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.”
