Thursday, 30 July 2026

 David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (18:31): (2659) My matter is for the Minister for Local Government, and it concerns integrity in local government and includes in particular donations in local government. There is a donations regime for local government, I understand that, and some councils have specific codes. There is also the situation where councillors may be running for Parliament as well. In this case in my own local area, the City of Boroondara councillors Torney and Ibuki are running for state Parliament. They received very large donations from Climate 200. They received two donations each, of $100,000 and $40,000 – $140,000. Obviously there have been changes in the regime and they have been forced to pay that money back. But for a lengthy period of time they were both there with $140,000 donations burning a hole in their pocket and making decisions at council level about a whole series of different matters, including climate policy and the annual budget. Those decisions are meaningful decisions.

I have written to the council and said I am concerned about this risk – that there appears to be a loophole in the requirements for local government, so that if a member of a council, a councillor, is running for state Parliament, there is no requirement for a declaration. I think actually in many cases the council arrangements will catch it, because these could be regarded as gifts. I would certainly regard $140,000 as a substantial donation – nobody has ever donated $140,000 to my campaign, for example. It seems that at the Victorian Electoral Commission level the $140,000 donations to Cr Ibuki and Cr Torney are the highest donations that have ever been made in Victoria. That is subject to checking, but it does appear that that is the case.

Climate 200 has made those donations. They put the money in their pocket. It is burning away. I mean, it must be furiously hot to have $140,000 in donations sitting in your pocket ready to go with a campaign. But meanwhile at council none of this was declared at that early point. The council did not know about this. So they were making council decisions day by day, week by week, month by month on climate policy, for example – perfectly legitimate for council to do so – and council budgets, which is perfectly legitimate. But they were doing this without the integrity of a proper declaration arrangement. So I think the council is going to have to look at this. This may be a more general point to be made state-wide, but it does appear there is a loophole that those councillors have slipped through and not made the declarations. It may mean that some decisions of council may need to be relooked at.