2020-01-13 General Committee Agenda

GENERAL COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                                                            13 JANUARY 2020


9                        LOCAL GOVERNMENT LEGISLATIVE REFORMS ELECTORAL & OTHER
                         LEGISLATION (ACCOUNTABILITY, INTEGRITY AND OTHER MATTERS) BILL 2019
DOCUMENT INFORM AT ION




Author                           Governance Advisor, Diana Stewart
                                 Executive Services Department
Index                            ECM/ Subject/ Council Meetings General
Attachments                      Nil


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Not Applicable
RECOMMENDATION
That Council note the report by the Governance Advisor to the General Committee Meeting
dated 13 January 2019 and that the Queensland Electoral and Other Legislation (Accountability,
Integrity and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2019 has been introduced into the Legislative
Assembly and may result in several key changes for Council and Councillors as outlined in this
report.

REPORT
In August 2019, Council received a report from the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) outlining an
update on the proposed legislative reforms to Queensland’s Local Government Act 2009 (LG
Act). The report was one of a series of reports to Council providing advice on proposed
legislative changes that may impact on local government.
In October 2019, Council received a supplementary report on the Local Government Electoral
(Implementing Stage 2 of Belcarra) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2019, colloquially
called “Belcarra Stage 2 reforms”, addressing further changes that are coming into effect.
Subsequently, this report focuses on the recently introduced Electoral and Other Legislation
(Accountability, Integrity and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2019 and the proposed changes
that may impact on Council and its Councillors.
1.                       Background
Since 2017, the Queensland Government has been pursuing a rolling reform agenda to
strengthen the transparency, accountability and integrity measures that apply to the system of
local government and elections in Queensland. Local government reforms follow the release of
the Crime and Corruption Commission’s (CCC) Belcarra Report1 which found that good
government requires elections to be held on a level playing field, with equal participation
available to all. The report also stressed the need for complete transparency about who
candidates are, how their campaigns are funded, their interests and affiliations, and their
relationship with other candidates.
Following the Belcarra report and on 17 May 2018, Queensland Parliament passed two pieces of
legislation of great importance to local government, namely the Local Government Electoral
(Implementing Stage 1 of Belcarra) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2018 and the Local
Government (Councillor Complaints) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2018.
As such, Stage 1 reforms focused on prohibition of donations from property developers and a
new regime for managing councillor conflicts of interest (COI). Stage 2 reforms went beyond the
original recommendations in the Belcarra Report and addressed additional electoral reforms,
including mandatory training for all election candidates, new requirements for electoral financial
records, caretaker period restrictions, and mayoral power changes.

1 Crime and Corruption Commission, Operation Belcarra – A blueprint for integrity and addressing corruption risk in

Local Government, 4 October 2017.

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