On notice: Council reforms slated for this year

THE state government will introduce legislation early this year in a bid to reform local government and boost the confidence Victorians have in their local representatives.

The reforms will introduce mandatory, ongoing training for elected representatives, a uniform councillor code of conduct and strengthen the Minister for Local Government’s powers to reprimand and suspend councillors for misconduct.

The legislation is intended to improve governance and integrity standards across the state’s 79 councils, following concerns of poor councillor behaviour and ineffective performance in a number of regions.

In a statement, Minister for Local Government Melissa Horne said the new legislation “will ensure residents can have confidence their best interests are being served”.

The City of Greater Geelong (COGG) is among several local councils that have had municipal monitors appointed as a means of urgent intervention by the state government in the past 18 months.

COGG has long been plagued by governance concerns.

In 2016, the council was dismissed and replaced with administrators following a Commission of Inquiry investigation that uncovered a deep-seated culture of bullying and dysfunction.

While a new council was elected the following year, municipal monitors remained in place until 2020 under the recommendation of the inquiry.

Monitors were again appointed this year to assist COGG with the recruitment of a new chief executive after the chief municipal inspector deemed the recruitment process had been compromised by a lack of transparency and integrity.

Further allegations of soft corruption in COGG’s hiring practices followed and concerns were raised about the significant jump in senior staff earning more than $150,000 a year, leading Labor member for Geelong Christine Couzens to call for the council to again be dismissed.

Accusations of financial mismanagement came to a head in April with the forecast of an $8 million deficit for 2022/2023, resulting in several redundancies and the postponement of a significant number of projects.

Despite the recruitment of Ali Wastie to the role of chief executive in June, monitors will continue to oversee the council’s operation until February, a decision that was defended by premier Jacinta Allan last month.

Dean Hurlston, president of Council Watch, has criticised the reforms suggesting Ms Horne was “disingenuous” about improving councillor conduct and heightened powers to suspend councillors amounted to a “cheap power grab”.

“What we’re concerned about is the Minister not telling the full story and looking at the complexity of the issues.”

He pointed to the findings of the 2019 Councillor Resilience Survey that found councillors desire greater training and independent advice outside the council’s administration, and often face bullying and harassment from council officers and executives.

More than 30 per cent of Victorian councillors participated in the survey.

“What the Minister is really doing is listening to CEOs. That’s the worst thing you could do because the CEOs are always going to blame the councillors for political infighting,” Hurlston said.

“Yes, [councillors] have to wear some of the blame, but the vast majority and lion’s share of the work and problems are actually created by poor government, poor administration and sloppy processes.”

He called for an inquiry into the culture of local council and the implementation of an independent body to review the conduct of councillors to ensure procedural fairness.

“It’s always easy to blame councillors who are the public face of council.

“Local government is toxic, but let’s start with the administration at the top.”

Ms Horne was contacted for comment and a government spokesperson reaffirmed the state government’s position that the legislation would “improve the performance and accountability of councillors”.