2024-06-18
The Victorian Greens will vote against Labor’s Local Government Amendment (Governance and Integrity) Bill which awards unprecedented power to the Local Government Minister to dismiss locally-elected councillors.
It’s expected that Victorian Labor and the Coalition will vote against the Greens amendments that would introduce donations reforms and reporting requirements, a basic integrity measure that is long overdue.
The Greens spokesperson for Local Government, Sarah Mansfield warned that the new powers undermine democracy and are ripe for politicisation.
The Bill purports to improve governance and integrity, despite having few meaningful measures to address obvious sources of corruption that have been identified in countless reviews and inquiries into local governments.
Quotes attributable to Greens Local Government spokesperson Sarah Mansfield:
“Councils are a democratically elected level of government. These new ministerial powers are unprecedented and seriously undermine local government autonomy.
“Giving the Minister the authority to suspend or disqualify a councillor is fundamentally undemocratic.
“Despite its title, this bill does little to improve governance or integrity.
“The Greens have put forward measures that would seek to actually prevent corruption, but the government is more interested in playing politics than strengthening our democracy."