The Queensland Government is delivering a major step towards empowering Queensland’s councils, and enacting the Equal Partners agreement, announcing local government reforms at the recent LGAQ Annual Conference on the Gold Coast.
In response to calls from councils over many years, the Government is set to introduce the Local Government (Empowering Councils) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill to Parliament this year.
Minister for Local Government and Water Ann Leahy said the reforms would give councils the framework they needed to deliver for Queenslanders.
“We are delivering a fresh start and empowering local governments to deliver for Queensland communities,” Minister Leahy said.
“Local governments are genuine and equal partners in delivering The Right Plan for Queensland’s Future to get Queensland heading in the right direction for the benefit of all Queenslanders.
“We have done everything we said we’d do in our first 12 months of government – we are freeing you from unnecessary red tape and bureaucratic burdens.”
The changes deliver on a key election commitment of the Crisafulli Government to help rebuild the relationship between state and local government and demonstrates the promise to work alongside councils to deliver for Queensland.
The reforms will remove costly and time-consuming red tape and streamline legislative requirements. It delivers a raft of changes to re-empower Queensland’s local governments and provide them with the fit-for-purpose framework they need.
Key changes proposed in the Empowering Councils Bill include:
• re-empowering councillors to appoint senior council staff, giving them a say in senior, strategic appointments to the council,
• clarifying the powers of the mayor and other councillors to provide certainty about their responsibilities,
• removing conduct breaches from the councillor conduct framework and streamlining training requirements, so councillors can focus delivering for their communities,
• allowing election candidates to include contact information other than their residential address, protecting the privacy and safety of participants, and
• making the conflict-of-interest framework clearer and more straightforward, to remove red tape from councillors without sacrificing integrity in government.
The Empowering Councils Bill will do this by amending the Local Government Act 2009, City of Brisbane Act 2010, Local Government Electoral Act 2011,
Local Government Regulation 2012, City of Brisbane Regulation 2012 and Disaster Management Regulation 2014.
The Government has also signed an Accord with Queensland’s Indigenous Leaders, in the next step in enacting the Equal Partners in Government Agreement and delivering a fresh start for Queensland as promised.
The Accord mirrors the Rural and Remote Councils Compact and is another way the Crisafulli Government is working with councils to deliver on water, sewerage, infrastructure and jobs.
