Media release – Nic Street, Minister for Local Government, 16 September 2023
Local Government reforms continue
The Rockliff Liberal Government is getting with the job of improving community confidence in their local councils.
This week, the Local Government Amendment (Code of Conduct) Bill 2022 passed Parliament.
Minister for Local Government, Nic Street, said that this Bill strengthens and modernises the Local Government Code of Conduct framework, making it clear and consistent.
“An important improvement is a new local dispute resolution process which will allow some complaints to be resolved more quickly, while a new 14-day time limit will ensure General Managers respond in a timely way to complaints,” Minister Street said.
“Additionally our Government is pushing on with our ambitious local government reform agenda having tabled the Local Government (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill 2023 in Parliament this week.
“This second Bill delivers upon reform commitments which arose due to important reports from the Integrity Commission and the Auditor General.”
The second Bill will provide:
- That councils have policies to ensure that employees are appointed and promoted according to a merit framework;
- That vacancies for the role of a council’s general manager must be advertised;
- Equitable access to documents for persons unable to access electronic documents, and electronic business practices generally.
Minister Street said that these important changes build upon the fantastic work already being done by the Rockliff Liberal Government in the local government space.
“Our reform to make voting at local government elections compulsory delivered an extraordinary result, with a statewide turnout of 84.8 per cent of electors and 120,695 more votes were returned than at the 2018 elections,” Minister Street said.
“We implemented the first-ever Learning and Development Framework online training modules to support council candidates and post-election, for successful councillors.
“Work is now underway to deliver modernised and fit-for-purpose legislation to manage local government elections in Tasmania.
“Our target is to introduce a Bill next year and certainly I expect new standalone legislation will be in place well in advance of the next scheduled ordinary local government elections in 2026.
“I also look forward to receiving the Final Report from the Future of Local Government Review on 31 October.”
Media release – Local Government Association of Tasmania, 18 September 2023
Local government supports the Code of Conduct changes
The local government sector welcomes the recent changes to the Code of Conduct framework that passed Parliament last week. These changes are long overdue, with consultation on the changes first occurring in mid-2021.
LGAT President and Break O’Day Mayor Mick Tucker said “improving the Code of Conduct is a high priority for the sector, as the current framework is failing us,” he said.
“The current system spends unnecessary time and resources on dealing with trivial matters, while on the occasions when serious misconduct occurs, the framework fails to sanction the breaches adequately.
These shortcomings are at the core of the local government sector’s concerns over the framework,” he said.
The key changes endorsed by Parliament include requiring councils to implement a local dispute resolution policy, with the aim of resolving most issues via a mediation process before a complaint is heard by a full panel.
To support the local mediation process, there is a new requirement for the Code of Conduct Panel to dismiss a complaint if the person making it does not adequately try and resolve the issue through the dispute resolution process.
Our sector is cautiously supportive of the changes, the test in how successful they will be is if the Code of Conduct panels are prepared to dismiss complaints that are trivial, vexatious or that do not participate in dispute resolution meaningfully.
We look forward to working with the State Government on the further changes needed to ensure a safe workplace for elected representatives.
