NSW Minister for Local Government Ron Hoenig - who in July issued a performance order on Edward River Council because of councillor behaviour and “hostility and acrimony” among councillors - said “thousands of trivial complaints” have been received across the state.
He said it makes it almost impossible to act swiftly and fairly on matters of genuine concern.
A discussion paper released last week highlights that there were 4,289 code of conduct complaints lodged over the last three years alone in NSW, forcing councils to divert significant time and money from providing local services to resolve these complaints.
“The current councillor code of conduct system is fundamentally broken,” Mr Hoenig said.
“It is too open to weaponisation, with tit-for-tat complaints diverting critical council resources and ratepayer money from the things that matter most to communities.
“The sheer volume of vexatious complaints being made is preventing the Office of Local Government from focusing its attention on getting crooks out of the local government sector.
“The options presented in this discussion paper put the onus back on addressing and resolving issues of councillor misbehaviour at a local level, rather than escalating complaints for the state government or private investigators to fix.
“It also puts forward options to strengthen the role of the Office of Local Government as the sector regulator, including expanded investigation powers for serious conflict of interest breaches and the ability to issue penalty infringement notices.”
Key reforms outlined in the discussion paper, some of which would require changes to the Local Government Act 1993, include:
• Establishing a local government privileges committee of experienced councillors with mayoral experience to assess complaints made against councillors for misbehaviour, consistent with practices in other tiers of government (where the conduct does not meet the threshold for police or referral to another investigative body or tribunal);
• Removing private investigators from the councillor conduct process, while strengthening the investigative capability of the Office of Local Government to investigate and prosecute legitimate complaints (such as issuing penalty infringement notices where conflict of interest declarations have not been made);
• Banning private councillor briefing sessions, except in very limited circumstances;
• Strengthening lobbying guidelines for local government; and,
• Giving mayors more power to expel councillors from meetings for acts of disorder and remove their entitlement to receive a fee in the month of their indiscretion
The discussion paper proposes a complete rewrite and simplification of the Model Code of Conduct which, at more than 100 pages long, is overly complex and therefore distracts from robust, democratic debate.
Proposed reforms would streamline the code of conduct down to 2-3 pages similar to the State Parliamentary code, and outline clear expectations of behaviour for elected councillors.
The discussion paper is now open for community and sector feedback and can be viewed at: https://www.olg.nsw.gov.au/councils/misconduct-and-intervention/councillor-conduct-framework/.
Submissions close Friday, November 15.
