LOCAL GOVERNMENT (RULES OF CONDUCT) AMENDMENT
REGULATIONS 2020 — DISALLOWANCE
944. Mr R.S. LOVE to the Minister for Local Government:
I refer to the Legislative
Council's disallowance last week of the minister's changes to
regulation 9(1) of the Local Government (Rules of Conduct) Regulations
and to recommendation 26 of the Select Committee into Local Government, which
reads in part —
The Government clarify the roles
of council and the chief executive officer, and the distinction between
governance and operational matters �
How will the minister respond to recommendation 26 to clarify
the relationship between chief executive officers and councillors and
strengthen councils' governance functions?
Mr D.A. TEMPLEMAN
replied:
I thank the member for Moore for the question. Very
interestingly, the member for Moore will be aware of the panel inquiry from the
City of Perth and the issues around the importance of clarifying and making
sure that elected members understand very clearly their role and
responsibilities as opposed to the responsibilities of a CEO. The CEO is
responsible for the operations of a council, and elected members are not
responsible for the operations of a council. That was made very clear in the
report of the panel inquiry and it was made very clear in a number of
Corruption and Crime Commission reports of recent times, again highlighting
that a number of elected members do not
understand the difference between their role as opposed to the role of the CEO.
As a result of the panel inquiry that was handed down by Mr Tony Power,
one of the key recommendations—which of course was also taken up by the
select committee—was to clarify it. What did I do? I clarified it by
putting forward an amendment to regulation 9. It was clearly claimed that there
are some grey areas in that regulation. I put up an amendment to the other
place to clarify, as was expected and underpinned by the panel inquiry and by
the very select committee that reported to the other place, including
representatives of the Nationals WA. What did the member for Moore's
party do along with some crossbenchers in the other place? They disallowed it!
We attempted to clarify the role and responsibilities,
but what did opposition members do? They voted against it and disallowed it.
This is a great example of the lack of any policy decision-making and
policy deliverance from those opposite. They are very happy to carp. They are
very happy to come in here and demonstrate that they do not have any clear
understanding of what the Local Government Act does in the delivery of local
government in Western Australia. That is one of the reasons why this government has embarked on a reform
program. That is not what members opposite did during their eight and a half
years in government. The only thing that members opposite did when they were on
this side of the house was put forward an ill-fated amalgamation proposal.
I will keep on putting reforms up. Members opposite can keep
knocking them back, but I tell them what: the local government sector needs reform. We recognised that and we are working
our way towards a green bill, so that if we are re-elected at the next election, we can have modern legislation that
underpins the importance of local government to communities throughout Western
Australia. Members opposite can sit back and attack and carp, but their history
shows that they do nothing. They did nothing about the local government sector
while they were in government, yet they criticise and knock out reforms that
are important and needed, as they did last week in the upper house. I will keep
going because it is important that we have reform of local government. I would
have thought that would be important for the member for Moore, because he asked
a question about the politicisation of local government. He was very concerned
about the expert panel's report about the politicisation of local
government. Members might remember that he
said, ''I see that they want people to declare their political interests.''
National Party members always say that there should be no politics in
local government. Why would they be afraid of anybody declaring that they might
be a member of a political party? There is no logic to what they put forward
with regard to local government. All they do is criticise and carp and they
have no reform program at all.