LOCAL GOVERNMENT AMENDMENT (TARGETED REFORM) BILL 2026 (No. 10)

[5.16 p.m.]

Ms BURNET (Clark) - Honourable Speaker, I rise to speak to the Local Government Amendment (Targeted Reform) Bill. Local government is a gnarly, difficult area to reform. Whilst there are theories as to why the government may want to push these targeted reforms to local government through, in readiness for the October elections, I believe this is a good goal in mind after many, many years of promised local government reform. As we heard, there will be this first tranche of amendments put forward and then, as Ms Dow has said, there's the possibility of other amendments to the electoral reform of local government.

The reforming of local government is quite difficult. It's had a long, tortuous path to get to this point. Previous iterations on the pathway to local government reform have been unfortunately poorly executed or they've run out of fizz before getting to the point where they've been introduced into the parliament for consideration, and many communities have been scared or have been put off by how the government has approached this in the past, with the possibility of sweeping amalgamations or sharing of services which haven't really been talked through with the workers of councils and local government‑elected members, especially those rural councils whose autonomy and connection to place is very palpable, and it seems that some council workers, elected members, members of the community who I spoke to are very concerned about the previous iteration of these reforms.

Previous community consultation was criticised, and I remember going along to a session when we were talking about reforms in Kingston. We're talking about when I was a member of the Hobart City Council, when we were talking about municipal boundary changes, the possibility of Taroona coming into Hobart rather than being part of Kingborough, how the Huon Valley might look - Huon Valley in Kingborough - whether that was a possibility of amalgamation. And, when I went to one of those sessions, I'm sure that the consultants had the best intentions at heart, but there was about four people at that session and I don't think that the uptake was very high.

I really commend the work of the Acting Director of Local Government and his staff and thank them for the information, even a briefing, that they've provided today and previously for me as well. These reforms have come a long way, and it wasn't through lack of trying by commissioner Sue Smith nor previous local government ministers such as the former minister Nic Street, but I do think with the current minister, Kerry Vincent, that there is a will to deliver reforms. There is a will to try and get this right.

We've heard criticisms, we're going hear some more questions, no doubt. Ms Rosol has amendments, and I want to speak to those areas in a moment. It's very difficult to get local government reform right, and these are complicated, targeted reforms - targeted but diverse ‑ and they have diverse powers or the way that they're considered might be quite diverse. It might be the minister looking at this. It might be the office of local government. It might be sent off to TASCAT for consideration. There are a number of things that I'll get to in relation to some of the concerns that I have.

I might just go through the reform areas. I will come to the councillor numbers and allowances. Reform area 2 is integrity and accountability. It is so important for local government, as in any elected office in this state that should be carefully approached. I mean, it's very important that everybody has the accountability, the integrity that they are well versed in what they're doing, and I understand that this bill is looking at the serious councillor misconduct. We've had some shocking, shocking councillor misconduct and quite often some councillor misconduct that doesn't even really rate. It goes under the radar some of the time. As the fact sheet says:

Establishes a new independent pathway to address serious and severe breaches to the Local Government Code of Conduct.

I think that's really important too, because there are so many criticisms of the code of conduct. It's often used as a weapon in local government. We can't get away from some aberrant behaviour by people who want to use this pathway to severe breaches as a weapon, but at least there is some tidying up of that.

The introduction of temporary advisers, I think, is a good idea as well. The minister appoints temporary advisers, and I suppose I have a question to the Deputy Premier who has introduced the bill on behalf of the Minister for Local Government.

I have a question about how it is possible to keep the minister and any sort of perceived political interference at bay when those temporary advisers are appointed. Perhaps for the record, although I asked this earlier when I had a briefing, it would be good to know how long those temporary advisers are in place. That is a question for the minister.

There are the performance improvement directions for councils, which again is an important instrument. It's been used fairly judiciously in the past and I think this will broaden the scope. I think we need to monitor how effective or how that is used.

The elected member learning and development again is really important to empower and inform those people who are elected to council, and they have to complete mandatory training, which I think has been handled very well with the modules that the Local Government Association of Tasmania has been delivering. Reinforcing that is a good thing. What I'm very pleased to see is that there is no compulsory learning modules before somebody is elected, because I think whilst we want everybody to be on the same page, that shouldn't be seen as a barrier for people to consider standing for election.

Reform area 3: Strategic capability and transparency. There's the local government role and charter, which incorporates a new contemporary role statement for council centred on community wellbeing. Community wellbeing should be seen as a very broad way of how councils look after their communities. Whilst it's not in here, there was a submission in relation to the impacts of climate change, which local government is facing all the time. We need to consider some of those things as part and parcel of that contemporary role statement for councils.

I won't go through all of these, but one of the things that does concern me in reform area 3 is the rates transparency, which empowers the minister to prescribe additional information requirements for rates notices to help ratepayers better understand how and why their rates have changed. That's all very well, and it's always good to have more information, but it is often a huge burden on smaller councils to have that. Perhaps I could ask how that might be interpreted or delivered for those smaller councils right across Tasmania, and as a consistency as well?

The internal audit functions is a really good component, I think, to provide accountability ‑ but again, how is that funded for smaller councils and delivered, as modules, or whatever?

The miscellaneous amendments, as I understand, are looking at alternative voting methods, which introduces new framework to facilitate alternative methods of voting in certain situations. I think that points to people with disabilities ‑ I'm getting a nod from the bench ‑ it's a good thing to be able to properly include people and to be consistent with other legislation.

In relation to remote meetings, I was on council when we were in the midst of COVID, and having access to remote meetings really kept our city running. I just want to make sure that there is a limitation as to how long somebody could be away interstate, or overseas, or in space.

Those are the concerns that I have, but I will go to the major concern I have, and it follows along similar lines to Ms Rosol. I would like to raise my concerns about how allowances are calculated and the number of councillors. I think Ms Rosol made a really good point around how those things shouldn't be extricably linked. This is kind of like trying to create a problem by reducing councillor numbers, therefore you can pay councillors more. I think that is a fairly flawed approach to how local councils are governed and how remuneration might be calculated.

I'm not convinced that the calculation for councillors in regards their remuneration is correct either. I know that there was a separate exposure draft which received at least 49 submissions. In regard to councillor numbers, there is broadly sector support for this change. It provides some uniformity in numbers where discrepancies exist. However, I would like to question how this impacts diversity and will favour incumbency. I think that's a huge risk. Ms Dow has raised that issue as well. For example, in the 2022 local government elections, the last three councillors elected to Hobart were two new males and one female, who's a person of colour. If we transfer this logic, these people would not have been elected when Hobart reduces to nine councillors from 12. In the Huon Valley, the last two out of nine elected in 2022 were women, and would not have been elected with the council going to seven. I also question how these reforms will impact the sector's diversity. The proof will be in the pudding, should this bill be passed tonight.

In relation to councillor allowances, it's always been a problem as far as parity goes, and how you attract people to serve on smaller remote councils. As a former councillor of a city council, where the stipend was higher, the allowance was higher compared to somewhere, say, in the Tasman Council or a rural or remote council. The question is about equity and disparate expectations of elected members. The bill continues to embed the members' allowances discrepancy based on region. This continues to demote the role, I believe, of members of local government in regional and remote areas of Tasmania. When you sign up to council, you sign up to do the work that you feel that you can, or many of us will sign up to do as much as we can, no matter what we're paid, but this is a real barrier for people to be attracted to local councils in smaller jurisdictions. I think it also reduces the diversity. As an example, what if we were to say that various MLCs from regional areas should be paid less than city‑based counterparts? I don't think that would go down very well. It's the same sort of logic. I understand that this is for smaller populations, but you expect people to work and represent their communities and work very hard to do that.

Everyone elected, regardless of where in the state they serve, is meant to have a similar skill set - to consider planning applications, the financial and social impacts, the passion for their community. It plays into the role of suiting some members of the community and impossible to contest to contribute to their local community for others when remuneration is low. It will favour, say, retirees perhaps, rather than working single mothers. The reality is that there are some who will not be going down the path of local government representation, and I think this is really sad, and a blight. I quote a woman I spoke to last week who has an enduring interest in the political process, and she said:

To be honest, even with the increase to council allowances, the amount I would be paid in a rural council doesn't make it worthwhile or affordable to run and to be elected. [tbc]

There you have it.

There's a question that I have: what areas of reform set out in the exposure draft and earlier consultations have been pushed to the next tranche of reform or shelved altogether? I'd like to know what is missing from what the original brief was.

In summary, there are some improvements contained in this bill, but there are also a number of concerns that are gnarly and difficult. It's very difficult to get it right completely. The risk sometimes is that local government, as an instrument of another jurisdiction of state parliament, means there are considerable expectations that are not necessarily expected or upheld by the legislating body. In other words, state government, as the master of local government, can be seen to meddle in the affairs of local government. Also, bad behaviour by some will not change despite the best intentions of legislation. I do hope that the legislation before the House today is robust and withstands any tests from errantly behaving councillors.

Finally, I'd like to thank the many people who have provided me feedback over this journey. The former director of local government Phil Hoysted, councillors, mayors, PMAT. Those with a passion and heavy investment in this local government sector have provided me with valuable information to provide this response. I support many parts of this bill but wait to participate in the debate and particularly Ms Rosol's amendments.