2019-08-06 Services & Organisation Committee Agenda

SERVICES & ORGANISATION COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                                    6 AUGUST 2019


2.2   Changes that will commence on a date to be determined by proclamation by the
      Government
    A Mayor will no longer be solely responsible for the preparation of the Council budget. This
      will be the responsibility of all Councillors. (In practice, this is what already occurs at Noosa
      Council).
    A Mayor will only be able to provide directions to the Chief Executive Officer, not other
      senior staff as is presently the case. (Again, this is what already occurs at Noosa Council).
    It is proposed that the Mayor and Deputy Mayor will no longer automatically be included on
      the selection panel for senior executive staff with the decision to appoint senior executive
      staff being the sole responsibility of the CEO.
    Compulsory preferential voting will be implemented for all Mayoral elections commencing
      with the March 2020 election. There is no change proposed for voting for Councillors in
      undivided councils (such as Noosa Council) for the 2020 March election. The State
      government has, however, flagged that they will be consulting again on the question of full
      preferential proportional representation for Councillor elections and it seems to be their
      intent to implement this for the 2024 local government elections.
    The provisions in relation to registers of interests are being enhanced. For example, there
      will be a new requirement that, within 30 days from the end of each financial year, every
      Councillor must provide a written return to the CEO in relation to the accuracy of their
      register of interest. Our Council already provides Councillors with monthly reminders to
      update their registers of interest.
    Changes are being made to rules about how groups of candidates (or political parties) can
      operate in election periods. This includes new requirement about joint bank accounts and
      donations, shared advertising etc.
    Provisions in relation to election donations are also being tightened to cover issues such as
      loans, gifts to third parties to enable election expenditure etc. “Live” election donation
      disclosure requirements by candidates are also being introduced.
The CEO will provide further advice to Councillors once the legislation is through State
parliament and will also arrange training from the Department of Local Government on the new
provisions.

3.    Further Legislative Changes

All of the proposed changes above are contained within the proposed legislation currently before
Parliament. This part of the report will address those matters that the State government has
flagged will be in the next tranche of legislative reforms that will be progressed once the current
Bill is through Parliament. Many of these proposed reforms will have potential impacts and
includes some issues which are currently under consideration by Council as a result of the issues
raised in the notice of motion in the June 2019 Council meeting.

3.1   Proposed reform by the State government on electoral matters

It is highly likely that the State Government will introduce the following reforms for local
government electoral matters:
    Election expenditure caps – originally slated to be included in the current Bill, these have
      now been deferred for consideration until the next legislative reforms. The government has
      announced that it is not proposing to introduce election expenditure caps for the March
      2020 local government elections but it does propose to consult further with stakeholders
      with a view to introducing this requirement in time for the March 2024 elections. This would
      limit the amount of election expenditure that candidates can incur in Council elections.
    Preferential proportional representation for the election of Councillors in undivided councils
      – the State had also originally announced that it proposed to introduce this for the 2020


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