The State Government intends to introduce a legislative amendment to grant an extension for councils to fully comply with the new Code of Conduct requirements as per the Local Government Act amendments.
And while the State Government has suggested that they have received a significant level of correspondence from councils admitting to errors in implementing the new requirements, Greater Shepparton City Council notes a lack of communication in relation to this matter. The first original notification came via a media release without notification and without government resolution.
“Councils were required to adopt their Codes of Conduct by 4 July 2016 and we met this requirement with our Councillor Code of Conduct being adopted at a Special Council Meeting on 28 June 2016”, explains Greater Shepparton City Council Mayor, Cr Dinny Adem.
“Following on from this all Councillors signed the code of conduct by 19 July 2016 in the presence of the CEO, which again occurred within the required time frame. Having followed through with the endorsement and signing of that Councillor Code of Conduct clearly indicates that we fully intended to comply with the requirements of the amended Local Government Act.”
And while Greater Shepparton City Council completed the process as per the required timelines there appears to be differences in the way that some of the amendments have been interpreted.
“From our perspective the Act does not prescribe that an individual declaration is required by each Councillor, however if this is the expectation then we are willing to do so”, said Mayor Adem.
“We will be seeking official confirmation whether this is something that we need to do. It has also been suggested that in using the term “comply with” rather than “abide by” that we did not meet the requirements.
The Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV) is the legislated peak body for local government in Victoria. Mr Rob Spence, MAV CEO said it was important that the State Government learned a lesson from this bungled process.
“We had hoped to be issuing a statement congratulating the Government for quickly resolving this matter. Unfortunately the State has chosen to attack councils, release factually misleading information and failed to acknowledge there were multiple failures on both sides which contributed to this issue.
See below for the MAV's 10 points "Sorting the facts from Government’s political spin".
