or what the bill might look like with those amendments. My remarks pertain to the bill as we are aware of it at this point. Some of the changes proposed, as well as the processes to determine them, highlight an ongoing attitude of this government towards councils that fails to respect them as democratically elected bodies in their own right. It is almost like they are seen as boards that the state is frustrated about being unable to control, not as an independent level of government. While councils share some governance principles with boards, councillors are quite distinct from board directors. They are representatives elected by their communities, just as we are in this place.

There is absolutely no way that state or federal governments could take on the many and varied functions or serve communities in a way that reflects local needs and preferences in the way that councils do. But instead of recognising this, the state government has increasingly made life harder for councils to deliver for their communities, and many, particularly in regional and rural areas, face serious threats to their long-term financial sustainability. This is the result of things like rate capping and ever greater cost shifting, which limits councils’ financial capacity, while at the same time the government is increasingly asking councils to do more and more. One only needs to look at what is happening at the moment in the UK with their councils to see what this approach can lead to.

This is not to say that councils or councillors operate perfectly, yet nor do state or federal governments and their representatives. All levels of government could be improved, particularly when it comes to integrity. This is because corruption is a risk wherever money and power intersect. As we saw uncovered by Operation Sandon, some councillors may engage in conduct that is corrupt, although it is very conveniently often overlooked that in this case there were members of other levels of government involved. Guarding against corruption should be a priority for all levels of government. Integrity, transparency and oversight are critically important for maintaining our democratic institutions.

Unfortunately, integrity does not seem to be a genuine priority for this government. We see that regularly in this Parliament, whether it is avoiding genuine parliamentary scrutiny of government decisions by having joint committees dominated by government members and chairs, or claiming executive privilege over documents requested by the Parliament and then failing to comply with standing orders when such claims are made, or being the only state to maintain the least democratic voting system in the country, despite it delivering some lovely fellow parliamentary colleagues this term. Despite the word ‘integrity’ in the title of this bill, I cannot see any meaningful integrity measures in the raft of changes that are being proposed. If the minister thinks a few extra hours of training for councillors each year is going to prevent corruption or illegal conduct, that must be some revolutionary training module you have got in mind, and perhaps it should be rolled out for all elected representatives.

The Greens are here to help. That is why we are putting forward some amendments that will actually address some very obvious sources of corruption in local government, and they are around donations. These will look at setting a donation cap on the amount local government candidates can receive from a donor as well as real-time reporting requirements for these donations consistent with those that currently apply to state elections under the Electoral Act 2002. They also look to restrict donations from high-risk industries like property developers and the gambling industry. We have sought to do this before, yet the state government has time and again inexplicably avoided making this change. We provide them once again with the opportunity to do so.

Turning to the changes that have actually been proposed, it is important to note that while the government says the sector was consulted, the nature of the consultation left a lot to be desired and again I think demonstrates a real lack of respect for local government. The feedback period was for just four weeks at the end of January, a difficult time for councillors, and despite concerns being raised by councils and peak bodies about the inadequacy of this period the government ploughed ahead because they are rushing to get this done before the October elections. There will still be a raft of regulations to develop before then if this legislation passes, and it is doubtful there will be much more meaningful engagement on those given the time pressures that are faced.

Moreover, the nature of the consultation that took place was not, I think, a particularly genuine effort at engaging with local government. It was not ‘What are you experiencing?’ or ‘What legislative reforms might help you?’, it was ‘This is what we’re planning to do as a government – rate it out of five.’ This is not true engagement or consultation. If we value local government, if we value democracy, it is essential that we get reforms right. Credit where it is due, it seems that some feedback from the consultation process was taken on board but certainly not all of it, and it is worth noting that there were very few changes that received particularly strong support from anyone.

Additionally, none of the other measures that councils have long been advocating for to genuinely support them in their roles in serving their communities have been addressed. I have already touched on the issue of rate capping and cost shifting, which this government steadfastly refuses to engage in. Other examples, though, include things like that councils have long been asking for more support in the face of increased security threats, especially at public meetings. Public question time at the start of a council meeting is something that I still miss. It is sometimes colourful, sometimes entertaining, sometimes feisty, but it is an opportunity for people to publicly raise their concerns directly with their elected representatives. We have seen over recent times challenging behaviour from some members of the public, particularly some far-right groups, who are threatening this vital part of our council meetings. Some councils have had to move their meetings online or restrict question time, yet calls from the sector for additional state funding and support to provide security and other measures to improve safety for council staff and other members of the public have gone unheard. If we want to support councils and strengthen democracy, we should be doing all we can to ensure that the public can continue to engage with them.

This Labor government has also ignored the sector by ploughing ahead with introducing compulsory single-member ward structures for most councils, despite it being known to reduce diversity of representation and create risks to good governance. I was first elected to the City of Greater Geelong following a period of administration after the previous council had been sacked by the Labor state government in part due to concerns about bullying and good governance. The findings of the commission of inquiry into the City of Greater Geelong make very instructive reading. One of the key recommendations was to move away from single-member wards to multimember wards because the old model contributed to poor governance and ultimately poorer outcomes for the municipality. And having spent the last couple of terms with multimember wards as per the recommendations of that inquiry, Geelong council is now being forced by this government to move back to single-member wards. If this government genuinely cared about improving governance in councils, they would not be imposing structures that have been shown to make things worse.

Despite the title, much of the focus of this bill is not on governance and integrity but is in fact on councillor conduct. Of course councillor conduct is linked to governance and integrity, but I would argue that the title is somewhat misleading. All of us, especially those of us who have served in local government, will know that some councillors can be difficult. They can be rude – they can be rude to staff, other councillors and members of the public. At times this can lead to dysfunction in councils, although I would argue that that is not really any different to any other level of government. We have plenty of examples in this Parliament of MPs behaving badly. It is not a reason not to act, however. In fact the Greens have long argued for stronger measures to govern the conduct of state and federal MPs, and it is good to see the Labor government is finally being prompted into action to start addressing this after some more examples of poor conduct by their own MPs.

The Greens certainly appreciate that the existing processes in councils to deal with bad behaviour are inadequate and slow. Good governance and effective functioning of councils is critical in order to deliver outcomes for communities. Providing councils with the tools to deal with problematic behaviour, especially when it impacts workplace safety or the wellbeing of others, is really important, and we support measures to do so. A model code of conduct is fine. Additional training is welcome, although I would urge the state to fund this and ensure it is not just a tick-a-box, waste-of-time online module but something really meaningful delivered by experts. We think increasing the power and remit of arbiters is a reasonable step, and ensuring mayors can exercise their responsibilities to manage conflict without it being seen as bullying is also welcome. However, giving the minister the authority to suspend or disqualify a councillor, who is then prevented from ever serving as mayor, deputy mayor or as chair of a delegated committee for the remainder of their term, is fundamentally anti-democratic. Imagine a federal minister being able to dismiss a state MP – putting aside the technical feasibility of this, the concept itself is outrageous.

I am quite surprised and disappointed that the coalition will be supporting this bill and that they have not sought to remove this particular provision in the bill. I suspect they will regret their support for this, particularly when it is used to remove one of their own. More importantly, the coalition has often used this place – we heard some of it just now – to argue against the centralisation of power and ministerial overreach as well as anti-democratic practices of government. Some sort of disallowance motion – maybe that is fine, but it still gives incredible power to this Parliament over another level of democratically elected government, and we feel very uncomfortable about this power remaining with the minister in this bill.

Councillors have been democratically elected by the people to their positions. Dismissal for serious criminal behaviour can already happen via VCAT, as it should. This bill also beefs up the penalties that can be issued by an arbiter. It strengthens the role of the Local Government Inspectorate. Extending all or any of these avenues may have been reasonable if they were not felt to be adequate. While some may feel that there should be a mechanism of sorts to issue a lengthy suspension or even dismiss an individual councillor, giving that power to a minister is not appropriate. Moreover, under the proposed changes there are limited natural justice provisions. There is no requirement for a judicial process. There is limited independent oversight, only a recommendation from a monitor – and we have heard about monitors already – or a commission of inquiry in order for a minister to exercise these powers. It is worth noting that not every council with a problematic councillor has a monitor installed or a commission of inquiry underway; they are preconditions for a minister to be able to use this power. Those who find this proposal appealing because they imagine the minister sweeping in and swiftly removing their one troublesome councillor, I would really urge them to read the fine print of this bill.

However, the risk of politicisation as a result of this power, real or perceived, is very significant. If there was any doubt about the potential for that, I would suggest listening to the contributions of some of the members of this Parliament in the other place, who had a curious list of councils they chose to publicly disparage. You only have to look at recent years where the government has rushed through decisions to dismiss entire councils with very limited opportunity for parliamentary scrutiny. Other members of this Parliament have been given a mere couple of days notice at best of the government’s intention to dismiss a council and put under a lot of pressure to do so. If we are seeing that sort of pattern of behaviour where this government seems very happy to rush through these decisions with huge consequences, denying communities democratic representation, I really worry about a power to dismiss an individual councillor resting with the minister and how that might be used. Add to this additional power reduced rights to legal support or appeal mechanisms, and it is very conceivable that a current or future minister might misuse this power to remove councillors of a rival political persuasion, and that is something that should worry all members in this place and anyone who values democracy.

With regard to the reforms that are being touted to potentially hasten and simplify disputes, removing the right to a VCAT appeal means the only recourse for a councillor wishing to make an appeal against them would be an expensive Supreme Court appeal. Perhaps VCAT is not the right body, but some sort of appeals mechanism should be available that is not going to the Supreme Court, and in the absence of a better proposal from the government, we will be seeking to have this change removed from the bill.

We also have concerns about the loss of automatic indemnification for councillors who are subject to arbitration or a councillor conduct panel process. This proposed change had very low support from the sector, and I have had many councillors raise their concerns about it with me. While it might save the council some money, it potentially undermines any efforts to strengthen conflict resolution mechanisms – and this is why: the change could disadvantage councillors with less means; conversely, it bestows an advantage to those who are better resourced or well connected with people in the legal profession, particularly in the early stages of processes when councillors might want to seek advice about what their options are. It also runs the risk of deterring people from making complaints or possibly even undertaking certain actions in the performance of their council duties, like tabling a notice of motion, because they are worried about a vexatious complaint being made and their potential legal exposure.

There may be reasonable steps that the government could take to limit councillors from repeatedly prosecuting cases when an adverse finding has been made against them. We have seen issues with that at a number of councils, but we do not believe that the disadvantage that the lack of indemnification would mean for many councillors justifies the removal of this legal access. We think that in fact this risks exacerbating many of the problems that this legislation is seeking to address. I would now ask that our amendments are circulated.

Amendments circulated pursuant to standing orders.

Sarah MANSFIELD: Our amendments seek to omit a number of the problematic provisions that I have referred to. And as referred to, there are a number of out-of-scope amendments that seek to insert some provisions that actually address integrity issues, particularly around donations reform. As the bill currently stands, the Greens will not be supporting it. It was rushed and the consultation was inadequate. It fails in its stated aim to genuinely improve governance and integrity. There might be a handful of reasonable measures in it, but the power of a minister to be able to dismiss an individual councillor – while that provision remains in the bill it is completely unsupportable for us, because that one provision so fundamentally undermines local government and one of the key foundations of our democracy.

Sonja TERPSTRA (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:48): It gives me pleasure to rise and make a contribution on this bill, the Local Government Amendment (Governance and Integrity) Bill 2024. I have had the benefit of listening to Mr Davis’s contribution and also to Dr Mansfield’s contribution, and I have to say that it is very interesting the different aspects which the Liberals come from and also the Greens. I think it is important for the record that I start my contribution by talking about what the bill does, not what Mr Davis was talking about, which seemed to be more about attacking the government and these notions that it is all in a power grab when actually – and I will talk to this in a moment – the reason why we are bringing this bill is as a consequence of recommendations made by integrity bodies. It seems that when we act on recommendations and reports made by integrity bodies we get attacked, and then we are also attacked by those opposite for any manner of things really. It does not matter whether we want to act on integrity or not; we never seem to be doing enough. It is quite an impressive array of thinking from those opposite and also the Greens, who I will talk about in a second as well.

Nevertheless, what this bill actually will do is reform the Local Government Act 2020, and it will improve and strengthen accountability, councillor conduct and governance across the local government sector in relation to (a) council leadership capability and councillor conduct, (b) early intervention and effective dispute resolution and (c) oversight mechanisms. These things are critically important, and something that I actually can agree with the Greens and those opposite on is that local government is an important sector. It is critically important. It is a sector that does good work. It is close to the community. Yes, local councillors are elected to represent wards. It is a smaller constituency, and that is really important. Yes, people have opportunities to work with those local councillors, interact with them and the like. But I have to say – and I have heard this from a number of women who have run for local government or who have been councillors in local government – some of the behaviours that they have been subjected to are absolutely disgraceful. It is absolutely disgraceful. And I have experienced it: I was sexually harassed when I ran for council. The point about this is that we are all adults and we should behave like adults, but unfortunately, where there is a lack of boundaries or a lack of processes in place, some people take it upon themselves to push those boundaries to the absolute maximum they can and say, ‘But this is all politics.’ It is not all about politics to sexually harass someone. It is not all about politics to bully someone. It is not political to be a horrible person to someone and to be an unpleasant person. I think this sector has had long enough to deal with those sorts of behaviours. If a sector and people who run for councils in these positions cannot behave like adults, then they will be made to behave like adults and there will be consequences.

All of us should think about that. In fact I have been in Parliament for six years now, and I have to say some of the behaviours of some MPs who have come into this place who have come from local government have been the worst examples of behaviour coming into this place, because they have brought it with them from local government. It is utterly disgraceful. Some of the behaviour is like children. It is arrogant, nasty, petulant and lacking in any ability to try and work with people. That is often lost on people who come in here. We actually have to work together to get things done, and one of the jobs that we actually have to do in here is to pass legislation. The point is that I am always disappointed in any behaviours of anybody that comes into this place and likes to use this as some kind of personal political pointscoring activity rather than understanding what they are actually here in state Parliament to do. Any member who is elected to state Parliament should have the respect of others for the fact that they have actually been elected to do a job in this place and should not have to put up with nasty, carping, petulant behaviour by some people who have behaved like that on local government and been able to get away with it.

I think these are actually welcome changes. If you liken it to any other workplace, if you work in another workplace there are consequences for behaviour. But unfortunately some people who are elected think they are above the law and should be able to act in any manner that they want. With those terrible experiences that I have talked to many women about, they have actually said that in local government it has made them think about nominating again to run for council, because they have been spoken to in an aggressive, hostile manner by some men on council. When they have gone to their CEO and said, ‘This person is acting in a really terrible manner, aggressive, hostile,’ the CEO has said, ‘I can’t do anything about it. Council can’t do anything about it.’

This is why we need these sorts of reforms. Yes, you would like to think that as an adult you could say to a person, ‘Can you please stop behaving like that?’ But clearly they do not want to, because they do not have to. They are going to get made to, and that is a good thing. I have also heard experience of councillors, thoroughly decent people, who have been the subject of fake accusations, false complaints. That is disgraceful, yet we see these sorts of people coming into this place who have in the past exhibited those sorts of behaviours. This is what this bill will address, some of these things, and it is a good thing.

I am going to talk about the journey of good governance. We have heard the usual cries that consultation is poor and all the rest of it. We all know what consultation means. It does not mean that the parties who disagree with something get to have their way. That is not consultation. Consultation means that every party who may have an interest, whether it is a stakeholder or anyone else, gets to have a say on the bill and what those reforms might mean. All of that is taken into account. Consultation never means that those people who disagree get to have their points of view put first. It is quite ridiculous to hear these sorts of ridiculous catcalls all the time – ‘Oh, consultation is not effective.’ It is, you just did not get your way. But it does not mean you can come in here and say that consultation is poor. It is completely ridiculous. So again, good governance is critical to ensuring that councils make sound decisions and deliver the services that their communities need. Like I said, it is a very important sector; it does good work.

When this government was elected in 2014 we made a commitment to amend the Local Government Act 1989. It was the most ambitious and comprehensive reform of local government in Victoria for 30 years, designed to achieve two major goals: one, to ensure the continued autonomy and independence of democratically elected governments; and to ensure that the guiding principles would inform the direction of a local government sector. Since then the Local Government Act 2020 has been introduced, and we have seen how that has reshaped the sector, highlighting the importance of having long-term planning, having clearly articulated asset management obligations, increasing councillor accountability with clearer standards of behaviour, modernising election processes and candidate requirements, increasing the transparency of council decisions and having better financial management. So these are some of the sorts of things.

I want to talk about what has been happening in local government just in conjunction with what I was saying earlier. Victorians rightfully expect high governance and integrity standards from their councils. They have a right to expect that. The past few years have been fraught with issues of misconduct in some councils, and the impact of this cannot be overstated. Following the new act, and since the start of the 2020 local council term, 12 councils have had municipal monitors appointed to provide support and monitor their governance practices, with only five monitors appointed last term. We can all reflect on Yarra council, who had to have a monitor appointed. Why? Because they could not even elect a mayor. The infighting between some councillors is utterly embarrassing. I reflect on my earlier comments: can these people not behave like adults and get on with each other? They cannot elect a mayor, for goodness sake. Fifty-six councillors have resigned, and it goes to the point I made earlier: a number of women councillors have remarked upon the fact that the behaviour they have experienced in being an elected representative has deterred them from running again or they have considered not running again because the stress and the anxiety and the constant attacks are so unpleasant and detrimental to their mental health. We cannot have that. One council has been dismissed following the commission of an inquiry and one has been suspended. Further to this, the IBAC’s Operation Sandon special report, the local government culture report and the Local Government Inspectorate’s examination into councils have highlighted areas for improvement for council government.

We hear from the Greens or the Liberals – those opposite – that this is a power grab. It is not. We have had reports from expert authorities telling us that we need to take action. So it is ridiculous. When we decide to do something we are criticised for it; when we do nothing we are still criticised. This is, I guess, one of the things that is frustrating about these sorts of debates in here. It does not matter what we do, the politics of it is ‘Government bad – just attack government.’ It is ridiculous. And then we get the intelligentsia from the Greens lecturing us about how pathetic this bill is. You hear them saying, ‘Oh, this is terrible, it’s rushed.’ What a load of rubbish. Again, Operation Sandon, the IBAC special report; the local government culture report; and the Local Government Inspectorate’s examination into councils have highlighted all of these areas for improvement. There is a strong body of evidence that suggests that if this is left unaddressed, these recurring issues can and will undermine public trust in government, hinder effective decision-making and impede the delivery of services to local communities. This bill, as I said, will strengthen council leadership and improve early intervention in conduct issues and dispute resolution.

Seven of the recommendations of the IBAC Operation Sandon report are incorporated in and will be implemented through this bill. These are important. They are the development of a model councillor code of conduct – recommendations 17, 21 and 31; provision of regulatory mandatory training for councillors and for mayors and deputy mayors – recommendations 18, 20 and 28. I take offence at Dr Mansfield’s commentary that training is going to be a box-ticking exercise. We are here today debating the bill, yet already they are pre-empting that the training is going to be rubbish. I think that is actually quite appalling. There is also extending the maximum period of suspension from one month to three months that an arbiter may direct after a finding of misconduct – recommendation 30.

A number of councillors have said to me they are concerned that some of the things in this bill may be used by perpetrators, some of whom are very good at using systems designed to protect people and weaponising those systems to attack women. That is something that has been voiced to me by female councillors. They say, ‘I’ll get a fake complaint’ – I mentioned this earlier – and then they have to be taken through a system where they have to defend themselves. That is of concern, so it is good to highlight that as an issue of concern even in this debate, because what we want to see is that if some local councillors seek to use these processes, then that should be called out and highlighted as well.

It is sad that we have to implement a model councillor code of conduct because it seems like there are some people who run for office who just cannot understand what it is to act like an adult and try and work on effectively resolving your conflicts or your grievances with someone in an adult way and recognise that when you are elected to a council or elected as an MP you are going to disagree with people. It might be that you have different values to somebody, but it does not mean you have to hate them, and it does not mean you then have to persecute them and bully them and make stuff up about them either. People will say, ‘Oh, that’s politics’ – well, it is not good enough anymore. It is simply not good enough. People need to and have taken these matters very seriously, and as I said, these changes are a consequence of expert reports into these sorts of things.

Like I said, there will be professional development for mayors, deputy mayors and councillors. We have had a lot of new people coming into the sector. In 2020 more than 300 councillors were elected for their first time, so there are a lot of new people coming into the sector, but there are also a lot of people who have been around for quite some time. The councillor induction training will be completed within four months of taking the oath or affirmation of office. Currently councillors have six months to complete this, so we are shortening that timeframe. Professional development training is to be completed by all councillors each year of their term, beginning in the first year of their election, and mayoral training is to be completed by all mayors and deputy mayors, and acting mayors if appointed for one month or more, within one month of appointment. Failure to complete the training within the timeframe specified by the regulations may result in a councillor’s allowance being withheld until the training is complete – again another sad measure that we have to take, but the evidence demonstrates that people are not doing as they are being asked to do. There need to be consequences for these sorts of actions.

There will be a uniform code of conduct for 79 councils. Poor conduct is an ongoing challenge for the sector and is caused by a minority of councillors, but again there has been resistance to see any real and tangible improvement in these behaviours. A breach of the code of conduct will be considered misconduct and will be grounds for an internal arbitration process. Councils will be able to supplement the code by adopting supporting policies that reflect local circumstances – I think that is entirely appropriate – but this means that the base model code highlighting appropriate behaviour will not be different for councillors in different LGAs. It just makes sense. We need to have these powers in place, and we need to be able to respond to the expert reports and inquiries that we have had.

I would love to talk further about this. I have only got 30 seconds left on the clock, but I think these reforms are important. I do not want to see anyone dissuaded from running for local government, and I particularly do not want to see any women dissuaded from running for local government. There need to be real consequences for terrible behaviour and inappropriate behaviour by councillors, and this bill, this framework, goes a long way to meeting the recommendations made by the integrity bodies. I look forward to seeing the continued debate, but it is ridiculous to say – per Mr Davis’s contribution – that it is a power grab. We are actually responding to the recommendations made by integrity bodies.

Joe McCRACKEN (Western Victoria) (16:03): I too rise to speak about the Local Government Amendment (Governance and Integrity) Bill 2024. I guess, broadly speaking, I support the intent of having measures to improve accountability, transparency and governance, all in support of better council decision-making. I come to this drawing on my own experience as a former mayor and a former councillor, as many others in this place have been. However, there are issues that this bill proposes which I think need to be considered very, very carefully in the context of the broader local government setting. I do not intend to rehash the arguments of everyone in here, but I do want to talk about a number of specific matters that are related to the bill.

With the model councillor code of conduct, whilst I do not have a problem with the concept of a statewide code of conduct, it is very important to note that the content of that code of conduct needs to be very carefully considered. Under the current system, codes of conduct are probably one of the most argued over and debated matters within a chamber. What is right and what is wrong can all depend on various contexts – city, country, urban fringe, let alone the make-up of a council. It is very different depending on everyone’s context.

At this point in time we do have widely varying codes of conduct and there is no standard of behaviour, so I do support a standard of behaviour, but at the same time we do need to instil some flexibility into the system as well. There might be one standard, but you can have different levels of particular matters in a code of conduct. One size does not necessarily fit all, and that is not built into this at all. If there is a genuine, real concern about behaviour – and I note that Ms Terpstra’s comments before were reflecting on the behaviour of local government councillors, in particular female candidates and what they had experienced – you would hope that you would model that leadership and that behaviour. We are still waiting for the government’s amendments to be circulated. We have not seen them yet, and I look forward to seeing them, but if you want to work in a collaborative way and you are saying that this is the standard that we should expect, that is not really being modelled in front of us. I am the second speaker for the coalition today. We have had a number of speakers already, and we still have not seen any amendments come through. That is not acting in good faith or working in a collaborative way at all.

The other issue that I want to talk about is the disqualification of councillors. I would draw members to clause 7 of the bill, which talks about the disqualification of a councillor. New section 34A says:

(1) On the recommendation of the Minister, the Governor in Council, by Order, may disqualify a person from being a Councillor for the specified period if –

(a) the person was a Councillor during the term of office of a Council that was dismissed under an Act; and

(b) while the person was a Councillor or at any later time, a Municipal Monitor or a Commission of Inquiry provided a report to the Minister stating that the person –

(i) was creating a serious risk to the health and safety of Councillors or members of Council staff; or

(ii) in the person’s capacity as a Councillor, was creating a serious risk to the health and safety of other persons; or

(iii) was preventing the Council from performing its functions.

That is also consistent with the functions of a municipal monitor in their reporting, which they are established to do under clause 18 of the bill:

“(ca) to report to the Minister on any Councillor who –

is creating a serious risk to the health and safety of Councillors or members of Council staff; or

in the Councillor’s capacity as a Councillor, is creating a serious risk to the health and safety of other persons; or

is preventing the Council from performing its functions;”.

I guess my question is: who determines what a risk to health is? Who determines a serious risk to the health and safety of other persons? Who are those other persons? And who determines if a councillor is or is not preventing a council from performing its functions? These are extremely subjective tests. I have been in council meetings before, and what one might consider to be robust debate others might take offence to because they have a different opinion. Just because someone puts something in a forthright manner does not mean that that can be used to say, ‘Oh, well, I’m unsafe.’ Someone might be yelling. That is not unsafe. It might not be the best behaviour, but it is not unsafe. So these tests, which are entirely subjective – they really are entirely subjective, based on whatever the minister thinks – allow someone to be kicked out from being a councillor. The problem is that this can happen over quite a long period of time. According to the proposal in front of us, it is eight years that someone is kicked out for. What if someone is dismissed and they are disqualified from running again at the start of a council term, let us say within the first six months? They cannot be qualified to be a councillor for eight years. They cannot run for one term, they cannot run for another term and they effectively cannot run at the start of a third term, which means, for all intents and purposes, they could be disqualified for nearly 12 years. That is anti-democratic, to disqualify someone for nearly 12 years, which is the effect of these rules that are being put forward here today.

I just wonder what it means to prevent a council from undertaking its functions. I have seen it in council meetings before when various councillors will ask a series of questions that try and get to the heart of a matter. I have seen many council officers be quite evasive in their responses, and a frustrated councillor who might want to continue down a certain path of questioning is considered to be obstructionist because they are not allowing council to get along with the business of the council. That is what has been put to them; that may not necessarily be the case. According to these provisions here, we can then say, ‘My health and safety is at risk. My mental health is at risk because I’m being pummelled with questions that I’m answering evasively.’ It just does not make sense. It does not really allow for proper, robust, rigorous debate. When people come to local government they do come from all different perspectives, much like this chamber, and to disincentivise robust debate is very much against freedom of speech. That is a big concern, and it really inhibits the local councillor undertaking their duties to represent the people that put them there – ratepayers and residents. On the one hand we have got these provisions which are set out before us which are designed to curtail the ability of a councillor to do things, and on the other hand it prevents them from actually undertaking their basic function and role as a councillor. That is completely bizarre.

The compulsory training, which I think is, according to what has been circulated in the bill, in new section 27A – so there is mayoral training – says a mayor, deputy mayor or acting mayor must complete mayoral training. Basically it says – I will not bore you by reading through it all – that if you do not do it, you do not get paid. At this point in time I have no way of knowing whether this training is robust, whether it is thoughtful or whether it is relevant, but here we have got a bill saying, ‘If you don’t do this training, you don’t get your mayor’s allowance or you don’t get your deputy mayor’s allowance.’ Is that not some sort of forceful, punitive way of trying to get this particular behaviour? It says, ‘If you don’t do the training that we set out, which you have no control over – you have to do this – you don’t get paid your allowance.’ You might be doing the very job of a mayor, but you do not get paid for it unless you undertake this training, whatever the training might be. I have done training in the past, having served in local government before, and I can tell you it is not particularly robust. It is not particularly thoughtful. It is very bland, very basic, and it is not tailored to any council’s particular needs. It is very broad, very generic and usually done by a contractor set up by the state government or the department, and in effect it becomes useless. So for whatever training has been envisaged by the state, I would love to see a copy of it before they roll it out. But it must be some sort of magical revolutionary piece of training that ensures that everyone has this new understanding of what local government is about and where no-one is ever going to do anything wrong ever again. I just do not see that happening.

While there are some parts of this bill, I can appreciate, that have an intent to create better integrity and better governance, the fact that a minister can effectively say, ‘No, Councillor, you’re no longer a councillor,’ for up to nearly 12 years, effectively, is anti-democratic and wrong. If those opposite support these anti-democratic measures, what is next? That is the worry. Local government becomes not local; it becomes a state government department, essentially. It is a service delivery model which means that the state can push things onto local government without really much oversight and without really much independence, and that is a great shame.

David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (16:15): I also rise to speak on the Local Government Amendment (Governance and Integrity) Bill 2024. Before I do that I would just like to call out some of the comments made by Dr Mansfield in complaining about certain groups disrupting council meetings, causing trouble and causing meetings to be shut down. Again, this is the absolute height of hypocrisy from the Greens, as they have shut down this very chamber and the Assembly next door and we have all sorts of security issues because of some of their actions. I would just like to call out that hypocrisy for a start.

Back to the bill itself and what we are talking about here, I will not go through everything that this bill does. Others have covered it well. But I will go through a couple of things which I will categorise as the good, the meh and the ugly. Firstly, the good. I like the idea of a uniform code of conduct, which is proposed by this bill. That makes a lot of sense. It would be my preference that this code of conduct would not be developed top down but rather widely consulted, hoping that that would actually happen. I like the idea of that.

On to the meh – mandatory training in concept is a good idea, but I share some of Mr McCracken’s concerns about what form this training may take. If the training was to help a councillor who was not versed in reading financial documents, for example, and helped them read a profit and loss statement and a balance sheet and this sort of thing, that would be very, very useful, or if it were training on how to engage an auditor or understand an auditor’s report or to understand tender contracts and tender proposals and these sorts of things. This sounds very useful. I have not been a councillor, so I have not undergone councillor training, but I have seen lots and lots and lots of corporate training and things where they show a video on a screen and then they ask you some multiple-choice questions afterwards about whether the actor in the video did X, Y and Z – this sort of thing is very much of less value.

On to the ugly – as others have mentioned here, this idea about the VCAT appeals process being revoked removes a very important procedural fairness avenue for councillors. I think that that is dangerous, and I am a bit concerned about the arbiter process that would replace that. Of course the biggest issue of all, which many others have mentioned here, is the idea that the minister would be sacking councillors. I think that this is very dangerous. In many cases you would think that the minister themself would have a conflict of interest. If a councillor happened to be from the same political party that they were from, I cannot see how they could not have a conflict of interest in that scenario.

Similarly, I am concerned that some of these complaint processes may be weaponised. As has been mentioned by others, ‘serious risk to health and safety’ has not been defined well in the bill. I know what I think a serious risk to health and safety is. I have seen a councillor quite recently being suspended for retweeting something on the internet that some people found mean, and I am sure that there would be many that would claim that that was a serious risk to health and safety. I would not consider it that way. As Mr McCracken rightly pointed out, mean words are mean words, but they are not necessarily a risk to health and safety. Without that definition it definitely has the potential to be weaponised and used in bad faith by councillors. I note that in many cases this is already occurring with these sorts of complaints, and I am very concerned that that might be weaponised.

In its current form the Libertarian Party will not be supporting this bill. Our primary and major concern is around the minister’s ability to sack councillors. I agree with other members’ comments about it being dangerous and undemocratic. If we are to accept that councillors are elected by their constituents, if they are going to be removed by misconduct, there has to be procedural fairness. There has to be a process not only free from conflict but seen to be free from conflict, and I cannot see how that can be the case when it is the minister making that decision.

Even when we sack a council at the moment, which happens far too frequently unfortunately – since I have been in this place there have been a number of councils sacked – that requires a bill to go through Parliament and it requires Parliament itself to make a decision on whether or not that is appropriate. There have been times when I have questioned the appropriateness; other times I have been very convinced by the government’s arguments about why the council should be sacked. But I think that having a minister do that unilaterally with no parliamentary oversight is problematic, and it is problematic enough that I cannot support the bill.

John BERGER (Southern Metropolitan) (16:21): I rise in support of the Local Government Amendment (Governance and Integrity) Bill 2024, and I thank the Minister for Local Government in the other place for bringing such a critical reform to the Parliament for consideration. Local government holds responsibility for crucial issues that profoundly impact the daily lives of Victorians, from planning and building to waste management and from recreation and culture to environmental protection. A well-functioning and accountable local government framework is critical for a thriving local government. I get to see the importance of local council governance in my communities in Southern Metro daily, and I have worked closely with Boroondara City Council and Stonnington City Council to best advocate for my constituents. Many Victorians across the state are deeply interested in their local council’s decision-making and attend meetings monthly or more frequently to have their voices heard.

As elected representatives of their communities local government councillors are expected to adhere to a high standard of integrity and accountability, and yet since the last council election cycle in 2020 we have only had more and more councils requiring state government intervention, with 11 having municipal monitors appointed across Victoria. Eleven out of 79 local councils across Victoria – that is a significant and, frankly, disappointing number. One council had to be dismissed entirely following a commission of inquiry, and another council was suspended. This is not fair to Victorians, who rely on their local council to deliver vital services and to make important decisions for their community, and it is not fair for the councillors with integrity, elected by their communities, to have at times been subjected to atrocious behaviour by some of their peers. I would like to acknowledge that many local councillors are doing an incredible job navigating the complexities of community representation, and they should not be impeded in their work by a few of their fellows – their peers – doing the wrong thing.

It is important that Victorians can trust their local government representatives to act with integrity, to enact sound decision-making and to ensure continuous and effective service provision, and it is also important for councillors to feel secure and safe in their workplaces and not be subjected to discrimination or corruption, which is unfortunately a phenomenon that has been seen in some local councils over the years. Especially important are our council workers employed in a range of critical sectors such as youth work, rubbish collection, libraries and aged care. They all have the right to work in organisations that advocate for them, and they all have the right to experience safe and respectful workplaces.

Our work follows the release of the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission’s Operation Sandon Special Report and their subsequent recommendations on local government in Victoria as well as other analysis carried out by the Local Government Inspectorate and the Department of Government Services. It is clear that councillor conduct frameworks must be strengthened and that provisions must be put in place to prevent corrupt activities in local government. That is why I am proud to speak in support of this bill today, which implements seven crucial recommendations of the IBAC report. Implementing these recommendations will, in summary, provide for ongoing mandatory training for councillors and mayors, improve the councillor conduct framework and clarify their responsibility as councillors, establish the circumstances in which a councillor may be suspended or disqualified for misconduct and provide further and necessary powers for the Chief Municipal Inspector to protect councillor accountability and governance.

These amendments to the Local Government Act 2020 strengthen the governance frameworks in and surrounding councils while giving councillors and mayors ample training to adhere to these expectations to ensure that local councillors and mayors have support and education to do their jobs right. This bill enshrines compulsory and ongoing training, with allowances being withheld if training is not done within specific timeframes. They will receive regular professional development training to hone their governance skills to the standards expected by their constituents. This ensures that elected representatives are always aware of their obligations and responsibilities, with this training mandated on an annual basis.

To prevent misconduct occurring within local councils, as we have seen before, this bill introduces a revised model councillor code of conduct, binding all local councillors across the state to a consistent set of expectations, responsibilities and obligations in their appointed roles. This bill also specifies consequences for not adhering to this code of conduct, with breaches being classed as misconduct and, where determined appropriate, subject to an internal arbitration process. We are making sure that councillor and mayoral misconduct does not have the consequence of leaving Victorians to cop the ramifications, by providing an avenue for early intervention.

We are also addressing concerns around unreasonably lengthy dispute procedures by removing the review process through VCAT for councillors that have already been subject to a finding of serious misconduct by a councillor review panel. This ensures that representatives cannot unreasonably protract proceedings to avoid accountability through repeated litigation. If a review panel has already found that a councillor is guilty of serious misconduct, they should not be able to abuse the judicial process with unnecessary processes back and forth, ultimately impeding the functioning of council.

Those in local councils across the state are in strong agreement with these reforms. These changes have widespread support within the local government sector per consultation earlier this year on the local government reforms consultation paper. As I say in most of my speeches, we have consulted widely in drafting this bill. In January a consultation paper was sent to councillors and local government peak bodies outlining proposed reforms, and we asked the sector directly to better understand if they support the reforms. We received over 200 responses, and I thank those who were engaged in the process. I am pleased to say that they were most supportive. These reforms have been shaped to address their feedback as well as recommendations from Operation Sandon, the local government cultural report and the Local Government Inspectorate’s examination into councils. Local Government Victoria released their consultation paper online, and briefings have been held for CEOs and mayors on how their feedback has shaped the final bill. We know that this is a step in the right direction.

This bill is consistent with the internal arbitration process provision in the Local Government Act 2020, which does not have a VCAT review process. Those impacted by the review process on serious misconduct can seek a judicial review of the finding at the Victorian Supreme Court where there is already an avenue for the minister, the Chief Municipal Inspector or a council to remove a councillor who offends against the act, as per section 36 of the act, streamlining the process for dispute resolution and making sure that these reviews are not politicised. Seventy-one per cent of respondents indicated support for these amendments.

Through this amendment in the bill we are also ensuring that ratepayers are not covering the cost of unnecessary council internal arbitration. These amendments will prevent local councils from compensating councillors for internal arbitration processes and councillor conduct panel hearings unless an order is made giving leave to the affected party to have legal representation and it is considered entirely necessary for a fair hearing. This additionally addresses concerns about these processes becoming extensively bureaucratic and lengthy, a concern that has often been raised by members of the sector and the community. These proceedings now have increased powers, with the maximum suspension of a councillor extended to three months from one. They can also direct a councillor not to attend or participate in a council meeting and direct that a councillor is ineligible to hold the position of mayor or deputy mayor for up to 12 months. This is a fair consequence for those councillors who worked against the best interests of their colleagues and their communities. Councillors who engage in misconduct should not be able to rise in the ranks so shortly after being found culpable, and this amendment ensures the continued integrity of local council processes. For more serious findings of misconduct, particularly when an individual councillor is putting the health and safety of others at risk or is preventing the council from effectively performing, this bill provides the potential suspension or disqualification of the councillor in question.

The Minister for Local Government through these amendments will have the ability to suspend a local councillor for up to 12 months if a report from a municipal monitor or commission of inquiry finds that these requirements for suspension are met, and I would like to reiterate that the ability to suspend a councillor requires the independent third party to confirm that these requirements are met, ensuring that these actions are taken in a nonpartisan and just manner. If a councillor has already been dismissed by an act of Parliament, the minister can recommend to the Governor in Council that a suspension of up to eight years be considered. These serious consequences are crucial to ensuring that a councillor who has engaged in serious misconduct, putting their peers or the council as a whole at risk, cannot continue to let down their colleagues and their constituents with impunity. Current legislation which allows councillors to stand for re-election after they have faced dismissal is just not working for our communities. We need this legislation to crack down on serious misconduct in our local governments.

The Minister for Local Government holding these additional measures to sanction misconduct will be advised by the chief municipal inspector on these matters relating to local councils. This ensures that the minister is kept up to date on any governance concerns that the CMI identifies, facilitating the fair and accurate administration and reporting of local government activities to Parliament. Alongside the chief municipal investigator’s pre-existing investigative and prosecutorial powers, the bill provisions them with the ability to issue infringements against any other party who commits an offence against the act. Instead of requiring the chief municipal officer to submit an application to VCAT to stand down a councillor convicted of an offence, these changes will automatically disqualify the offending party from council. This streamlines the administrative process of penalising serious misconduct, which is an entirely reasonable measure when convictions of offences under the act are concerned.

Finally, this bill will allow the Victorian Electoral Commission to effectively carry out its functions in this year’s council elections, in consideration of the increased scale and complexity of this event, by extending the date of the close of the electoral roll. Through this the VEC can amend timelines of the local government election as deemed necessary through the regulations, supporting administration and fair process throughout. This bill makes many changes to regulations concerning local government that benefit both the sector and all Victorians who are impacted by the actions of council, changes which I am certain will be appreciated by those in the sector and communities impacted by council governance more broadly. It allows us to implement all these changes to local governments before council elections in October this year so Victorians can be assured that their incumbents will act in their best interests in the years to come.

We have seen too many local councils put into administration over the past few years, and these decisions, while necessary in consideration of the circumstances, come at a great cost and burden to ratepayers. It is well and truly time for us to amend the legislation surrounding local governments to ensure that communities are receiving the services and consideration they deserve. What this ultimately comes down to is that Victorians should have full trust in their elected representatives to be able to see transparent, fair and democratic governance always being enacted and to know that their input is valued and their voices are always heard in the decision-making. We are doing this by not only legislating harsher disciplinary measures for those councillors who do the wrong thing by their communities but also ensuring that those who do the right thing have the training and knowledge of governance procedures to effectively advocate for constituents.

These reviews of local council governance were committed to by the then Andrews Labor government and held since 2014, and I am proud that we are getting it done. This bill will begin in two stages – the provisions that relate to the upcoming council elections in October, and ministerial oversight and appointment powers will come into operation on the day after royal assent, because we all know that this cannot wait. Please note that these provisions do not operate retrospectively, and the provisions that relate to the model council code of conduct are not coming straightaway. The training, internal arbitrations and councillor conduct panels that Ms Terpstra and I have highlighted today will come into operation when a new council term starts. We all know that this makes sense, and it means that new councils can have a fresh start. It also provides time to prepare the supporting regulations and guidance that are needed in collaboration with the local government sector.

I note that the matters that are currently underway are not impacted by these changes. This work in the sector has already begun. We are developing those regulations for the code of conduct and the training that are needed. This process will include a steering committee with representatives from the sector, like the Municipal Association of Victoria and more. I encourage my community of Southern Metro to engage in public consultation through Engage Victoria to have their say in shaping their local government for a better Victoria.

Ann-Marie HERMANS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (16:35): I too rise today to speak on the Local Government Amendment (Governance and Integrity) Bill 2024. Unlike many parliamentarians, I have not been on council – I have not been a member of a council; I have not ever had that in my portfolio – but I live in the City of Casey, so I do feel that I am very well versed to be able to speak on this issue.

Before I do I would like to mention my late uncle Dr Tom Blazé, who was a councillor for about 20 years and mayor of Knox three times, a man of tremendous integrity and a much loved uncle of mine who served his council, his local government, with pride and passion. He always said what a privilege it was to be able to make a difference in the lives of the people in his local community. I remember going to a meeting as a young woman and seeing my uncle be elected for, I think, the second time as mayor. I was appalled – absolutely appalled – by the behaviour that I saw take place in that chamber. Not understanding what I was seeing, all I could see was how incredibly rude other councillors were to my uncle, who did not in any shape or form deserve such abhorrent abuse. To think that that could take place in a local government chamber absolutely appalled me as a young woman. It is something that has stayed with me for a very long time.

I think about how it is supposed to be. We all know it is supposed to be nonpartisan. Local government is not about your party politics, and yet we have major parties and other parties that support always branding their councillors and making this an issue. It is on this basis that I find a lot of the ugly behaviour has taken place within council. I understand that that is not just what this is all about, but when we are talking about training councillors and training people for council, what a shame to think that we actually have to train people who are picked from our community how to behave with integrity and how to behave in a chamber in a way that is respectful, humane and adult-like. I find that an embarrassment for us as Victorians. I think it is appalling that local government politics can sink to such low levels. I understand that people think it is all fun and games, it is politics, but no, it is not; you are representing your local people over things like rubbish, running libraries, some of the local roads and in the past kindergartens – now there is not enough money for most of the councils to run their kindergartens. In fact funding is constantly an issue for councils, and they are struggling to provide the services that they have in the past.

But conduct is what this is all about. In terms of training, as a person with a background in training, I am 100 per cent in favour of training as long it is not actually going to be used as a weapon to try to disadvantage people. For instance, how that training is conducted, what they are trained in, in what manner it is done, what particular modules or things a person will have to get through and what hurdles they have to get over in order to be a councillor or in order to be a mayor are not transparent in this. That is something that we will need to watch, because the bottom line is if party politics and party ideology are going to start feeding into that, then we will have a major problem in this country and in this state and we will have really gone to the dogs. There is no place for socialism in local government, and I do not want to see people dictating what local people can do and have in terms of their local representation.

Secondly, I want to talk about the City of Casey. I first met some of my local councillors out and about, and I remember well Amanda Stapledon, the woman who allegedly took her life in the City of Casey over disputes about integrity and misconduct. Maybe if she had had appropriate training, the minor – I do not know that it was a major demeanour that she was involved in. It did involve some money. It did involve turning up to a meeting where she probably should have said, ‘I have a conflict of interest’ and then stepped aside and not been in that meeting. Had she done that and had she understood to do that, she might be here today. I think the threat of whatever – I did not speak to her, I do not know, but I do know this: this was a very hardworking councillor. She was much loved by the people of Cranbourne. She worked so hard that I do not think there would be a single community group that did not know Amanda Stapledon, not in the area in which she served. I think she turned up to everything and she supported everyone. She was not one to wave any party banner when she was out in the arena of local government. She worked hard. To think that this woman lost her life over issues of integrity and the fear that was placed in her just brings me to tears, because she was probably one of the most loved local councillors that we have had in a very, very long time.

For the whole of Casey to be dismissed over issues of integrity is a major concern. One has to hope that party politics had nothing to do with it, because I doubt very much that whatever was taking place in Casey was an isolated situation and that there are not other councillors, should we have access to more records and be able to do more digging, that we could find that would be at fault of similar or other things that should not happen.

I am all in favour of integrity. I am all in favour of training. I do not think there is any dispute over the issues of integrity and trying to find ways and platforms to make that more possible. But how this gets rolled out – there is a lot that has been left open to regulation. I really enjoyed reading an article, not an academic article, about what the governance reforms mean for Victorian councils by Rhys Thomas. I have to say that there were some really good points made in that article, and if I had more time, I would go into them.

I do want to note, though, that in this situation of looking at council and how we make these changes, the ultimate thing we are aiming for is good governance. Looking at policies in relation to good governance is what this is supposed to be all about. My concern is how this will get rolled out – whether there are going to be intentions behind some of the things that take place that make it very, very difficult for people who are taking on positions in council or as mayor to complete their training. The fact that we do not have the transparency of what will be expected of them or what the type of training will be – there is no mention of it; that is all going to come down to regulation – is a concern, because we do not know where that is going to go. However, in good faith we are looking to try to find ways around this to make local government be something that can function.

There are other issues that really bother me too, and it will all come down to how things are rolled out. It is all very well to pass legislation, and I do not expect all the i’s to be dotted here and all the t’s to be crossed, because some things have to come down to how things are rolled out on the ground, but it does bother me that we cannot come up with some basic principles of what we consider to be a behaviour of integrity. That is not listed in there. What is that? Is that going to be one thing for one council and something different for someone else? Are we going to turn around and go, ‘Well, this council is loaded with our group, so we’re just going to say it’s okay over here, but over here we don’t have enough control over that one, so we’re going to actually clamp down on this one and say that in this council these are the things that go’? That that lack of transparency and consistency is not addressed in this bill bothers me, because I can see how this could go pear-shaped in the future. It is not just about putting legislation in today to try to bandaid situations, it is about considering how this is going to impact us in the future. As I said, I live in Casey. I want good governance. I want good local government representation. I want fair local government representation, and I think that as Australians it should be a basic right for us to expect some kind of fair representation where the laws work in such a way that what is good for the goose is good for the gander et cetera et cetera. It cannot be that one group will be able to do this, this and this and that will be considered to be okay, but over here it is considered to be appalling. We need to have some sort of standards, and I do not think that this addresses that.

Again, it was the coalition that had to remind the government that this particular bill in its original form was not actually addressing some of things we had as major concerns. For instance, in its original form it did not offer the right of appeal. You cannot expect people to be accused of things and step down and then not have any formal right of appeal. You just cannot put people through things where you do not allow them to be able to appeal them. There needs to be some sort of opportunity, which has now been developed – by the coalition, not by the government. The government needed to have a little bit of support in this, a little bit of help, a little bit of a nudging. That in itself bothers me – the fact that we, once again, are not government, we are in opposition, but we are having to constantly remind the people on the other side that when they are putting things together they need to consider what is fair and reasonable for everyone. Put yourselves in the shoes of a person, and you might just have some understanding of whether this is going to apply in a way that is actually fair and reasonable. It does bother me that this could be used in such a way as to actually not be fair and reasonable in the way it rolls out.

These are the only things that I really wanted to address. I do want to say that the people of Casey are looking forward to having councillors. They have missed not having true representation from their local area. They have found it extremely difficult to not have a local councillor that they can go to to complain about something that is not being done or that could be done better or that could be done differently. They have found issues with bus services. They have had issues with the times that the council has its meetings because they cannot get to them. They have had all sorts of issues. I see CEOs constantly – and I am not talking about Casey here – across the board being able to give themselves massive pay rises. When you do not have enough of a balance in your local council and it is not truly a non-partisan situation, then there are no checks and balances in any of that.

It is great to have this bill. I will be watching it to see how this is rolled out. I will be watching to see how this works in Casey. I think the people of Casey will be watching to see how this works, because truly they want good representation. Like I said, I cannot speak to what Amanda Stapleton did or did not do, but I can tell you this: that woman worked hard for her community; honestly, she really did. She and I did not particularly get along in the beginning, but then we got to know each other, and I have to say she was a tremendous loss for the City of Casey. She worked very, very hard. There will be some councillors who have been dismissed through no fault of their own who will want to step up again, and good on them; let them have a go.

I do hope this will be fair and reasonable legislation in the way it is rolled out. I think it is our responsibility as a coalition and opposition and also as a crossbench to hold the government to account in the way they roll this out. It is all very well to put this down on paper, but I see little sections that really bother me that I think could go a bit pear-shaped if this is not monitored and it becomes party political. That is what bothers me with it. I am just being honest and transparent with you on the issues. I think it is good to have some form of regulation, but I am not sure that this amendment in its entirety is the most exciting, healthy and wonderful amendment. I am sure that if we were in government you would see something that we could all be happy with, but as it is we are not, sadly, at this point in time. I think I will leave it there.

Moira DEEMING (Western Metropolitan) (16:50): I rise today to speak against the Local Government Amendment (Governance and Integrity) Bill 2024. Just a little while back I called upon the Minister for Local Government to ensure that her department would operate as a model litigant and to overhaul her department’s councillor code of conduct regime by relinquishing control of the process to an independent agency like the inspectorate, by ensuring that councillors are provided with indemnity against lawsuits and by withdrawing her plans to force the lowest paid, lowest level of elected government representatives to lodge their privately funded code of conduct appeals in the Supreme Court – the highest, most expensive court in the state – instead of VCAT, and none of that is included in this bill.

If we are going to be talking about integrity, then we need to remember that integrity is undermined by conflicts of interest and concentrations of power, and this bill just entrenches them. Government ministers, whether we like it or not, represent political parties that seek to win and keep power. I do not actually have a problem with that; I have a problem with poorly framed laws that do not create checks and balances. It is just a fact that ministers have a conflict of interest when they get to decide the fate of other democratically elected representatives – that is just outrageous; what a terrible, terrible law this is – especially ministers who are from other political parties. We have Labor, Greens and probably soon-to-be Liberal Party endorsed local government candidates. You cannot be seriously expecting us to believe that a Labor Party government minister, or even a Liberal one for that matter, is going to be believed if they overturn any kind of local government election – their right to represent their constituents – if they are from a different party. It is not going to pass the pub test.

People in the public should not have to put in so much effort to trust the government. These kinds of things should not be allowed. Oversight should be given to an independent body like the inspectorate. This is not a dictatorship, as I have said before, whether or not they like the idea, and this government needs to start having some respect for the fact that we are actually a democracy. If we are going to talk about good governance, then we need to remember that good governance is based on clear laws that promote justice and which are applied equally to all, and again, this bill entrenches subjective, biased laws. It incentivises the misuse of the arbitration process because there is no financial burden in making a complaint, whereas defending yourself against a complaint requires a huge personal financial impost. That is absurd. That is bad legislation.

Also, this bill denies natural justice. The arbitration panel and the arbiters have no requirement for proper rules of evidence. Everything is decided on the opinion of the arbiter. They are not required to have proper legal qualifications, and complaints can be based on somebody taking offence. There is nobody here that would survive if that standard was applied, let us just be real.

Let us go through some examples. We have got cases that look extremely biased already. We have got Cr Jasmine Hill at Wyndham, suspended for months despite no concrete evidence for the claims made against her ever being produced. Cr Susan Bissinger at Mornington Peninsula – the CEO publicly announced that she had been banned from talking to council staff and then refused to even tell her why, and when she made a guess in public as to why, she was suspended. Former councillor Steven Hughes from Frankston council was suspended on the basis that he made negative comments about the performance of council; I would have thought that was part of his job. Cr Daria Kellander from Hobsons Bay was suspended for explaining in an internal email to other councillors that she felt uncomfortable participating in a closed-door meeting that she thought would unduly influence the outcome of the mayoral vote. Unbelievable. Then mayor Cr Briffa was declared guilty of misconduct for naming and defaming me, as it happens, and she received no sanction whatsoever. She was not even required to apologise or take those publications down, and yet Cr Vandenberg from Melton City Council was found guilty of exactly the same kinds of things against every single other councillor there. She was forced to apologise and was suspended for a month. Where is the standard of evidence or treatment? That is completely biased.

Cr Melissa Ferguson at Latrobe City Council was forced to make a ridiculous apology simply for asking questions about where public bushfire recovery funds had gone, and then she was suspended and required to apologise for retweeting a post privately with concerns about a person who is now being investigated for paedo-sadism. Oscar Yildiz from Merri-bek was publicly vilified by some of his own fellow councillors to the point where he was receiving death threats, and yet nothing has happened about that. Crs Tachos and Kerr at Brimbank were denied any chance at mediation before being served with an incredibly long list of complaints that went past the three-month rule. And let us not forget that these totally biased arbitration processes are ultimately made public, so the psychological distress about defamation and having your career ruined privately and in the sector are real.

If we are going to talk about accountability, let us not forget that it should be for everybody. Witch-hunts are not accountability. So why does this bill only go after councillors, as if councillors are the only source of authority and bad behaviour in these organisations? What about the CEOs and the executive? What about the gaslighting and the bullying by council CEOs and executives against councillors who do not toe the party line or do what they are told or make the job easy? How are councillors supposed to hold the CEO, the executive and everybody else to account and ensure good governance when they are blocked from gaining information?

I am speaking from my own experience as a councillor now. I could not believe that when I asked for the raw data on the never-ending series of reports that I was given, I was denied that data. I used to be a researcher, and you always attach at the end the raw data, in an annex. But I was told that all I was allowed to receive was a report which covered themes – the themes of what the data revealed. I said, ‘What I would like to see is the actual data which tells me the exact proportion of who agreed with this policy.’ I never got that. I got elected to state Parliament before I could bring that one up. I have heard lots of people talk about the behaviour of councillors who are now in state Parliament. I do not know about Mr McCracken or anyone else here, but I have never had a complaint lodged against me, not once – not ever in any job, by the way, until this one. So let us not just be looking at other areas of government.

I heard it said by my esteemed colleague over here that socialism would be very well placed in local government council. I thought I would tell you this little anecdote. When I was a councillor I noticed a line from Karl Marx’s manifesto in my briefing notes, and I said, ‘Oh, that’s very interesting. What’s this about the collection and redistribution of wealth? What’s that doing in there?’ They went bright red, and they said, ‘Oh, it must be a mistake.’ They did not realise that I had done international relations. I had that book on my shelf, and I got the quote directly out in front of them. There is bad behaviour everywhere. That is why you have to have fair rules that apply to everyone, not just to one level.

When we talk about the mandatory training – hilarious. I could not get enough training as a councillor; we had a problem getting it passed and paid for. May I just tell you another little anecdote: we had to beg the human rights commissioner and the Sex Discrimination Commissioner to come and speak to us at Melton City Council to explain the laws and how they applied at the local government level. In the middle of that training the human rights trainer said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I can’t answer any more of your questions, I have to go.’ And he never came back. I would have loved to have experienced that training, but I just could not get them there.

Let us talk about some examples on the CEO and executive level. I happen to know that Minister Horne is aware of a report into a corrupt CEO that has never been published, and that is against the public interest. This CEO is now continuing, by all reports, his corrupt behaviour and bullying tactics, giving mates rates and misusing his position as a CEO at a different council. Nothing has been done. Why does he get away with it? One mayor was provided with another councillor’s personal home address so that she could write a threatening letter on council letterhead paper delivered by registered post to that councillor’s home, wherein this mayor threatened that councillor for raising the issue of misuse of taxpayer funds for pointless junkets and for raising the issue of community outrage over gender-neutral toilets. The threat was clear: this councillor was not to embarrass that mayor again, or a complaint would be made to the biased internal arbitration process. And it included a demand for a personal meeting within seven days. That is outrageous; how dare the executive give out the personal address. Nothing was done.

One governance team even created a councillor complaints-handling policy dictating the process for when a community member complains to council about a councillor, and it was used to bury complaints about councillors. But that policy was never even endorsed by councillors; they never saw it. What recourse to justice and what recourse to any sort of oversight do the councillors have in that instance? None. They have complained to the minister, and they have heard nothing. That policy was actually used to dismiss a complaint from a member of the public. The complaint was then referred to the arbitration panel, and even there that councillor was found guilty. What councillors need is more individual powers. They need legislated rights to demand information from their council so that they can do their job. They need protection from spurious, subjective complaints being made by petty, ridiculous people who do not understand public service. That is what this bill should have done.

I will finish with this. The fact that this government over here, this Labor government with their new Premier, given – but the old Premier – altogether spent about a million dollars bitterly fighting all the way to the High Court to prevent an independent investigation of the red shirts rort and abuse of public funds, and that tells us all we need to know about this government’s attitude towards taxpayer money and genuine accountability. This is just a disgraceful bill, and I condemn it.

Jacinta ERMACORA (Western Victoria) (17:02): I want to start off by congratulating Minister Horne for her work on this piece of legislation updating the local government acts. I also want to acknowledge all previous councillors that are members in this chamber, because I think there have been interesting contributions and I think that anybody that has been a councillor has a bit of an idea of the importance of the role. I also want to acknowledge Ms Terpstra’s contribution earlier as well.

Local government is very complex. I know that sounds like a glib statement, but it really is quite a dynamic environment, and it really requires operational and strategic understanding of a very wide range of issues across a diverse range of sectors. You have got the traditional kind of focus on roads, rates, rubbish, drainage and flood mitigation – that in itself is enough to intimidate anybody who is trying to get their head around all of those issues. But there is also financial management of considerable budgets with significant complexity, and significant negotiation is required with colleagues and management to achieve things.

One good example, from my perspective, in terms of the diversity of what local government is responsible for, is from the one that I was involved with as a councillor myself, Warrnambool city. If you just take Warrnambool city, which acts as a capital city for the region, it operates an airport and it operates a seaport. Even just taking the involvement of an airport, you have got civil aviation regulations, you have got security compliance and you have got asset management with runways and terminals and so on, and then of course most airports have got an industrial estate with strategic planning responsibilities for local government. If your local council has an airport, it is a good thing if you as a councillor understand and are briefed on what is coming on the horizon for airports, what the strategic issues are, what the interests are and how they relate to your community.

That is just one area. We have got a seaport as well. Then there is a theatre with a variety of cultural programs and a regional art gallery, so we have got the arts sector. Councils also take care of communities from cradle to grave, from birth and early childhood services such as maternal and child health services through to activities such as Meals on Wheels and health and aged care services. Again, the funding associated with the aged care sector within local government is so big and so dynamic that it really does take a significant amount of energy, time, reading and reflection on the part of a councillor to make sure that all their responsibilities and the community’s needs are met as best as possible.

Warrnambool council also has a huge role to play in maintaining parks, gardens and sporting facilities of every type and supporting a huge number of community groups across the community. The role of a councillor is to have oversight of the strategic outlook across all of these areas in order to make the best decisions for the community they serve, and this means understanding forward trends and emerging issues that may impact the services provided by that council. Councillors are often also members of regional or local library boards, regional alliances – a rail freight alliance in the case of my region – waste committees and emergency management committees. They often form parts of working groups for big new projects. Councillors often oversee community grant schemes and witness firsthand how volunteers play a really important role in the community but also a really important role in providing input to councils. Councils also work hard to seek funding from the state and federal governments, and they have got their fees and charges as well and their rating system.

Just last week I was pleased to announce funds through the council support program for both Warrnambool city and Moyne shire. Warrnambool Civic Green was one of the beneficiaries, and some wi-fi in some small towns in Moyne was another beneficiary. These partnerships ensure that regional towns are benefiting, and that is as a result of advocacy and planning from local government. Councils do complex work together to advocate not just for their own patch and not just for their own ward but also for the important projects and priorities of a region. I would say that the funding of the Maroona line rail freight project, $150 million, was honestly probably a 25- to 30-year – someone is going to correct me. But I know it is at least 20 years that that project has been advocated for in my region of the south-west, and it was only funded this year by the Albanese government, which is fantastic. But many, many councillors in the region from multiple councils have played a role in that. This is why we have got this bill to strengthen and support councils in the work that they do.

I am particularly pleased with the bill before us today because it makes amendments to further improve councils by improving accountability, councillor conduct and governance across the local government sector. This bill provides for ongoing mandatory training for councillors and mayors, and I do agree that with a hundred people in a classroom you will get a hundred different views of what they learned. Attending the training is a good thing, and it is good to have mandatory training because of the complexity of the role, as I have just described. The bill also improves the councillor conduct framework, clarifies the responsibilities of councillors and provides a model code of conduct. I think good behaviour is good behaviour no matter where we are, and basic human courtesy and a rigorous debate that is conducted with respect to your opponents all sit within a good code of conduct. I think it makes sense to have a universal code of conduct across the state.

This bill also provides for the suspension and disqualification of individual councillors in certain circumstances and certainly according to a codified framework. I think it is really important to be able to do this. The feedback I have received from councillors in the sector can be summed up from my perspective as a huge sigh of relief. Councillors report to me that one councillor can disrupt the functional work of a whole council team and that can then cause reputational damage to the entire council when it is really only one councillor that perhaps might not be behaving in a way that meets not only normal, accepted human behaviour standards but also professional governance standards.

As a further element of that, I really want to endorse what Ms Terpstra said earlier about encouraging women to run for local council, and we do have elections later this year. I think having stronger accountability for local government councillors and an ability for the minister to sanction, through suspension or disqualification, an individual will make councils less aggressive in some cases and less intimidating spaces for women. I think how it is reported in the community, some of this conduct, influences women’s decisions to put their hands up for council, so I share Ms Terpstra’s hopes that this bill might encourage more women to run for council.

The bill also provides further powers to the chief municipal inspector and makes miscellaneous amendments. I fully support the principles that this bill addresses, and I commend the bill to the house.

Rachel PAYNE (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:13): I rise to make a contribution to the Local Government Amendment (Governance and Integrity) Bill 2024 on behalf of Legalise Cannabis Victoria. I would like to begin by reflecting on why this bill has ended up before us today. In this term alone we have seen 11 councils appointed municipal monitors for urgent intervention, multiple councils dismissed and replaced with administrators, numerous councillor resignations and the Operation Sandon special report. IBAC’s Operation Sandon investigated allegations of corrupt conduct involving councillors and property developers in the City of Casey, in my region of South-Eastern Metropolitan. It exposed behaviour that did not meet the required standards and highlighted the risk of corruption in local government. IBAC’s acting commissioner at the time Stephen Farrow noted the impact of planning decisions on the livability of all Victorians. In doing so, it was made clear how essential it is that these decisions be protected from corruption.

There is a real need for reform to restore faith in government at the local level. Integrity is important at every level of government, and in many ways it is more important at a local level. This is the level of government that impacts people’s lives in some of the most direct ways – whether your local pothole gets fixed, whether your neighbour builds their four-storey house or whether you feel safe on a well-lit street walking home at night. These are just some of the many things your local council has responsibility for. Councils make decisions that directly affect your quality of life, and these decisions should be made by a representative who has your best interests at heart. Anti-government groups understand the essential role of local councils well. Many are arranging targeted campaigns to get onto local councils, control the decision-making and lobby a conspiratorial agenda – all the more reason we must ensure integrity in our local government. As a member of the Integrity and Oversight Committee, I am acutely aware of the importance of this issue and the work that agencies like IBAC undertake to ensure that they can make recommendations that will improve our democracy. This bill goes some of the way to addressing these issues and strengthening local council governance.

Mandatory ongoing training and the amendments relating to the uniform model councillor code of conduct are both positive, if not overdue, reforms. But all reforms must be balanced. We do not want to go so far with integrity reforms that we undermine the benefits of the separation of state and local governments. This is a concern that many in this chamber have shared. It is also a concern that we have heard echoed by many of the councils in my region. They have been consulted on this legislation and they may agree in principle to things like the model councillor code of conduct and the mandatory training, but they cannot say for certain how it would actually impact them without further details. The details of both have a direct impact on whether training can be delivered in an effective and timely manner. It is our hope that there will be detailed and meaningful engagement with the sector following this bill so procedures and policies can be successfully implemented. To further ensure the successful implementation of these changes, we encourage this government to support Local Government Victoria and the chief municipal inspector to give them the resources they need to assist with these reforms in a timely and cost-effective manner.

We understand that there are councils that support the changes to the indemnification of councillors, particularly given the unpredictable financial burdens of the existing system. But in the same vein, no indemnification could create unequal power structures for councillors with less resources. We would like to see some balance struck here, but in the meantime we recognise that the current system is not sustainable and must change. Similarly, the removal of VCAT jurisdiction and the changes to ministerial disqualification and suspension powers have been controversial. Some we have heard from have praised the removal of VCAT jurisdiction for stopping overtly litigious councillors and providing certainty of outcomes, whereas others have raised serious concerns that the failure to retain VCAT jurisdiction undermines access to justice. We will support this government’s willingness to recognise these concerns, and we will be supportive of any house amendments to that effect.

In the spirit of integrity in local government we will also be supporting amendments by the Greens in relation to political donations and further scrutiny. There are other general areas for improvement that this bill also fails to address – things like mandatory duties, reporting, resourcing, the threshold for disqualification and efficiency measures. With this in mind, I will be putting forward several questions in the committee-of-the-whole stage to understand why these improvements were not undertaken. There is an approach that can balance the independence of local government with sufficient oversight and integrity measures. This bill could be improved to strike that balance in a more meaningful way.

Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (17:19): I rise to speak on the Local Government Amendment (Governance and Integrity) Bill 2024. While I do not oppose all elements of this bill, there is a lot I cannot accept – certainly more than enough to persuade me to consider voting against it. In full disclosure, I have been a councillor. I will explain the elements I have a particular problem with, some of which have already been mentioned by my colleagues but others which I think are new to the discussion. The theme which unites all of my reservations, however, is the government’s control freakery. It has moved yet again to streamline processes, sideline opposition and consolidate power. I find it particularly galling that we are told these moves are what the sector wants. They may be what the 77 respondents to the consultation want, but what about everyone else? There are 618 councillors in Victoria. Council Watch Victoria provided more than 250 submissions, apparently ignored. And what about the people, the ratepayers? How can we have a consultation on how local government can be run without asking the people who vote and pay for it? Why were they not asked?

What we have, as ever, is a consultation with those who wish to be consulted, with the individuals and groups who know that their views are largely in line with the powers that be and who do not share the cynicism of the rest of Victoria – the professional bureaucratic establishment, as ever, talking to itself. I was further surprised to be told that, on the basis of the survey, councillors want the training that the bill mandates. If the best argument for it is that they want it, why on earth make it compulsory? The truth is that those who want it would seek it out anyway, and those who do not care will simply turn up, tick a box and gain nothing whatsoever, with the time wasted and ratepayers money spent. The only beneficiaries will be the consultants and service providers running the courses, the council staff employed, the government advisers designing the schemes and the public servants supervising them, procuring them and ultimately evaluating them – the usual self-justifying, unproductive, inherently expansionist blob.

My disappointment is that I do not doubt the sincerity. I am sure most of these people, ministers included, want to improve local government, but it is revealing that they think this is best achieved by enforcing conformism and reducing the agency of individual councillors. In fact that is the exact opposite of what would improve local government. Apart from those 77 enthusiastic form-fillers, this bill was framed to me as being necessary at a recent briefing in part because of the concerning dropout rate of councillors: 56 have quit since the last elections. I would like to suggest they have not quit for want of mandatory training or unified codes of conduct. Many gave up because they are absolutely disillusioned by what goes on, by the cliques of councillors, by the all-powerful unelected CEOs and by the state government’s total disrespect for local government.

My recipe to improve local government would be different: listen to councils and councillors. It is not just the legislation this government passes which undermines them – the Local Government Act 2020 and now this one – but the day-to-day operations. They are ignored, disrespected, overruled. Think of the recent discussions in this place on renewables planning applications. Local governments are now practically powerless. Their representations on transmission lines are ignored. Their representations on renewable projects are ignored. In housing, the development facilitation program puts the minister in the box seat – not the council, not the councillors, not the ratepayers.

How about, more specifically, the case of the Moorabool shire and the frankly disgraceful way it was treated by the state government over the proposal to dump contaminated soil from the West Gate Tunnel Project in the heart of Bacchus Marsh? The council there was treated as a hostile entity by the state government, not as professional colleagues – and not just councillors, staff too. Ultimately, they had to FOI government departments and even launch Supreme Court action against the government to make their point. They have been thoroughly vindicated, I might add. The people who need re-education here are not local councillors but the ministers and department staff who have contempt for local government and who consider it an inconvenience to be disregarded whenever serious matters arise.

Another example: the disrespect for councils involved in Western Victoria Region shown by the government’s signing of the Barengi Gadjin Land Council recognition and settlement agreement. This will have enormous impact on councils, but they were not even informed before its signing – not consulted in any way, shape or form, let alone invited to meaningful negotiations. Then, to add insult to injury, when legitimate concerns were raised they were smeared by government ministers, MPs and media advisers – as indeed I was, incidentally – as spreading misinformation due to prejudice. Whisper it: ‘racism’. This was utterly contemptible. People opposing it were fully aware the agreement was not in itself legally binding on councils. We knew that. But it was an agreement that the state government would use to position itself to assist in bringing local governments to the table to negotiate the aspirational asks of the recognition and settlement agreements. We are not idiots. We know what this means for councils, especially small rural councils. They cannot afford to say no. It is that simple. Their future funding will be on the line.

This brings me to another way in which local government should instead be supported and improved – namely, funding. The reasons councils, again particularly small rural councils, cannot stand up to state government is because they are so directly dependent on it. If you want to improve local government, if you genuinely do, reform the rates system so they, councils, have their own regular income and do not have to spend their time and ratepayers money on wish lists and expensive consultants producing glossy brochures to tip their hats as begging bowls in pursuit of grants doled out by central government. Grants make up about 50 per cent of small rural council funding. That is no way to run a system. It is not the foundation for good governance. It undermines councils and councillors and no doubt reduces their quality and the quality of individuals who wish to spend their time in public service as councillors. So some respect for councils from government ministers would improve the quality of local government – so too would a proper funding solution.

I also believe we need to restore the balance between CEOs and local councillors, who are often not even able to get notices of motion onto meeting agendas. Further, there has to be an injection of common sense. In some cases the incredibly valuable expert advice of councillors is lost on local projects because they are not allowed to speak to staff. They cannot even offer a view on projects and industries they understand intimately, because that crosses a line into managerial input. It is crazy. These are the everyday limitations on councillors, the real factors which undermine them, and frankly are far more likely to be responsible for resignations and retirements than anything else.

A final element is direct interference – the appointment of monitors. We have seen this in Geelong, where barely weeks after one long and expensive monitor appointment ended – $125,000 worth – another was imposed by the minister, over $1200 a day each for the two monitors, while we have a CEO being paid over $500,000, with completely inadequate explanation to the ratepayers who foot the bill and whose democratic selection of councillors has been undermined. Yet ministers with these instincts and powers are to be trusted with the ultimate ability to sack individual councillors? I ask you.

I want to mention another reservation – namely, the codes of conduct. The state government is not, you might be surprised to hear me say, the root of all evil. Sometimes problematic situations arise locally, and this is why I am worried by the potential weaponisation of enforced codes of conduct. What the model code of conduct will say concerns me. Will it become an instrument of control which unduly restricts councillors from discharging their duties as they see fit? As I said following the previous legislation in this area:

It is hardly impossible to imagine … circumstances where those councillors in the majority and perhaps even the officers who depend on them for employment could use the codes to enforce conformity and suppress opposition.

When the Surf Coast Shire, for instance, introduced a code of conduct, I note that it stated that being fit to conscientiously perform the role of a councillor will require councillors not to: engage in behaviours, including having a negative attitude; undermine the reputation of fellow councillors or the council; or resist and discourage innovation and new ideas. So taking offence is an issue here, isn’t it? That is what you can be accused of. You can have a code of conduct slapped on you for being opposed to somebody else’s idea. What if they have bad ideas? Can they still be resisted?

Just this week we had the case of Hobart city councillor Louise Elliot, who finally received an apology from council for the actions of staff who disliked her views on gender ideology and blocked her effort to organise a women’s rights event. She had previously been forced to attend re-education classes due to disagreements with colleagues on the same subject and even had a code of conduct suspension quashed in the courts. That is Tasmania of course, but the analogy is clear.

This bill is an enormous missed opportunity. The government should put away its control freakery and improve local government by trusting it and by empowering it. Ditch the monitors; listen to council on infrastructure matters; have some respect, even when they disagree with you; and design a rates system which does not leave them utterly dependent on you. Independence and empowerment bring excellence. Local councillors are far closer to the people than any other level of government. They have to deal with the voters every day in the shop and on the street. The least we can do is give them the agency to make their own decisions. Banning the nannying re-education of councillors and reducing the state government overrule of councils should be the real goal of any local government bill which really seeks to improve our democracy.

Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:32): I also rise to share a few comments on the Local Government Amendment (Governance and Integrity) Bill 2024, and in doing so I note that I rise to support this bill and indeed wish to commend the efforts of Minister Horne and her team in getting us to the point of debating this bill here today. This is an important bill, because it is a bill that will achieve a significant improvement through the strengthening of our local government sector by making the sector more accountable and by taking measures to improve councillor conduct and also improve governance. There are a number of amendments to some other acts as well in this, notably the Local Government Act 1989 and other various consequential amendments. I will focus most of my remarks, though, on the amendments to the Local Government Act 2020, which of course took place ahead of this year’s upcoming council elections.

Some of the key provisions of this bill include, firstly, the requirement for mandatory and ongoing training and support for all councillors, including mayors and deputy mayors. I would like to, on this note, just pause to reflect that, like other members have in this chamber, I have also had the opportunity to talk to and hear from a number of different councillors in my region, in the south-east, from across the seven different councils that I get to represent, six of whom currently have elected councillors. The feedback I have had has been overwhelmingly positive. This is something that is being embraced and certainly something that is very much looked forward to by the local government sector but particularly by those councillors themselves.

It leads me on to the point that Mrs McArthur was making insofar as whether this training should be mandatory or not. I actually agree with the premise of Mrs McArthur’s point that, yes, the majority of councillors will be interested in engaging properly and meaningfully with this training. It was her suggestion that, as a result of that, it should just be voluntary so those councillors who wish to partake in it can do so. But I strongly disagree with the conclusion she drew, which was that those who have no interest in the training or no interest in those proper accountability measures or those proper governance measures should be exempted from having to do the training that other councillors willingly put themselves into. The reason that I disagree with Mrs McArthur on that point is strictly because often it will be those councillors who are in most need of this training, who are in most need of this support. As I said, I absolutely do agree that the majority of councillors do the right thing, and the majority of councillors intend to do the right thing. It is that small minority that this bill is seeking to address. The training is one measure, but one very significant measure, which will address that.

A secondary measure, where it is warranted, is the suspension and disqualification of councillors who pose serious risks to the health and safety of fellow councillors or council staff or who otherwise inappropriately hinder council functions. This is of course an extreme measure, but it is an extreme measure that is needed because currently if you have such a situation with such a difficult culture that is out of control, the only recourse that the minister has is to suspend or sack the entire council. We have heard some commentary from other speakers about various recent cases of that in this debate here today. It is for that exact reason that that should be the option of last resort, as indeed the option of second-last resort perhaps should be, where it is necessary, to suspend or disqualify a councillor. I am not sure if that is a very apt phrase, but we will stick with it for now – the option of second-last resort. But it is an important thing to do, because as Mrs McArthur says, the majority of councillors do act properly. They do act in good faith, and they should not be penalised for the actions of a few.

This bill also introduces enhanced enforcement powers for the chief municipal inspector, including the issuing of infringement notices; improvements to the councillor conduct framework, including a uniform model councillor code of conduct with increased sanctions for misconduct; and various adjustments to election timelines, including the early closure of the electoral roll.

There was a previous contribution in this place today – it might have been Ms Terpstra – about the various elements of this bill which are being implemented as a direct result of recommendations from integrity agencies. Indeed this bill in particular draws a number of its measures from recommendations made by Operation Sandon. Operation Sandon is a report I am quite familiar with as it relates to Casey council, which is within my region. We saw some disgraceful alleged behaviour take place by those former councillors which warranted that council being dismissed. Again, I note it was not every councillor that was partaking in that alleged very, very poor conduct, and those decent councillors were caught up in the same mess when that council did find itself in the position of having to be disqualified. I think it would be prudent for those opposite in particular, whose party members were largely responsible, those councillors who were the ones doing inappropriate conduct on Casey council – they can try and run away from it as much as they like, but it was quite a disgraceful situation where you saw a small cabal of Liberal councillors working hand in hand with developers against the interests of their community. It is something that we hope never to see again.

I for one am very pleased to see that Casey will be returning to full democratic elections this year, and I wish all the candidates for that particular council contest luck, as I do for all seven councils in my region. But we certainly never want to go back to seeing the sorts of behaviour that we saw at Casey council. Indeed there were other reports of various incidents and altercations between councillors during council meetings. We have our robust debates and discussions in this place. I am fortunate that I do not think I recall ever seeing anyone take that to a physical level, but where that does happen in any sort of environment, it is completely unacceptable. As I said, I am very much looking forward to seeing a new democratically elected council in the City of Casey this year, one that I sincerely hope is free from the sorts of practices that the Liberal Party saw fit to put into that council in the last decade, when they were using it as the training ground for their prospective state parliamentary candidates.

There are a number of other functions in this bill; as I said, though, it is fundamentally a bill that has been drawn in response to the requirements and recommendations from, amongst others, Operation Sandon, and it is one that is part of a suite of measures that this government continues to implement to make sure that our local government sector is working as well as it can, because it is the most local form of democracy for Victorians. It is the one where you are most likely to see your councillor, as Mrs McArthur said, down on the street, down at the shop, and it is important that the Victorian community can have faith in their councillors.

Again I will repeat the point, because it does bear repeating, that the vast majority of councillors do do the right thing, and these sorts of measures, these sorts of training requirements and these enforcement provisions where they are required as well should actually give the Victorian people that confidence and that faith back in their local democratic institutions, back in their councils, because councils do perform a variety of very important services. Beyond of course rates, rubbish and roads, they have enormous provision of services through maternal and child health, through early education, through various other support structures that they have in place for their communities and of course through their role as advocates for their communities as well. I know I particularly enjoy meeting with each of the seven councils within my region, whether it is on projects which they wish to advocate for at the state government level or indeed in some cases where we advocate to them in return, such as a local council road intersection that I am currently working on with one council and various others as well.

For the Victorian people to have faith in our local government, in our councillors, in our mayors and in our deputy mayors is a very important thing, and that is what this bill will help to achieve. I am mindful of the fact that there are number of other speakers who wish to make contributions, so I will leave my remarks there, but I do commend this bill to the house.

Trung LUU (Western Metropolitan) (17:42): I rise to contribute on the Local Government Amendment (Governance and Integrity) Bill 2024. On this side of the house we believe in local democracies and the rule of law. While this bill is not perfect, I do agree with the intent to instil good codes of conduct and to improve governance and integrity of local governments, because we believe in the principle of independence for councils. To prioritise the welfare of ratepayers is paramount. Like many of those in the chamber, before coming to this house in 2022 I had the opportunity to represent the residents of Brimbank City Council as a ward councillor for Harvester ward.

We should assume that those who run for council have the best intentions at heart. Despite their imperfections, the primary motivation for most individuals entering local government is not financial gain but rather dedication to serving their communities and to enhancing the quality of life in their communities. That does not mean they are above scrutiny. Scrutiny is essential in elements of functioning democracies. However, it is a big concern to me when a bill empowers a minister from a different level of government to have the ability to take action on individual councillors and the ability to remove an elected official. We believe councillors who act improperly should face appropriate consequences, but this must be done with due process and fairness.

The proposed legislation aims to enhance the governance of local council by introducing several key measures: first, seeking to boost council leadership and capabilities, ensuring that those leadership positions are equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge to effectively govern – that is, through some of the training which is proposed. This also includes a code of conduct for councillors and setting higher standards for behaviour and decision-making. This bill mandates professional development for councillors, enhancing the importance of continued learning and adaptation to the evolving needs of the council. However, I do have concerns with the significant power granted by this bill to ministers for local government to act against local councillors. This raises concerns about potential overreach. The power could be misused to remove councillors who are simply unaligned with the minister’s point of view rather than those who are failing to do their duties. The provision allows for the disqualification of councillors, which raises significant concerns around the power – for due process and the democratic rights of the persons and people who choose the councillors to be the local community’s leaders.

The enhancement of powers of municipal monitors and chief municipal inspectors is concerning. While the intention to strengthen the oversight of local governments is commendable, there must be appropriate oversight. Questions about checks and balances in place that will prevent these officials misusing or overreaching their authority have been raised. The bill specifies that councillors who engage in such misconduct, particularly bullying, can be removed but only if the behaviour occurred within the last 12 months. However, the bill also does not go into detail as to what constitutes bullying, leaving it open to interpretation by those in positions.

Furthermore, the bill outlines conditions under which the minister must take action against the councillors, such as creating a serious risk to health and safety or impeding the council’s function. This sort of language used here is subject to scrutiny for its potential for misuse. You could also interpret it broadly enough to target councillors for political reasons.

The Municipal Association of Victoria expressed its disapproval of the withholding of allowances for councillors until mandatory training is complete. They highlight that such a practice is not legally permissible in other workplaces, suggesting that it could lead to a legal challenge against government. In such aspect the bill could be punitive and may deter individuals from seeking to serve as councillors for their community, thus impacting the talent, diversity and democratic process at a local level.

We should not accept a government that acts like Big Brother, trying to control every aspect of Victorians’ lives. We need to ensure that the local knowledge, local initiatives and planning directives are what guides our approach to local government. Consultation is a two-way street. It is time for the Allan government to live up to their promise and work with local councils effectively. The Allan government need to get back to basics before they attempt to micromanage the action of 79 local government councils.

In closing, I would like to address some of the concerning aspects of this bill. Proposed subsection 154(3B) empowers the Minister for Local Government to remove a councillor following serious misconduct, specifically any allegation of serious misconduct due to bullying towards another councillor or council staff when the alleged conduct has occurred no more than 12 months ago. While this bill sets out high standards for elected officials, we all need to be vigilant to ensure that the process is used not for political purposes but instead to serve the best interests of the people, the ratepayers and the public.

Tom McINTOSH (Eastern Victoria) (17:48): I am delighted to stand and speak in support of this bill, the Local Government Amendment (Governance and Integrity) Bill 2024, and also to acknowledge the work of the minister and the minister’s office, which has put so much work into this. Many councils I speak to have very positive feedback on the direction that the government is taking and what it is going to mean for local government, because we want to see good people in local government. We want to see our councils and we want to see our LGAs being thriving democracies, and we want those local governments to be able to engage well with all levels of government, whether that is us in the state or federally, to serve the community and to get outcomes for their community, the community that they are in touch with on a regular basis on the ground. We want good people representing the community, connected into community and delivering for their communities.

There are a lot of really important services. We know that local government has that connection point, whether it is swimming pools, whether it is kinder, whether it is child care, whether it is libraries or whether it is the many, many sporting facilities that communities rely on. I am fortunate to be able to go along to so many of these facilities that the state government co-funds with local government or with local groups. I get to see the needs – the needs of locals, the needs of local sports, of families and of children – being met, and that is what it is all about. It is delivering so that local people can have the best quality of life possible.

To get this, to get good people into council and to have those that are in council delivering for our community, we need to ensure that the culture is right to get the outcomes, to get that collective effort of a council. There are a number of people at the table generally, whether it might be nine or 11 or whatever the make-up of the council is, and that is why I think it is important that that this bill is talking about the training that is there for councillors from the time they are inducted to the ongoing annual training that they receive, or if a councillor goes into the position of mayor or deputy mayor, so they are assisted to know what is in the role and what is expected of them. All of these things will see better outcomes for everybody who has a touchpoint with local government. Councillors I speak to want – time and time again I hear – their local government to operate in a way where they can work together, work well, work respectfully and get outcomes for the community.

Our uniform code of conduct will make it very clear what is expected across our 79 councils – clear to all – so that when there is a situation where individuals are problematic and that is impeding the ability of the council to deliver for the people who need it in their local community it can be dealt with. Early intervention is really important in this so councils keep working well, so we do not see the culture going backwards and so we do not see people not wanting to give their absolute best to deliver for those local communities.

I am very fortunate to work with some fantastic councils – South Gippsland, Wellington, East Gippsland, Mornington, those shires. There are great people doing great things, and I am regularly with them, as I said before, for the investments we are making with them for communities and celebrating that but planning a path forward about what else is needed not only for them but for the locals. Again, I want to commend the minister for her work and support this bill.

Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:53): I rise to speak on the Local Government Amendment (Governance and Integrity) Bill 2024. I come from corporate life, and one of the big shocks to me coming into politics was the behaviour in the political bubble – the behaviour we see in Canberra, in Spring Street, in councils – that I find totally gobsmacking in a lot of degrees. Corporate life is full of problems, but I tell you what, it is 20 years ahead, in terms of the governance of behaviour within the workspace, of the political world. I certainly welcome the idea to improve the conduct of people within local council. I think that is an important step that needs to take place. The issue therefore is not whether there should be improvement, it is how we are going to do it. This bill I think has some merit in intent but, as other speakers today have said, it has a number of problems in practice – some challenges to achieving that outcome.

To start with, we would look at the point, a key point that is mentioned many times throughout the bill, where a councillor creates serious risk to health and safety of councillors or other persons or prevents council from performing its functions. But it does not provide an adequate definition of exactly what ‘serious risk to health and safety’ means, because in one person’s interpretation that should clearly mean physical safety, intimidation or other things, but in this day and age we have cases where there is emotional harm or any other forms of harm that take on another countenance altogether. This means it is quite feasible, because we see it in other areas of administrative life these days, where mere cases of disagreement are considered to be making a workplace unsafe. Where a councillor’s intention is simply to make the council or other councillors accountable, that could easily fall into this trap because it is ill-defined. Where a councillor uses the democratic process to democratically obstruct process, it could be seen as obstructing council business. Where a councillor uses correct procedure and procedurally obstructs something that they consider wrong, that could be seen as breaching their conduct rules. In fact simply being annoying could be harmful, and there is no law, unfortunately – nor should there be – about someone being annoying. That is just a fact of democratic life. So this is, because of the lack of checks and balances, particularly around this definition, simply an open invitation for political viewpoints to be silenced and for due process to be ignored, and it is really effectively a chilling effect on democracy itself.

When we talk about the means by which the suspension of a councillor may take place if the minister so says, the fact is that, as others, again, have already mentioned, there is not intended to be a recourse to VCAT and any internal arbitration process that has commenced is immediately suspended. So the external process automatically trumps any internal process, which basically removes a councillor’s opportunity to exonerate themselves from it. So the due process is convoluted at best and actually probably denies natural justice, because it takes away the internal processes the council may have had in process. The procedures where the councillor conduct panel and the minister – it is very convoluted, in my view. The minister being able to sack a democratically elected councillor, clearly, as Mr Limbrick said, presents a conflict of interest. I cannot understand how that is not a clear problem that we have here. If you have a minister of any political persuasion – Liberal, Labor or otherwise – who is in charge of taking action against a councillor of a different party, it can only be considered a conflict of interest that we would not tolerate in any other administrative process, so it does really raise the issue of equality before the law there as well.

The requirement to complete professional development training also is another area where the bill is just too vague. Professional development training is a very, very broad topic. It could mean anything. It could be improving their Excel skills, telling them how to write a grant or public speaking. Who defines it? What are the measures? What is the cost of this training? Who certifies it? What if it is not completed to the satisfaction of whoever is conducting it? Who signs off on it? What if the training itself requires an agreement on contestable matters they do not agree with or indeed they were elected to disagree with? I think there is a real chance of that in particular. And does it require attendance at events they do not want to attend? The potential for abuse, again, through the vagueness of the legislation is manifest.

The removal of an indemnity also is another big, big red flag. The director of the company will have professional directors insurance. If there is no indemnity, that obviously has a chilling effect on any councillor’s willingness to make a fuss, to put their head above the parapet and push back against procedure, because the personal consequences to them could far outweigh the benefits of doing so. So restricting or contesting it again is going to have a deeply chilling effect on a councillor’s ability to do their job and do it fearlessly in the face of often a very belligerent bureaucracy that they have to work with.

I come to probably the central problem. I think you could forgive quite a few of these other elements, but I think that actually the biggest problem of it all is the MCCC itself, the model councillor code of conduct for councillors. I think having a central code of conduct is a good thing in principle. So many codes of conduct within councils are implemented by stealth, and because they are done within individual councils, they do not create a big fuss. I have seen firsthand how they are used to silence councillors and to silence the democratically elected people that the community think they have elected to run the council. The codes of conduct actually constrain and limit their range of speech, their range of objection and the means by which they can execute those powers.

I think having a central code of conduct is a good thing because it would be statewide and transparent to all. But the question is: being statewide and transparent to all, where is it? It is not in the bill. Where is that common definition? What defines it? Who writes it, and who changes it? I am really uncomfortable with language that says, ‘We’re going to consult with the sector.’ The sector – who is the sector? The sector is the bureaucrats. The people who are not democratically elected are going to determine what the democratically elected people can and cannot do. I think that it is really just wrongheaded. I think that is fundamentally the wrong way around. The democratically elected people should be determining the code of conduct – no other way – and beyond that actually the voters should be determining what the standard is for the people that they are going to put into power. We have got a double problem here in that the code of conduct is undefined, and there is no mention of how it is going to be determined. That means this is all done on trust, but the language around it is, ‘We’re going to consult the sector,’ the industry, as if the council bureaucracy are the people that should be determining the means and the ends of councillor behaviour.

Ultimately, the only qualification someone needs to be a councillor is to be democratically elected. That is the qualification. All else is secondary to that. A common code of conduct is a very good idea, but it should be in the legislation, frankly, or it should have been defined before we voted on the legislation, because otherwise it is open to be used, manipulated and changed by who knows. We do not know. We have not defined how that code of conduct gets administered or changed, and yet it falls back into the lap of the minister to be the final arbiter on people’s performance against it. I think we are waiting on the amendments, and we will consider the amendments when they come. We will probably support the bill based on the amendments, as I understand them, but we have not yet received them.

Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (18:03): A brief contribution on the bill tonight – it is an important one. Obviously local government plays an incredibly important role in Victoria. It is an important deliverer of local services, an important contributor to local decisions about our local communities and a democratic forum through which the will of members of the Victorian community on those issues manifests. All Victorians absolutely have the right to expect high governance and integrity standards from their elected representatives at local government level.

The very nature of the way that local government is constructed in our system of government is that it takes its sources of authority and regulation from acts of this Parliament. It is an important thing to remember in the course of this debate and in the conduct of this debate that local government, despite being a different level of government in the broad nomenclature in a legal sense, is an instrument of the state Parliament and is established under instruments of the state Parliament. Therefore it is perfectly appropriate that legislation such as this and measures to improve the operation and integrity of local government here in Victoria are debated in this chamber and are considered by this Parliament.

We have seen a track record over the last few years of some concerning conduct and some concerning issues within local councils, and we cannot let those impacts go unaddressed. We obviously have had municipal monitors: 12 councils had municipal monitors appointed to provide support to monitor their governance practices this term, compared to five the previous term. We have had more than 50 councillors resign since the last elections. A council has been dismissed following a commission of inquiry, and one has been suspended.

Obviously we have had the report from IBAC on Operation Sandon, and we have had a local government culture report and the examinations of the Local Government Inspectorate, which have demonstrated that there is a real need and an important need for improvements to council governance. It is a very strong body of evidence that suggests that action that we are proposing through this legislation is exceptionally timely and warranted, and we hope it will go to strengthen the integrity of local councils. Local councils do perform a very important function here in this state, and the government through the minister has undertaken some fairly extensive consultations with local government bodies, representatives, various groups and councillors themselves to understand why these reforms are important and also how they should be implemented. The reforms were shaped to address the feedback that was received in addition to the recommendations from those independent monitors, so it was the government bringing all of that together – as I said, incredibly important.

In the course of this debate about local government a lot of the contributions have gone to some of the problematic areas that we have seen with local councils in recent times, some of the challenges that we have seen and some of the problematic behaviour and problematic conduct. I just want to spend a little bit of time if I may talking about some really great stuff that is happening in some local councils, particularly in my part of the world in the Southern Metropolitan Region. I have in the past spoken in this chamber about some concerns that I have had with some decisions that a couple of the councils have made with respect to some services, and I will not go over that ground again. But I did want to take this opportunity particularly to commend the work that the City of Glen Eira are doing with their counterparts in the City of Bayside with respect to the provision of in-home aged care services in that region.

The City of Bayside for many years now has decided to really invest in its in-home aged care services and, unlike many councils across metropolitan Melbourne, has recognised that the provision of high quality in-home aged care is a fundamental service that local government should be providing. The City of Glen Eira, in looking at its services, realising that it was facing some challenges, instead of shutting those services down, contracting them out to the private sector or outsourcing them to private or not-for-profit operations, is in the process of consulting on a proposed partnership with the City of Bayside which would see the residents in the City of Glen Eira have their in-home care services provided by their trusted neighbour at the City of Bayside to continue to provide high-quality care from a trusted council-run service, to bring their experience in providing these high-quality services over the council border from Bayside into Glen Eira and therefore to create a bigger and better scale of operations – local government delivering high-quality services in local communities, moves that are absolutely supported by the great service that the members of the Australian Services Union who work in them deliver on a day-to-day basis.

I want to spend just a moment to say that I think that the work that is being undertaken by the City of Glen Eira and the City of Bayside on aged care services in the local community should be commended, should be celebrated, and it is exactly the sort of approach that we want out of our local governments: constructive discussions, high-quality local services, delivering for their local community. If this legislation enables more of our councils across Melbourne to be focused on the issues that matter to their community and to continue to deliver high-quality services to them, then it will be very, very welcome indeed.

Lizzie BLANDTHORN (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Children, Minister for Disability) (18:10): This bill covers important reforms to strengthen councillor conduct and the ability of councils to perform their role in the interests of the communities they represent. Councils deliver the vital services and infrastructure that communities need to thrive. It is so important that councils are able to function properly and that councillors adhere to the standards of conduct expected from them. Based on concerns raised during the debate in the Legislative Assembly and conversations with the Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV), the government has some house amendments to put in place additional checks and balances, and I ask that they now be circulated.

Amendments circulated pursuant to standing orders.

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: The first of the house amendments is to amend the bill so that the rights of councillors affected by a councillor conduct panel’s decision to apply to VCAT for a review are retained. The bill introduces a suite of amendments to strengthen the operation of the councillor conduct framework and assist in the effective and timely resolution of disputes. Included in this is the removal of the multiple appeals avenue for councillor conduct panel decisions to prevent matters from being unnecessarily drawn out. While we think that this is an important reform, we have heard from the MAV that they are concerned about unintended consequences that may come with the removal of VCAT review from the Local Government Act 2020, particularly in combination with the removal of indemnification of legal costs for councillor conduct panel proceedings where there is no right to representation. It is not the government’s intention to reduce the fairness of councillor conduct panel processes. Therefore the removal of review rights at VCAT will be taken out of the bill by the house amendments I have circulated.

The house amendments will also insert additional checks on the exercise of the ministerial power to suspend or disqualify a councillor. The exercise of these powers would already be subject to judicial review by the Victorian Supreme Court as administrative decisions. However, we have heard concerns about these powers being used in ways that are politically motivated, which the house amendments seek to safeguard against. These changes will mean that both of these powers can only be exercised by the Governor in Council on the recommendation of the Minister for Local Government. Further, an order made under these new sections will be required to be laid before both houses of Parliament and subject to disallowance. If an order is disallowed, then the order has no effect and the councillor can continue to perform their functions. This will mean that in addition to the multiple procedural fairness requirements built into the bill there will be a final safeguard mechanism to ensure that a councillor is not unfairly targeted. The disallowance process that will be required is the same as the process that must be followed to suspend all councillors of a council under the Local Government Act 2020.

The house amendments will also make a technical amendment to clauses 19 and 24 to address a query the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee raised in its report to Parliament on the bill, tabled on 14 May 2024. The committee noted that clauses 19 and 24 refer only to client legal privilege and that this is inconsistent with other acts and a provision of the Local Government Act 2020, which refer to both client legal privilege and legal professional privilege. While common law legal professional privilege is captured under client legal privilege, the house amendment will fix this inconsistency and remove any ambiguity by including a reference to legal professional privilege.

The reforms in the bill will ensure that councillors can perform their roles and responsibilities in ways that maintain public trust in the sector and deliver effective decision-making and essential services to local communities. Passing this bill will ensure that councillors whose conduct does not meet community expectations, undermining public trust in the sector, are held to account. These house amendments further strengthen these reforms by ensuring appropriate safeguards are in place to guard against the inappropriate exercise of powers. I commend these amendments and the bill to the house.

Council divided on motion:

Ayes (30): Ryan Batchelor, Melina Bath, John Berger, Lizzie Blandthorn, Jeff Bourman, Georgie Crozier, David Davis, Enver Erdogan, Jacinta Ermacora, David Ettershank, Michael Galea, Renee Heath, Ann-Marie Hermans, Shaun Leane, Wendy Lovell, Trung Luu, Bev McArthur, Joe McCracken, Nick McGowan, Tom McIntosh, Evan Mulholland, Rachel Payne, Georgie Purcell, Harriet Shing, Ingrid Stitt, Jaclyn Symes, Lee Tarlamis, Sonja Terpstra, Sheena Watt, Richard Welch

Noes (7): Katherine Copsey, Moira Deeming, David Limbrick, Sarah Mansfield, Aiv Puglielli, Samantha Ratnam, Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell

Motion agreed to.

Read second time.

Instruction to committee

The PRESIDENT (18:21): I have considered the amendments on the sheet circulated by Dr Mansfield, and in my view amendments 6, 18 and 19 are not within the scope of the bill. Therefore, pursuant to standing order 14.11, an instruction motion is required. For the purpose of this, instruction motions are dealt with as procedural motions.

Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (18:22): I move:

That it be an instruction to the committee that they have the power to consider new clauses to amend the Local Government Act 2020 to prohibit certain donors from making a gift to a candidate or a councillor during the donation period equal to or exceeding the gift disclosure threshold and to prohibit a person from making a gift to or for the benefit of a councillor that exceeds the general cap for the election period.

Council divided on motion:

Ayes (22): Melina Bath, Katherine Copsey, Georgie Crozier, David Davis, Moira Deeming, David Ettershank, Renee Heath, Ann-Marie Hermans, David Limbrick, Wendy Lovell, Trung Luu, Sarah Mansfield, Bev McArthur, Joe McCracken, Nick McGowan, Evan Mulholland, Rachel Payne, Aiv Puglielli, Georgie Purcell, Samantha Ratnam, Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell, Richard Welch

Noes (15): Ryan Batchelor, John Berger, Lizzie Blandthorn, Jeff Bourman, Enver Erdogan, Jacinta Ermacora, Michael Galea, Shaun Leane, Tom McIntosh, Harriet Shing, Ingrid Stitt, Jaclyn Symes, Lee Tarlamis, Sonja Terpstra, Sheena Watt

Motion agreed to.

Committed.

Sitting suspended 6:26 pm until 7:28 pm.

Committee

Clause 1 (19:30)

Sarah MANSFIELD: Minister, I am interested to understand what measures in this bill specifically address integrity, given the title of the bill. What are the main measures that have been introduced here that address integrity?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: Thank you very much, Dr Mansfield, for your question. I think probably the most important area in relation to integrity is the role that the bill has in increasing accountability and addressing councillor conduct, and these reforms will strengthen direct accountability mechanisms and promote early and effective intervention at a council to prevent and address governance failures and councillor conduct. This includes expanding the power to suspend a councillor who is found to have created a risk to the health and safety of councillors, council staff or other persons or prevented the council from performing its function and enabling the disqualification of a councillor who is found to have created a risk to the health and safety of councillors, council staff or other persons or prevented the council from performing its functions in circumstances where the council has been dismissed by an act of Parliament. It also includes providing the chief municipal inspector with enhanced enforcement powers, including through the ability to issue infringement notices for certain offences under the Local Government Act 2020; strengthening and clarifying the operation of the councillor conduct framework, including by creating a power to introduce a uniform model councillor code of conduct; increasing the severity of sanctions for misconduct; making improvements to the councillor conduct framework that will promote the effective resolution of complaints about councillor conduct; and strengthening councillor capability in relation to governance, leadership, integrity and the appropriate management of conflicts of interest through the introduction of mandatory ongoing training for councillors, mayors and deputy mayors.

Sarah MANSFIELD: I am wondering, of all of those measures that you have outlined there, whether you believe any address the risk of corruption in local government – corruption, I guess, being an important aspect of integrity. If so, which specific measures are designed to address integrity? You talked about councillor conduct causing problems for health and safety, but what about corruption?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: I think all of them go, in some way or another – particularly those relating to conduct – to any issues in relation to corruption. But perhaps the last one – strengthening councillor capability in relation to governance, leadership, integrity and the appropriate management of conflicts of interest, in particular through the introduction of mandatory ongoing training for councillors, mayors and deputy mayors – goes to your point.

Sarah MANSFIELD: I am curious as to why the government did not take this opportunity to reform donations to local government, particularly given this is about looking at integrity in governance. I think the last time we brought this up there was a report that you were waiting on that has now been tabled. We are curious to understand why the same sorts of donation reforms that were introduced at the state level have not been and are not being considered to be applied to local government.

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: The advice I have is that because the report you referenced was not tabled until 5 March, that was after the point at which the consultations had happened in relation to this bill, but that donation reform had been looked at holistically.

Sarah MANSFIELD: Just to clarify, does that mean that the government will consider further changes to the Local Government Act to consider donation reforms at some stage in the future?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: As is always the case, bills that come before this place are at a point in time and reports continue to be received and considered, and options are always considered.

Sarah MANSFIELD: I will turn now to the consultation process around this bill. Why did the government undertake such a short consultation on the proposed changes with key stakeholders, particularly given the feedback from those stakeholders was that they needed more time to consider these sorts of changes?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: The consultation that has been carried out in relation to the reforms – I guess the thing I would say at the outset is that since the introduction of the Local Government Act there has been ongoing action to continue to address and improve local government culture, councillor conduct and governance and accountability alongside councils, local government peak bodies and other key stakeholders. These initiatives include the local government culture project, which aimed to understand the culture and context of the local government sector in Victoria in response to multiple instances of councillor misconduct, and that project involved engagement with the public and the local government sector, including with peak bodies, and provided insight into major challenges facing culture as well as behaviour in the local government sector. The insights report produced at the conclusion of the local government culture project found that there was a need for leadership skills to be taught and upheld amongst councillors, that training could be strengthened and that consideration should be given to strengthening resolution processes and powers to discipline. It should be noted these findings have been addressed through the reform.

Further, in January 2024 consultations were carried out with councils and peak bodies to get feedback on the proposed reforms during the development of the bill. Feedback was open from 31 January 2024 until 1 March 2024. Local Government Victoria received a total of 77 responses. Of these, 30 were received from councils, 16 from councillors, 11 from mayors and deputy mayors, 12 from council chief executive officers, seven from sector peak organisations and one which was undisclosed. There was a high level of support provided by the sector for the reforms, which was again consistent with the feedback through the local government culture project. Local Government Victoria has published a consultation feedback report outlining the levels of support for each reform, which is available on Local Government Victoria’s website. Local Government Victoria will engage further with the local government sector and the community in relation to the development of regulations for the model councillor code of conduct and of course the mandatory training. As I said, a bill is always at a point in time; consultation and due consideration are always afforded in an evolving way.

Sarah MANSFIELD: I understand that there are still a lot of details to be determined through regulation that will support this bill should it pass. What consultation is planned with respect to those regulations?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: As I said, Dr Mansfield, consultation remains ongoing. Obviously in relation to regulations and the making of regulations there is also a process which will indeed be followed.

Sarah MANSFIELD: I just seek some clarification on that answer. A process will be followed – can you give me some more detail on who will be consulted, when, how, timeframes? That would be good.

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: I am advised that there is not a regulatory impact statement envisaged but that there is a steering committee that will meet for the first time this coming Friday and that the steering committee is made up of representatives of the relevant peak organisations.

Sarah MANSFIELD: I am not sure if you are able to provide any more specific detail about who is on that. I am happy for you to take that on notice if you like.

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: I am happy to take that on notice. I can seek the advice or I can take it on notice, whatever you would prefer.

Sarah MANSFIELD: If you can seek the advice, that would be great, yes.

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: Some of the key ones include the Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV), M9, Interface Councils, Peri Urban Councils Victoria, Rural Councils Victoria, Regional Cities Victoria and the chief municipal inspector, and the advice is that there are some others, but we can provide you a full list.

Sarah MANSFIELD: I might move now to the issue that I think we have the greatest concern with, which is the ministerial power to dismiss or suspend a councillor. I guess we are wanting to understand why it needed to be the minister that was given that power: why does the minister need to be given this additional power over and above some of the other measures that have been introduced in this bill such as increased powers for the arbiter – an increased range of penalties that they can issue? Why did this ministerial power need to be introduced?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: The advice is that the power is for the minister to make a recommendation to Governor in Council.

Sarah MANSFIELD: We understand that that is the case, but why is it that that power has been given to a minister rather than it being, for example, some sort of judicial process or some other mechanism that is independent of government?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: Just for clarity, as I said, the bill enables the Governor in Council to disqualify a person on the recommendation of the minister, and the minister may make such a recommendation on the basis of the advice of a municipal monitor or commission of inquiry that they have received in relation to that councillor. There is a fair degree of protection rather than the insinuation that there is the opportunity in any way for this to be a political decision. It is one in circumstances where there are checks and balances and ultimately the enabling of the Governor in Council to make that decision.

Sarah MANSFIELD: I am just trying to understand what assurances you can provide that this will not be politicised, whether that is by a current or future Minister for Local Government.

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: As is the case in relation to many matters that are the subject of a recommendation to the Governor in Council, there are processes and protections around that. The Governor in Council is indeed in many ways a protection in and of itself. It is not purely a ministerial decision; it is a ministerial recommendation to the Governor in Council, which removes it from the politics of the day.

Sarah MANSFIELD: What appeal mechanisms will be available to any councillor who is subject to a suspension or dismissal as a result of this new power?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: I am advised that there are two rounds of right of reply, both at the point that a councillor might first be reported and the recommendation might be going to be made and then at the point that the recommendation is being made. There are two rounds, if you like, of right of reply for the councillor to put forward the contrary case.

Sarah MANSFIELD: I guess I seek a bit more detail about that right-of-reply process. Is it that the councillor submits something to the minister or to the monitor to say they are not happy with the decision? Who oversees that process, and who is in charge of considering that appeal?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: The advice is that when the monitor or commission would initially make the recommendation they would at that point notify the councillor, and they would have an opportunity to reply likewise, as I said, when the minister was making the recommendation. There are of course legal options in that as well.

Sarah MANSFIELD: Just to really clarify this point, when the initial finding is made by the monitor the councillor will be able to provide a right of reply to the monitor, and before the minister makes a recommendation to the Governor in Council the councillor can appeal or provide a right of reply to the minister directly – I am just seeking that I have understood that correctly.

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: That is correct, yes.

Sarah MANSFIELD: You mentioned that there would be legal options. Can you explain what those legal options are?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: My advice is that the councillor would also be able to essentially follow the process through to the Supreme Court if that was where they felt that it needed to go.

Sarah MANSFIELD: I am just curious to know whether the Governor in Council has ever disagreed with a recommendation from a minister at any stage.

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: That is a very big question, Dr Mansfield, that I do not feel qualified to answer, but we can take that on notice.

Rachel PAYNE: My question is in relation to the scope of the mandatory training requirements and model councillor code of conduct. Can you provide some further detail on the scope and how this will be tailored to address the misconduct issues that we have seen in local government?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: The bill sets out a comprehensive training program for councillors by requiring councillor induction training to be completed within four months of taking the oath or affirmation of office. Currently councillors have six months to complete this training. Professional development training is to be completed by all councillors each year of their term beginning in the year following their election; mayoral training is to be completed by all mayors, deputy mayors and acting mayors if appointed for one month or more, within one month of appointment. That clarifies it.

Rachel PAYNE: Why has this bill not adopted the New South Wales approach of explicitly mandating professional development so that councillors must acquire and maintain the skills necessary to perform their role?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: Part of the role of the steering committee will be to develop that training and look at what is best suited to the Victorian local government sector as opposed to the New South Wales version thereof. Of course learnings from other jurisdictions are important, but ultimately this will be a decision for Victoria and based in part on the advice of the steering committee.

Rachel PAYNE: Noting the time sensitivity of these reforms, and I know that my colleague Dr Mansfield raised a similar issue, how will both the code of conduct and training requirements be implemented in a way that does not place undue strain on council?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: Again, part of the role of the steering committee will be to look at how the training is modelled but also to look at the impacts in relation to its implementation. It is certainly envisaged that these reforms will strengthen local government rather than put undue pressure on local government. It is ultimately designed to ensure that our system of local government is fairer and more accountable, and that will be part of the important work of the steering committee.

Rachel PAYNE: So with the steering committee, I am assuming that there are interactions there between the steering committee, Local Government Victoria and the chief municipal inspector in ensuring that these processes are implemented.

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: My advice from the box is yes.

Rachel PAYNE: That was just by way of informing this next question: what are you doing to ensure Local Government Victoria and the chief municipal inspector are sufficiently resourced to implement these reforms?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: My advice from the box is that the resourcing requirements are well understood, fit within the portfolio of the Attorney-General and will be appropriately accounted for.

Rachel PAYNE: Why was the decision made to not mandate council’s report when there is a reasonable belief that a councillor has committed serious misconduct, and how does the current approach avoid incentivising non-reporting?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: I am advised that the model code can include provisions around when reporting can occur. It just has not been developed and included as yet.

Rachel PAYNE: I only have two more questions left, so I will try and cover them quickly. Will the disqualification thresholds of ‘serious risk to health and safety’ or ‘preventing the council from performing its functions’ capture serious breaches of the standards of conduct when disqualifying councillors, and if not, does the current threshold fail to capture things like psychological safety?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: Ms Payne, if these remarks do not help clarify your question I might ask you to repeat it, but my advice is that the bill enables the creation of the regulations to prescribe the mandatory model councillor code of conduct to apply to all councillors, ensuring their consistent standards of behaviour – meaning that each council needs to develop their own code of conduct for councillors and all councillors will be held to the same standards of professional, legal and ethical conduct expected of them as decision-makers and representatives in their community – and enables the regulations to be made to prescribe the process for councils to follow to attempt to resolve disputes in the first instance. The reforms implement the three recommendations from IBAC’s Operation Sandon Special Report. Furthermore, Victoria is the only state without a mandatory model code of conduct. However, the Local Government (Governance and Integrity) Regulations 2020 currently prescribe the standards of conduct. ‘Serious risk to health and safety’ is not defined, so it can include things like risks to psychological safety et cetera.

Rachel PAYNE: And just my final question: what measures are in place to ensure allegations of serious misconduct where a principal councillor conduct registrar decides it does not reach the required threshold can be easily referred to an internal arbitration process?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: My advice is that under the legislation a principal conduct registrar can still refer it through the relevant process.

Sarah MANSFIELD: Minister, just to follow on from a previous line of questioning, you have outlined that the process whereby the minister will make a recommendation to the Governor in Council is a check and balance, but we are not aware of any examples of when the Governor in Council has ever made any kind of contrary decision to what the minister has recommended. What assurances can you provide that that step in the process is an adequate check and balance to protect against potential politicisation?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: I feel like you are asking me to stray well beyond my role under the constitution, but the Governor in Council – and indeed the Governor themselves – is obviously a non-political part of the process where a recommendation is made to Governor in Council and the Governor in Council will make that decision on the advice of the government and the ministers of the day. But it is not for me to speak to the independence of that Governor in Council process; it should indeed stand for itself.

Sarah MANSFIELD: Just to follow on from some questioning about funding that Ms Payne asked earlier, with respect to the requirements for additional training – there is quite a lot of additional training recommended in this bill – I am curious about whether the government intends to provide additional funding to councils or councillors to access that training.

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: Dr Mansfield, again I am being asked to stray beyond the realms of my responsibilities even as the minister representing the Minister for Local Government here in this place, but funding allocations will obviously be a matter for the Treasurer.

Bev McARTHUR: Minister, Dr Mansfield raised the issue of consultation, and you listed the numbers of people that had made submissions, but there were 250 submissions from Council Watch Victoria which were apparently ignored. Why did that happen?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: As I said earlier – and I will not repeat myself; obviously my voice is failing me – there has been an extensive consultation process, and I have provided on advice some examples here in the house. Consultation does not necessarily mean that everything that everybody contributes to the consultation is indeed represented in the final outcome but more that everybody has an opportunity to have their say. If their submissions were submitted, then they had their opportunity to have their say and be part of that consultation process.

Bev McARTHUR: Well, 250 submissions is more than the 77 respondents that you referred to before, and they have been ignored. Do you accept that that is problematic?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: As I said, this has been an extensive consultation process. Nobody’s contribution has been ignored. A campaign of emails or formal submissions – all consultation is important and plays its part in, obviously, the development of policy and programs right across government. As is the case here, effective consultation does not necessarily mean that the outcome reflects exactly what is in every submission – by definition it cannot – but it is the opportunity for everybody to make a contribution and for that to be considered. Obviously as representatives in this place we have to weigh up the information we have before us on many an occasion and come to a conclusion about what might be the best way forward.

Bev McARTHUR: I go to mandatory training: who is going to conduct it?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: As I indicated earlier, the advice is that the steering committee will have an important role in helping to define and develop training, and it will then be at that point that who delivers it will be determined.

Bev McARTHUR: Can you rule out that some of those stakeholders who supported this legislation will not be conducting that mandatory training – the MAV, for example?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: As I said, I am advised that the steering committee will have an important role in developing and designing the training and at that point it will be determined. After that point it will be up for determination as to who and how it is delivered.

Bev McARTHUR: Who will pay for it, Minister – ratepayers?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: As I indicated earlier, I am not the Treasurer, and funding decisions will be made at the appropriate point in time.

Bev McARTHUR: Well, Minister, this is a very important aspect for local governments, especially smaller councils. You are legislating that councils have to provide this mandatory training. They are on limited budgets as it is. If they are going to have to pay for it – if the ratepayers are going to have to pay for it – something else is going to have to go by the wayside. Are you ruling out compensating local government for having to implement your legislation?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: As is the case currently, councils pay for all of their own training. As I said, in relation to this training the steering committee has an important role in the development and the design of it. How it is delivered and by whom and any associated costs therefore will be determined at that point in time.

Bev McARTHUR: So as usual we are to take you on trust when you implement the regulations attached to this bill but also this amorphous steering committee that is going to be all-powerful in deciding all of these things – which nobody will have a say in, clearly. But, Minister, how can you guarantee that this mandatory training will support good behaviour?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: Clearly this bill is a commitment to improve the accountability and transparency of local government. As I said, the steering committee in representing the sector will be responsible for developing training that goes to the intent of the bill, which is greater transparency and accountability in local government, so I am very hopeful that that is the outcome that we will achieve.

Bev McARTHUR: Minister, can you define ‘serious breaches of conduct’?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: My advice is that a breach of the code is misconduct and that the panel would make a determination as to whether or not it constituted serious misconduct.

Bev McARTHUR: Minister, that does not give an answer to the question. What is serious misconduct? Give us an example.

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: As I said, there is an appropriately qualified panel to determine the level of misconduct constituting serious misconduct. I would also add that at common law there are fairly well understood examples of serious misconduct. I think that in itself is a good example.

Bev McARTHUR: The section relating to suspension and disqualification refers to the Minister for Local Government being granted the authority to suspend a councillor for up to 12 months based on reports from municipal monitors or commissions of inquiry. What examples potentially are going to be cases where somebody gets suspended? You must have some idea of exactly what you are referring to here and what you are trying to prevent with all the mandatory training et cetera.

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: As I indicated, Mrs McArthur, I am not going to hypothesise here. As I indicated, on the advice of the box, a breach of the code is misconduct and the panel will determine what is serious misconduct.

Bev McARTHUR: Who appoints the panel? The minister?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: The principal councillor conduct registrar, I am advised, Mrs McArthur.

Bev McARTHUR: Who appoints him or her?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: I am advised the secretary, Mrs McArthur.

Bev McARTHUR: We could go down this rabbit hole. Who appoints the deputy secretary?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: Sorry, Mrs McArthur, my voice is failing me. I said the secretary, not the deputy secretary.

Bev McARTHUR: The secretary, sorry. Who appoints them?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: Mrs McArthur, as you said, it is a rabbit hole you are leading us down. The secretary is obviously appointed in line with the process across government for appointment of secretaries.

Bev McARTHUR: The chief municipal inspector is being given additional powers, including the ability to issue infringements for prescribed offences. Can you define those?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: I am advised some examples of prescribed offences would be things like lodging an initial personal interest return, lodging a biannual personal interest return, and the printing and publication of election material – these are all categories, if you like. The types of offences: it is clearly intended to address the less serious offences relating to things like elections and personal interests – someone’s failure or otherwise to lodge a campaign donation return, for example, or lodge a personal interest return. Also, it includes issues with, for example, the printing and publication of election material: a person must not print, publish or distribute or cause, permit or authorise to be printed, published or distributed election material unless the name and address of the person who authorised the electoral material is clearly displayed. These are the sorts of issues, if you like, that the prescribed offences are seeking to pick up.

Richard WELCH: Minister, which comes first – the model councillor code of conduct (MCCC) or the compulsory training?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: I would ask Mr Welch to explain his question little bit more. What do you mean by ‘which comes first’ – in the bill or –

Richard WELCH: It is the compulsory training. Surely that is in relation to the model code for councillor conduct, so that would have to be defined first, before you could define the training.

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: The advice from the box is they are both considered at the same time.

Richard WELCH: When is the MCCC being defined?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: I am advised that the steering committee will look at both things concurrently – the development of the code of conduct as well as the development of the training. Obviously, though, the code of conduct will have to be finalised first in order to then finalise the training in relation to the code of conduct.

Richard WELCH: The approval process for the codified MCCC – is that the same as the training itself? Who will be the final authority? A further question is: in future, in the event of that MCCC being changed or amended, who will have the say over that going forward?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: I am advised, Mr Welch, that the steering committee will provide the advice to the minister. The minister will make a recommendation to Governor in Council.

Bev McARTHUR: Minister, just going back to the code of conduct, those of us who have been in local government have probably been at least once threatened with a code of conduct. Can you guarantee us that this amendment is going to reduce those frivolous accusations, or will this encourage contested applications of code of conduct against fellow councillors?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: The clear intent of the bill is to both clarify the code of conduct and also provide training in it. It would be anticipated, and hopefully found to be the case, that greater clarity around that and greater training in that would indeed lead to less frivolous cases, I would hope.

Bev McARTHUR: Is taking offence at something a fellow councillor said something that would be considered problematic in this legislation?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: As we have just discussed, there is a process for establishing the code, and there is a process for developing training into the code. We have talked through what might constitute serious misconduct, and we have also talked through what would be those prescribed offences. I think it is almost a hypothetical question as to whether or not something can cause offence, because it depends on the nature of what it is that we are talking about. I would not seek, standing here today, to be the arbiter on that, but I think what we do have through this bill is a robust set of processes and measures designed to address real issues of conduct within council.

Sarah MANSFIELD: I would just like to touch on the issue around removing the automatic right to indemnification for councillors who are subject to an arbitration process or councillor conduct panel process. This measure has been introduced despite having very low support from that consultation process, and a number of concerns have been raised, I know, from various stakeholders about that new provision. I am just wanting to understand the government’s justification for keeping that in this bill.

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: In relation to indemnification of councillors in relation to arbitrations, the bill obviously will prevent councillors from indemnifying a councillor for legal costs incurred as a result of an internal arbitration process or a councillor conduct panel hearing unless an order has been made granting leave to have legal representation. The current practice of councils indemnifying councillors for legal expenses has led to these processes becoming overly costly, complex and legalistic. It also undermines the deterrent effect of the councillor conduct framework by allowing councillors to prolong proceedings at the expense of ratepayers. The proposed reform aims to strike a balance between fair legal representation and the efficient handling of these processes. Importantly, it does not impose an absolute prohibition on councillor indemnification but includes a carefully considered exception that allows councils to indemnify councillors when an arbiter or panel grants a party leave to have legal representation to ensure that the process is conducted fairly. The bill also does not restrict a council from obtaining legal advice in relation to these types of proceedings.

Sarah MANSFIELD: Certainly in our discussions with the department they provided an example where one of the councillors who is involved in the dispute might be a lawyer and therefore they are unfairly advantaged in that situation, so an arbiter or conduct panel might allow the other party to have access to legal representation. That is an obvious case, but I put it to you that there are many instances where councillors have different means, different access to legal support, that may not necessarily be obvious to an arbiter or to a councillor conduct panel and therefore one party may be more or less advantaged as a result of that. I am just wondering what assurances you can give that this new provision will not either produce unfair outcomes or potentially even discourage people from making complaints because they are fearful of potential legal exposure.

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: Firstly, just to repeat one of the points I made previously, which is that the proposed reform aims to strike that balance between fair legal representation and the efficient handling of these processes. Importantly it does not impose an absolute prohibition on councillor indemnification but includes a carefully considered exception that allows councils to indemnify councillors when an arbiter or panel grants a party leave to have legal representation to ensure that the process is conducted fairly. There currently is no right to representation for parties to an internal arbitration or councillor conduct panel proceeding. However, arbiters and councillor conduct panels can make an order allowing a party to have representation if representation is necessary to ensure the process is conducted fairly, and this may occur if one party – to your point – has a legal background disadvantaging the other party or if one party has access to legal resources the other party does not have access to. There are no limitations on the circumstances in which an order allowing a party to have representation can be made, so that the circumstances of each matter can be considered. Under the bill, if such an order is made, then the council may indemnify the councillor in accordance with the normal practices and processes. Where there is no right to representation, ratepayers should not be bearing those legal costs.

Sarah MANSFIELD: Thank you for that explanation. I guess I am concerned about circumstances where one party may have access to resources or legal support that is not apparent. Perhaps it is not disclosed in any way and the other party is not aware of this, the arbiter is not aware of this and the councillor conduct panel is not aware of it. That individual will be obviously advantaged going into that process, and I am just wondering whether that may lead to some unintended consequences and potentially disadvantage councillors who do not have the same access to resources in circumstances where this new mechanism is subject to an arbiter’s assessment of the councillor’s access to resources or not.

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: I would just say again that the proposed reform aims to strike a balance between fair legal representation and the efficient handling of these processes, and importantly it does not impose an absolute prohibition on councillor indemnification and it does include a very carefully considered exception that allows councils to indemnify councillors when an arbiter or panel grants a party leave to have legal representation, to ensure that the process is conducted fairly.

David DAVIS: Now that questions are finished, I thought before we move to the amendment process I would just make clear the opposition’s position, given that we now have the amendments in front of us. Thank you for distributing those amendments. I want to make the point that the opposition has negotiated some changes to the bill which are important changes. There are three principal important changes that have been negotiated. The first is a role for VCAT, so councillors who are subject to some of the processes in the act will be able to appeal to VCAT. We think that is a major, significant step forward from where the bill was. It means that a lower cost jurisdiction is involved. The idea that every councillor who wanted to appeal would have to go to the Supreme Court was too extreme, in our view, and that has been negotiated. Equally the lack of parliamentary oversight concerned us, and the amendments deal with the disallowance aspect in either house of the Parliament where a decision is made to impact on a councillor through some of the processes in the bill. We think that that is a major step forward. That disallowance matter is important. We also think the clarification of the issues around legal and professional privilege are actually quite important, and we want to put on record the negotiation on those matters. I note the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee (SARC) comments on those. It is an important distinction and it is an important improvement.

However, notwithstanding all that, the opposition does not like much of this bill. It will be better than it was, after those amendments, but we do not like much of it. The tone of the bill is problematic. Whilst we accept there needs to be some significant steps in terms of councillor behaviour, we think that this bill is draconian. We think that it is not well thought through in a number of areas, and we think that despite the improvements there are still many, many problems with the bill. I just want to get that on record. The fact that we will support the amendments that have been negotiated in no way should reflect that we like the bill or we think that it is a healthy bill. We are in a position where significant improvements have been negotiated, and those significant improvements are what we will have to live with.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: If there are no further questions, I will invite Dr Mansfield to move her amendments 1 to 3, please, which test her amendments 4, 5, 7, 17 and 22 to 30.

Sarah MANSFIELD: I move:

1. Clause 1, page 2, lines 4 to 7, omit all words and expressions on these lines.

2. Clause 1, page 2, line 13, omit “changes;” and insert “changes.”.

3. Clause 1, page 2, lines 14 to 17, omit all words and expressions on these lines.

I am just wondering if I could perhaps speak to all of the amendments that I intend to move at this point –

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Yes, absolutely.

Sarah MANSFIELD: and then we can vote on them, because many of them are linked to each other, and it might make more sense just to speak to the whole lot right now.

Our amendments that we are putting forward can be grouped into I guess four key areas. As I outlined I think at length during my second-reading contribution, our biggest concern with this bill is the power of a minister to disqualify or suspend a councillor. The consequences of that will be not only a councillor being suspended for up to 12 months but a community being left without democratic representation for that period of time, and it is particularly concerning, with the shift to single-member wards, that there could be wards with no councillor representing them potentially for up to 12 months. That councillor will also be ineligible to hold the office of mayor or deputy mayor or be the chair of a delegated committee for the remainder of their term, and this is all at the discretion of a minister. You outlined some apparent checks and balances to that process, but I do not get a lot of confidence from the processes that have been outlined, particularly with the Governor in Council being the one that is having the recommendation made to them. I do not think there are many, if any, instances where the Governor in Council has ever disagreed with the recommendation of a minister.

David Davis: They have. I can assure you they have.

Sarah MANSFIELD: There cannot be too many.

David Davis interjected.

Sarah MANSFIELD: Yes, well, we do not feel that this is an adequate check and balance, and in any case it is just not appropriate for the minister to have this power. As I outlined in my second-reading contribution, we feel this is fundamentally anti-democratic.

There are other provisions in this bill that deal with the issue of councillor conduct, and we welcome some of those. We talked about additional councillor training and expectations around that, the additional powers that are being given to arbiters and the additional protections given to mayors to help resolve internal disputes. We are the first to acknowledge that there are problematic councillors right across councils, and anything that can be done to improve conduct and ensure the health and safety of other people that those councils are working with is welcome. However, providing the minister with the power to suspend a councillor – there is obvious and significant risk of that being used, whether it is real or perceived politicisation of that process, by a current or future minister, so therefore we are looking to have that provision removed entirely. I am aware that there will be amendments moved to introduce a disallowance provision whereby the Parliament will have some oversight. Again, that is an improvement, and I think should our amendments not pass on this we will be supporting that disallowance provision, because it is one additional protection that gives some parliamentary oversight of this process. But we do so reluctantly, because we fundamentally believe that this provision to give the minister additional powers of this nature should not be in the bill in the first place.

The next tranche of amendments relate to the indemnification issue that we were talking about earlier. We believe that this provision means that councillors will not be as readily able to access indemnification during those early stages of, say, a complaints process with internal arbitration or a councillor conduct panel. We feel that their ability to access that and all parties’ ability to access that is really important to maintain. It is something the sector has provided some strong feedback about as well. We believe that those new provisions remove councillors’ ability to obtain that indemnification and should be removed from the bill.

The third set is around the right of appeal to VCAT. I note that the government has taken on feedback about this issue, and we welcome that. We will be supporting the amendment that the government will be moving. I understand that that was a recommendation from SARC. It is also something that, again, the sector made quite clear there were some concerns about. We believe that an appeal mechanism when there is an adverse finding made against a councillor that does not require them to go to the Supreme Court is a very reasonable thing. Perhaps VCAT is not the most appropriate body to resolve these things, but in the absence of any other mechanism we think retention of that right to apply for a merits hearing at VCAT is a very reasonable thing to keep in the bill. So we welcome the government’s amendments on that particular provision.

The final set of amendments are our out-of-scope amendments, which relate to donations reforms. Again, I touched on these during my second-reading contribution, but just to provide some further clarity about what they are: the amendments we are putting forward provide for a prohibition on donations from property developers and the gambling industry; they place a cap of $4000 on political donations that could be received by local government donation recipients, which is in line with the Electoral Act 2002 for a general cap on donations; and they compel local government candidates to submit an interim donation return 14 days before election day, which must be disclosed on the council’s website seven days before the election. They also introduce a series of amendments that reform the local government donation rules.

In 2018 political donations reforms were introduced at a state level, but these have not been enacted in the local government context. So I am taking an opportunity to reintroduce a series of amendments that have actually been brought to this place previously. In 2022 my colleague Dr Ratnam put forward these amendments. They propose a ban on, as I said, donations from property developers and the gambling industry and are just as relevant today as they were two years ago, especially when we are looking to be holding council elections in October. The Greens integrity amendments also bring donation caps in line with those of the state government. For many years my Greens colleagues have been campaigning for broad changes to improve integrity across state and federal governments, yet each time reforms are introduced and quite reasonable reforms that we have suggested, the government comes up with an excuse to vote against them. These are pretty straightforward anti-corruption measures, and we think they are measures which go further than anything that is actually in the bill before us today when it comes to integrity. They stop corruption before it occurs, rather than simply monitoring and handing out penalties afterwards. These are provisions that already exist in New South Wales and Queensland, and we believe it is about time that Victoria caught up. We think this is a real missed opportunity for the government. They could have introduced these as part of a bill that purports to address integrity and governance.

We would really urge this chamber to support our amendments. There is obviously a lot more that needs to be done to address the risk of corruption not only in local government but across all levels of government, but within the constraints of the bill before us today we believe these are some modest measures that would bring about some genuine integrity reforms to local government.

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: I will respond holistically given that Dr Mansfield has addressed all of her amendments at once. In relation to the powers to suspend a councillor, I just reiterate that to suspend a councillor, either a municipal monitor or commission of inquiry must be appointed at that council and make those recommendations. The recommendation to suspend a councillor is in very limited circumstances. They are limited circumstances that are fair and award councillors a right of reply twice throughout the process before a suspension can occur.

It should be said that it simply is not acceptable that elected officials of any tier of government be allowed to create a serious risk to safety at their workplace or to their constituents, and when councils are not able to function the whole of that local government would suffer, not to mention those councillors who are trying to represent their communities. The sector was consulted widely on this reform and overwhelmingly supported the new suspension and disqualification powers, with the intention to promote an environment that reinforces accountability and good governance.

In relation to the role of Governor in Council, the power that Dr Mansfield is seeking to amend out of this reform is for the Governor in Council to disqualify a councillor for a number of years, and this was designed to ensure individual councillors who are found to have contributed to a council’s governance failures are sanctioned appropriately and will not cause further issues at the council following the period of administration. The finding can only be made if the person was a councillor of a council that was dismissed by an act of Parliament during their term, with either a municipal monitor or commission of inquiry making the findings against the councillor. The finding the monitor or inquiry has to specifically make is that the councillor was found to have created a serious risk to the health and safety of councillors, council staff or others or prevented the council from functioning.

In relation to the issues around the indemnification of councillors, we know that the current practice of councils indemnifying councillors for legal expenses is problematic, as it has led to arbitration and conduct panel hearing processes becoming overly costly, complex and legalistic. This reform strikes a balance between fair legal representation and the efficient handling of councillor conduct processes. Councils will be prevented from indemnifying a councillor against legal costs incurred to defend or be party to an arbitration or councillor conduct panel. Importantly, it does not impose an absolute prohibition on councillor indemnification. It includes a carefully considered exception that allows councils to indemnify councillors where an arbiter or panel grants a party leave to have legal representation to ensure that the process is conducted fairly. This can cause a huge burden on council budgets and can be weaponised by councillors immediately and repeatedly moving to a legal panel when resolving alleged conduct issues.

In relation to the clauses in relation to VCAT, as Dr Mansfield said, these did relate in part to SARC recommendations and have been resolved.

Sonja TERPSTRA: I have a question on Dr Mansfield’s amendment, if I may. Could the member please explain why this proposed amendment by the Greens political party reinforces that councillors who are found to have created unsafe work environments that create a serious risk to health and safety should not have consequences for their behaviour? This is in regard to the disqualification and suspension.

Sarah MANSFIELD: I thank the member for her question. Just to clarify, we have been very clear: we support consequences for poor behaviour, particularly when it endangers health and safety of councillors. There are a whole range of provisions in this bill that provide for additional penalties. For example, the arbiter has expanded powers. They can issue a broader range of penalties, including lengthier suspensions – I think it has been moved from one month to three months – and we are quite supportive of all those other changes that are in this bill, and we have made it quite clear. Hence we were quite happy to look to remove the individual provisions that we found problematic.

The reason we object to the ministerial power to remove a councillor is not because we think there should not be consequences, it is that bestowing that power on a minister is fundamentally anti-democratic. We do not believe that a state government minister should have the power to remove a local government representative, because the risk of politicisation, whether real or perceived, is too great, and we do not believe that the checks and balances that have been outlined are adequate to protect against that.

Sonja TERPSTRA: Thank you, Dr Mansfield, for that answer. I just draw your attention to a provision that is in the bill which you seek to withdraw. Based on your previous answer, where you said you are concerned about checks and balances and that perhaps a minister having the power to remove somebody lacks rigour – you are concerned about politicisation – I note that the provision that is proposed is that a councillor could be dismissed during that person’s term of office, but it has to be based on either a municipal monitor or a commission of inquiry providing a report to the minister stating that the person was creating a serious risk.

What is contained in that provision – and perhaps you do not understand what that entails – is that there is some kind of investigation that is undertaken by the municipal monitor and a commission of inquiry, so not by the minister themselves, and that an inquiry process is undertaken where participants in that process will be afforded natural justice and procedural fairness in order to respond to allegations. So I am just not sure that the answer you have provided adequately goes to what this inclusion in the bill actually does. And it goes further than just talking about councillors; it actually includes council staff or other persons, particularly where there was the prevention of the council performing its functions.

I draw your attention to one example: Yarra City Council were unable to make a decision about electing a mayor. In that case a monitor was appointed to assist them. So again, there are numerous examples that talk about toxic environments that have been created by councillors, and again I just ask you to further explain the Greens political party position in regard to this, because effectively this is about ensuring we have healthy and safe working environments for people who work in local government. In my contribution earlier today I spoke about a number of female councillors who are being harassed and intimidated, and that goes to a serious risk to health and safety in the workplace. I am not sure that the answer you provided adequately addresses the question that I asked, so I ask you to give a more fulsome answer.

Sarah MANSFIELD: I thank the member for her interest in our position on this. Firstly, I take issue with me potentially having a lack of understanding of what a monitor or a commission of inquiry does. I served as a councillor for five years. For almost that entire time we had monitors at our council. I was elected to council following a period of administration, and one of the things that all councillors during that period were made very familiar with was the commission of inquiry report. So I think I have a pretty good understanding of what those processes are. It is worth noting that the minister is responsible for appointing monitors to councils, and I will not cast any aspersions on any monitors, but it is still a political process. The decision to appoint monitors is a political decision. It is made by a minister. The justification – there is very little transparency about many of those appointments. I think it is difficult to get information about why monitors have been appointed. When monitors are appointed, they are responsible for reporting to the minister, and often very little information is provided. The report itself is not necessarily provided to councillors or to the public in those instances, so it is a political process.

I have no doubt that in some instances the appointment of a monitor can be quite a helpful thing for a council where those monitors provide assistance with governance and some support. However, I do not believe that the process that has been outlined here with respect to a minister having the power to dismiss a councillor and that being based on the appointment of a monitor who in turn has been appointed by a minister adequately protects against the risk of politicisation. However, just to reinforce, we certainly have concerns where councillors are behaving poorly, where their conduct does put at risk health and safety – whether it is fellow councillors, whether it is council staff or whether it is members of the public – and there are as we said a whole host of measures in this bill that are welcome that will hopefully go some way to addressing that.

As I mentioned in my contribution to the second-reading debate, it is interesting that we are very focused on councillor conduct and trying to improve standards there. We are only just starting to talk about improving the standards of conduct and introducing perhaps a code of conduct or some sort of thing for state MPs. I think some comments were made earlier about potentially people who have come from local government bringing – anyway, I will not go into responding to those, but it is interesting that we are applying standards to local government councillors that are greater than what we expect of ourselves. It is not to say that we should not apply those standards to councils, but we should at least be looking at the same standards for ourselves.

There are also provisions, I would note, that exist already within the Local Government Act whereby a councillor can be removed for, for example, committing a crime that attracts a certain severity of penalty. That is completely appropriate. That remains, and we support that. There are also some other instances where a councillor can be dismissed via other processes for that to happen. We do not believe that it should be a minister who has that power, and as I have said a number of times, the apparent checks and balances that have been put in place we do not believe are sufficiently apolitical to give us confidence that this will not be – I am not saying the current minister would ever do it, but at some stage some minister for local government may use this power to dismiss one of their councillors who may be of a different political persuasion.

Sonja TERPSTRA:. I just want to thank you, Dr Mansfield, for the answer to that question, and I think municipal monitors everywhere will be crying in their coffee after learning about your lack of confidence and faith in them to do the job that they are actually appointed to do. But nevertheless, I just want to continue to go on and ask more questions around what the Greens believe, and it is a matter of importance, because what this bill is aiming to do is actually improve conduct and behaviour within local councils. I have had a number of women councillors express to me concern about serious harassment and bullying that they have experienced. This provision that the government is trying to insert goes to improving health and safety and reducing persons experiencing a serious risk to their health and safety. I am just wondering, Dr Mansfield: do the Greens support improving health and safety and reducing serious risks to health and safety in local government and improving culture?

Sarah MANSFIELD: I believe I have answered that a number of times already. Yes, we absolutely believe in that, and as I have said, there are plenty of provisions in the existing act as well as ones that are being proposed in the bill today that go to that. I would just take you up on your comment about me somehow questioning the municipal monitors. I pointed out that in many cases they do terrific work, and I think they have a role to play. The issue I have is that there is still a risk of politicisation of the process. It has nothing to do with the capability of municipal monitors. As I said, I have worked under municipal monitors and they were wonderful people. I have nothing ill to say of them at all.

Further to your point about the experiences of women in local government, it is something I am very familiar with and very passionate about. I do not really see how anything that we are proposing here with our changes to the bill in any way undermines support for women who may be experiencing the issues you are talking about.

Sonja TERPSTRA: I just want to conclude this issue by saying that it is concerning that your answer has contained questions around the independence of municipal monitors – because you are connecting that to appointment by ministers – but you have provided no examples of where there has been concern as a basis for that statement. I take issue with the response that you have provided.

Nevertheless, I will move on to another line of questioning. I just note that there is significant history of Greens councillors’ alleged poor behaviour on several councils, and I have mentioned one in regard to Yarra City Council. Could you please explain why the proposed amendment, which is the deletion of this clause, effectively would run a protection racket for Greens councillors and protect them from being responsible for their poor behaviour?

Sarah MANSFIELD: I do not believe that question is relevant to the amendments we have put forward at all. I think I have answered adequately. This is a matter of principle. As I have said many times, it is about some fundamental principles around democracy and the right of the community to have democratic representation and for that not to be undermined through a political process. As I said, we are absolutely supportive of a lot of the other provisions in this bill – not this one.

Sonja TERPSTRA: I guess, just to reiterate my line of questioning, there have been demonstrated examples of poor behaviour by Greens councillors on council, and these are examples that contribute to the overall poor culture within local government. So I am just wondering whether you condemn Greens councillors for any poor behaviour that they have exhibited whilst on council, and if you do condemn Greens councillors’ poor behaviour, why do you then believe that ratepayers money or funds should be diverted to be used to assist a councillor in fighting a legal action rather than them self-funding any action that they may have to defend?

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: I think we are starting to stray from the bill, but I will give Dr Mansfield the opportunity to respond.

Sarah MANSFIELD: Thank you, Deputy President. I am not going to answer. I do not think most of that question was relevant to anything we have put forward, to be honest. The member did touch on indemnification, and I think what we are proposing here is to allow all councillors, regardless of where they come from, who they are or what means they have, to access some basic legal support if they are subject to some sort of internal arbitration process or a councillor conduct panel. We think it should just be a basic right for all councillors to give them some legal assistance and protection in those processes. We do not think that is an unreasonable thing to suggest, and it is about fairness for all councillors.

Ryan BATCHELOR: Just a quick question, Dr Mansfield: I wonder if you could advise who you consulted in the formulation of the amendments?

Sarah MANSFIELD: On which one? All of them?

Ryan BATCHELOR: All of them, yes.

Sarah MANSFIELD: We are in regular contact with many stakeholders in the local government sector. Of course we consulted quite broadly with councillors – we speak to councillors and councils very regularly. We also have regular discussions with peak bodies, including the Municipal Association of Victoria – we have had a number of discussions with them about the proposed changes to this bill. We have also looked at the feedback that has been provided by other peak bodies, including the Municipal Association of Victoria. The Victorian Local Governance Association has also provided quite a lot of commentary and feedback about this bill. So we have consulted quite broadly about this. We are also in regular discussions with integrity bodies and experts, hence our proposals around donations reform. That has certainly informed that as well.

Ryan BATCHELOR: Just to clarify, which integrity bodies did you consult in relation to the bill?

Sarah MANSFIELD: On those particular amendments, they are actually very similar amendments to the ones we introduced, as I said, in 2022, and they have come out of, again, regular discussions that we have with integrity bodies like the Centre for Public Integrity. We are offering these amendments up again for the government to consider given that they previously decided not to adopt them, stating that the timing was not quite right. There was a report that they were waiting on; that report has since been tabled. We think this could have been an opportunity to address some of those donations reforms measures that we have long argued for.

Ryan BATCHELOR: Just to clarify, when you said you had consulted with integrity bodies you meant the Centre for Public Integrity, which is a research and advocacy organisation, not a body that undertakes integrity functions. I think it is an important distinction to draw between people who advocate about integrity issues and bodies that are involved in integrity matters at a statutory level.

Sarah MANSFIELD: As I said, we talk with many different groups about integrity measures. Integrity is one of our key interest areas, and in fact we regularly speak with the government about integrity. We are in regular discussions, and there are a variety of integrity measures that are on our wish list that we would like to see the government adopt. Indeed we have spoken to the government about these measures once again. As I said, we consult and speak quite broadly. We speak with quite broad groups of people with an interest in improving integrity in Parliament.

Ryan BATCHELOR: Just to clarify, the question I just asked was: when you said ‘integrity bodies’, did you mean statutory integrity agencies or others who have an interest in advocating on integrity matters? Because you did not answer the question that I asked.

Sarah MANSFIELD: I believe I provided an answer to that question. If there are specific integrity bodies you want to talk about, that is fine, but I believe I provided an answer to that question.

Ryan BATCHELOR: Did you at any time in the last two years speak with any statutory integrity agency about the amendments you have proposed?

Sarah MANSFIELD: We are happy to take that on notice.

Council divided on amendments:

Ayes (8): Katherine Copsey, David Ettershank, Sarah Mansfield, Rachel Payne, Aiv Puglielli, Georgie Purcell, Samantha Ratnam, Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell

Noes (29): Ryan Batchelor, Melina Bath, John Berger, Lizzie Blandthorn, Jeff Bourman, Georgie Crozier, David Davis, Moira Deeming, Enver Erdogan, Jacinta Ermacora, Michael Galea, Renee Heath, Ann-Marie Hermans, Shaun Leane, David Limbrick, Wendy Lovell, Trung Luu, Bev McArthur, Joe McCracken, Nick McGowan, Tom McIntosh, Evan Mulholland, Harriet Shing, Ingrid Stitt, Jaclyn Symes, Lee Tarlamis, Sonja Terpstra, Sheena Watt, Richard Welch

Amendments negatived.

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: I move:

1. Clause 1, page 2, line 13, omit “changes;” and insert “changes.”.

2. Clause 1, page 2, lines 14 to 17, omit all words and expressions on these lines.

Amendments agreed to; amended clause agreed to.

Clause 2 (21:19)

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: I move:

3. Clause 2, lines 19 to 20, omit “and Part 4”.

4. Clause 2, line 22, omit “and Part 4 come” and insert “comes”.

Amendments agreed to; amended clause agreed to; clause 3 agreed to.

Clause 4 (21:19)

Sarah MANSFIELD: I move:

6. Clause 4, after line 20 insert –

‘(2A) In section 3(1) of the Principal Act insert the following definitions –

“gambling industry business entity has the meaning given by section 305C;

prohibited donor has the meaning given by section 305A;

property developer has the meaning given by section 305B;”.’.

I have spoken to this already. This is the amendment that relates to the cap on donations and other provisions around donations reform.

Council divided on amendment:

Ayes (8): Katherine Copsey, David Ettershank, Sarah Mansfield, Rachel Payne, Aiv Puglielli, Georgie Purcell, Samantha Ratnam, Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell

Noes (29): Ryan Batchelor, Melina Bath, John Berger, Lizzie Blandthorn, Jeff Bourman, Georgie Crozier, David Davis, Moira Deeming, Enver Erdogan, Jacinta Ermacora, Michael Galea, Renee Heath, Ann-Marie Hermans, Shaun Leane, David Limbrick, Wendy Lovell, Trung Luu, Bev McArthur, Joe McCracken, Nick McGowan, Tom McIntosh, Evan Mulholland, Harriet Shing, Ingrid Stitt, Jaclyn Symes, Lee Tarlamis, Sonja Terpstra, Sheena Watt, Richard Welch

Amendment negatived.

Clause agreed to; clause 5 agreed to.

Clause 6 (21:23)

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: I move:

5. Clause 6, lines 11 to 28, omit all words and expressions on these lines and insert –

‘(2) After section 34(2)(i) of the Principal Act insert –

“(ia) is the subject of an Order under section 34A that has not been disallowed by a resolution of either House of Parliament; or

(ib) has been subject to 2 or more Orders under section 229A in the preceding 8 years and the period during which the second of those Orders may be disallowed by a resolution of either House of Parliament has expired, for the period of 4 years following the expiry of that disallowance period; or”.

(3) After section 34(2) of the Principal Act insert –

“(2A) A person is disqualified from being a Councillor for the period determined under subsection (2B) if –

(a) the person has been subject to a finding of serious misconduct by a Councillor Conduct Panel under section 167 in the preceding 8 years and the period during which the person can apply under section 170 to VCAT for a review of that finding has expired; and

(b) the person has been subject to an Order under section 229A in the preceding 8 years and the period during which that Order may be disallowed by a resolution of either House of Parliament has expired.

(2B) For the purposes of subsection (2A), the period of disqualification is the later of the following periods –

(a) 4 years following the finding of serious misconduct;

(b) 4 years following the expiry of the disallowance period specified in subsection (2A)(b).”.’.

Amendment agreed to; amended clause agreed to.

Clause 7 (21:24)

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: I move:

6. Clause 7, page 6, line 9, omit ‘meeting.”.’ and insert “meeting.”.

7. Clause 7, page 6, after line 9 insert –

‘(6) An Order made under subsection (1) –

(a) must be laid before both Houses of Parliament –

(i) if Parliament is then sitting, within 7 days after its making; or

(ii) if Parliament is not then sitting, within 7 days after the next meeting of Parliament; and

(b) may be disallowed by a resolution of either House of Parliament within 7 days after it has been laid before each House.”.’.

Amendments agreed to; amended clause agreed to; clauses 8 to 14 agreed to.

Clause 15 (21:25)

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: I move:

8. Clause 15, line 18, omit “suspend” and insert “recommend the suspension of”.

Amendment agreed to; amended clause agreed to; clauses 16 to 18 agreed to.

Clause 19 (21:25)

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Minister, I invite you to move your amendments 9 to 12, which test your amendments 13 to 15.

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: I move:

9. Clause 19, page 12, line 8, before “client legal privilege” insert “legal professional privilege or”.

10. Clause 19, page 12, line 10, omit “client legal” and insert “that”.

11. Clause 19, page 12, line 14, before “client legal privilege” insert “legal professional privilege or”.

12. Clause 19, page 12, line 19, before “client legal privilege” insert “legal professional privilege or”.

Amendments agreed to; amended clause agreed to; clauses 20 to 23 agreed to.

Clause 24 (21:26)

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: I move:

13. Clause 24, page 19, line 5, before “client legal privilege” insert “legal professional privilege or”.

14. Clause 24, page 19, line 17, before “client legal privilege” insert “legal professional privilege or”.

15. Clause 24, page 19, line 19, omit “client legal” and insert “that”.

Amendments agreed to; amended clause agreed to; clauses 25 to 30 agreed to.

Clause 31 (21:27)

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: I move:

16. Clause 31, lines 10 to 33 and page 25, lines 1 to 25, omit all words and expressions on these lines and insert –

“(1) On the recommendation of the Minister, the Governor in Council, by Order, may suspend a Councillor for a period not exceeding 12 months.

(2) The Minister must not make a recommendation under subsection (1) unless –

(a) a Municipal Monitor or a Commission of Inquiry has provided a report to the Minister stating that the Councillor –

(i) is creating a serious risk to the health and safety of Councillors or members of Council staff; or

(ii) in the Councillor’s capacity as a Councillor, is creating a serious risk to the health and safety of other persons; or

(iii) is preventing the Council from performing its functions; and

(b) the Minister is satisfied that the Councillor –

(i) is creating a serious risk to the health and safety of Councillors or members of Council staff; or

(ii) in the Councillor’s capacity as a Councillor, is creating a serious risk to the health and safety of other persons; or

(iii) is preventing the Council from performing its functions; and

(c) the Minister is satisfied that –

(i) the Councillor has not been the subject of a determination under section 167 in respect of conduct specified in the report; and

(ii) no Councillor Conduct Panel is considering a matter that is dealt with in the report; and

(d) the Minister has notified the Councillor in writing that –

(i) the Minister intends to make the recommendation; and

(ii) the Councillor may provide a response to the Minister within 10 business days; and

(e) the Minister has considered any response provided by the Councillor within 10 business days after the notification.

(3) If an Order is made under subsection (1), the Minister must provide a copy of the Order to the Councillor and to the Council.

(4) A copy of an Order given to a Council under subsection (3) must be tabled at and recorded in the minutes of the next Council meeting.

(5) An Order made under subsection (1) –

(a) must be laid before both Houses of Parliament –

(i) if Parliament is then sitting, within 7 sitting days after its making; or

(ii) if Parliament is not then sitting, within 7 days after the next meeting of Parliament; and

(b) may be disallowed by a resolution of either House of Parliament within 7 days after it has been laid before each House.

(6) If an Order made under subsection (1) is disallowed by a resolution of either House of Parliament, the Councillor resumes office on that disallowance.”.

17. Clause 31, page 25, line 27, omit “A Councillor suspended under section 229A” and insert “Unless an Order made under section 229A is disallowed by a resolution of either House of Parliament, a Councillor suspended by that Order”.

Amendments agreed to; amended clause agreed to; clauses 32 to 44 agreed to.

Council divided on clauses 45 and 46:

Ayes (29): Ryan Batchelor, Melina Bath, John Berger, Lizzie Blandthorn, Jeff Bourman, Georgie Crozier, David Davis, Moira Deeming, Enver Erdogan, Jacinta Ermacora, Michael Galea, Renee Heath, Ann-Marie Hermans, Shaun Leane, David Limbrick, Wendy Lovell, Trung Luu, Joe McCracken, Nick McGowan, Tom McIntosh, Evan Mulholland, Harriet Shing, Ingrid Stitt, Jaclyn Symes, Lee Tarlamis, Sonja Terpstra, Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell, Sheena Watt, Richard Welch

Noes (7): Katherine Copsey, David Ettershank, Sarah Mansfield, Rachel Payne, Aiv Puglielli, Georgie Purcell, Samantha Ratnam

Clauses agreed to.

Clauses 47 to 65 agreed to; clause 66 negatived; clauses 67 and 68 agreed to.

Clause 69 (21:32)

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: I move:

19. Clause 69, page 48, lines 17 to 18, omit all words and expressions on these lines.

Amendment agreed to; amended clause agreed to; clause 70 negatived; clause 71 agreed to; clause 72 negatived; clause 73 agreed to; clauses 74 and 75 negatived; heading to part 4 negatived; clause 76 agreed to.

Long title (21:35)

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: I move:

25. Long title, omit “, to make consequential amendments to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 1998”.

Amendment agreed to; amended long title agreed to.

Reported to house with amendments, including amended long title.

Lizzie BLANDTHORN (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Children, Minister for Disability) (21:36): I move:

That the report be now adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

Third reading

Lizzie BLANDTHORN (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Children, Minister for Disability) (21:36): I move:

That the bill be now read a third time.

The PRESIDENT: The question is:

That the bill be now read a third time and do pass.

Council divided on question:

Ayes (29): Ryan Batchelor, Melina Bath, John Berger, Lizzie Blandthorn, Jeff Bourman, Georgie Crozier, David Davis, Enver Erdogan, Jacinta Ermacora, David Ettershank, Michael Galea, Renee Heath, Ann-Marie Hermans, Shaun Leane, Wendy Lovell, Trung Luu, Joe McCracken, Nick McGowan, Tom McIntosh, Evan Mulholland, Rachel Payne, Georgie Purcell, Harriet Shing, Ingrid Stitt, Jaclyn Symes, Lee Tarlamis, Sonja Terpstra, Sheena Watt, Richard Welch

Noes (7): Katherine Copsey, Moira Deeming, David Limbrick, Sarah Mansfield, Aiv Puglielli, Samantha Ratnam, Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell

Question agreed to.

Read third time.

The PRESIDENT: Pursuant to standing order 14.28, the bill will be returned to the Assembly with a message informing them that it has been agreed to by the Council with amendment.