Statutes Amendment (Local Government Review) Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 17 June 2020.)

Ms STINSON (Badcoe) (12:16): Mr Speaker, I indicate that I am the lead speaker for the opposition. As the very newly minted shadow minister for local government, I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Statutes Amendment (Local Government Review) Bill, the first bill that I am speaking on in my new capacity.

At this stage, I will indicate that Labor will be tabling amendments either here or in the other place, and we reserve our position on the overall bill at this stage. I also note that the Attorney has just filed government amendments to its own bill, and we will obviously need some time to examine what look like further considerable changes.

I would also like to note that the briefing I received from the Attorney's office and the local government division late last week, which was very much appreciated, indicated that this bill was not coming on this week. That was also indicated in the government's weekly program, and it was only by a phone call from the Attorney yesterday, which I am grateful for—

The Hon. V.A. Chapman interjecting:

Ms STINSON: I will stand to be corrected. I thought that it was yesterday, but the days tend to blur in busy parliament weeks, don't they. Nevertheless, the Attorney did give me a personal call, and I appreciate that, to confirm that the government was bringing this on this week. However, I would hope that we can improve on that relationship. I am hoping that we can establish a productive working relationship between myself and the Attorney and our respective offices to work constructively together on local government matters going forward.

Local government is undoubtedly a critical level of government and, while there are always public debates about whether we need three levels of government and how things could be rearranged into two levels of government, like places in the United Kingdom, overall it is a system that has served our communities well and I imagine will continue to do so.

In my work as a local MP I am frequently approached by members of my community with issues, concerns, and sometimes complaints, relating to local government, and I am sure all other local MPs experience this too. It has not been without the occasional bit of excitement, but I have greatly enjoyed working with the councils that service my area of Badcoe, that is, the cities of Unley, West Torrens, Marion and Mitcham.

Overall, I have found council CEOs and their staff to be hardworking people who want to build their local communities and support individuals and businesses. I found the councillors I have dealt with across those four councils to be generally engaged, motivated and well-meaning people who wish to represent their wards and secure a better standard of living for people in their neighbourhoods.

There are certainly some colourful characters and divergent views on a range of council and non-council issues, but I think that respectful debate should always be welcomed. While mistakes are occasionally made and council meetings are occasionally quite fiery, for the most part the councils I have dealt with have acted responsibly and in the interests of their ratepayers, and I hope that continues in the inner south.

I am particularly appreciative of the strong working relationships I have formed with councils that are delivering major sporting infrastructure upgrades in Badcoe, with funding provided by the former Labor government. That is projects like the Weigall Oval redevelopment at Plympton and a project very close to my heart, the new Goodwood Oval clubhouse, both of which have been achieved in partnership with those local councils.

I would also like to commend the work that many local councils in my area—and I am sure in other areas too—are doing to support the arts and cultural activities, with some sensational social engagement and community education programs that are run from the local community centres and also the relief that councils have provided to businesses and ratepayers hardest hit by COVID. The councils I have dealt with most closely have generally been receptive and responsive to constituent matters I have raised with them and I hope that that is something that occurs statewide.

As you might be able to tell, I do think that local government is a vital part of our three-tiered government system. It is the grassroots level, and when it works well council officers and elected members are dealing very directly and personally with the people from their own communities. In my view, there is a role for effective, efficient and well-governed councils that are connected to their communities and dedicated to enhancing their neighbourhoods. It is vital that as a state government we support local government and ensure councils operate in a framework that supports their work and helps them to grow their communities economically, socially and culturally.

I think that is what the government is broadly attempting to achieve with the Statutes Amendment (Local Government Review) Bill, which brings us here right now. The bill contains broad-ranging changes to our local government system and is one of the most substantial rewrites since the Local Government Act passed the parliament at the end of last century. This bill proposes to amend almost every chapter in the Local Government Act, along with the Local Government (Elections) Act, the City of Adelaide Act and five other pieces of legislation that interact with the system of local government.

There are four main areas of reform: council member capacity and conduct, costs and financial accountability, local government representation, and regulation. The first area of council member capacity and behaviour seeks to create a new conduct management framework for council members. In effect, such a framework will change the focus of Local Government Act 1999 from conduct to behavioural and integrity matters. The purpose is to separate poor behaviour from matters that can affect the integrity of council decisions. Local government decisions impact the everyday lives of people in our community and it is important that the behaviour of elected members is of a high standard.

The bill proposed by the government purportedly attempts to provide a straightforward framework for the investigation and resolution of any issues that arise in relation to behavioural or integrity matters. The conduct management framework that is currently in place is contained within two separate parts of the act. The changes proposed are that chapter 5, part 4, which is currently 'member conduct and registers', will become 'member integrity and behaviour' and address the standards that apply to council members.

Chapter 13, part 1, of the current act contains the processes by which alleged breaches of these standards may be dealt with and, if necessary, investigated and sanctions applied. Under the government's proposal, while councils will continue to have responsibility for managing behaviour in the first instance, the current code of conduct for council members will be replaced with behavioural standards that will be published by the minister and that all members will be required to observe. Labor is yet to see what that code of conduct is.

Probably the most significant change in the conduct management framework is that the bill proposes the introduction of a behavioural standards panel to manage repeated or serious misbehaviour. The introduction of the panel is aimed at achieving a more efficient resolution to more difficult behavioural issues that we know can arise between councillors from time to time, or even between elected officials and staff. Importantly, the new conduct management framework proposed by the bill will see the implementation of an expanded range of sanctions, including the suspension of members for a maximum period of three months.

Under the proposed bill, the SA Ombudsman and the ICAC will continue their respective roles in the investigation of matters relating to council member integrity, maladministration, misconduct and corruption, and Labor welcomes this. The bill introduces new provisions into the act, including clause 39, inserting a new section 75G, making explicit that council members must take reasonable care that their acts do not adversely affect the health and safety of other members or of council employees.

Under this provision, council members must also comply with reasonable directions that may be given to them by a responsible person to protect the health and safety of other members and employees. Labor has questions about the detail of how this will operate and is in contact with stakeholders and the government, seeking clarification on the intended and actual operation of this amendment.

The bill seeks to amend the sections of the act that set the conflict of interest rules for council members. The bill creates a delineation between material and general conflicts. This replaces the existing three categories of material, actual and perceived conflicts. Under the bill, material conflicts are defined as matters that may provide a benefit, or indeed a loss, to a councillor or people closely associated with them, as defined in the bill.

General conflicts will now encapsulate instances in which a fair-minded and impartial person would consider that a member's private interests could result in the member acting in a manner that is contrary to their public duty. For a material conflict, a councillor would be required to absent themselves from discussion in the meeting room, while for general conflicts a councillor would declare the conflict and make their own decision about how best to proceed. Labor agrees that matters of behaviour and the integrity of council members are important and is supportive of changes to make the process clearer for all concerned.

The second reform area of this bill is in costs and financial accountability. Most controversial, of course, is the area not so much of rate capping but of rate monitoring systems for local councils. This bill introduces a rate monitoring system that would require all councils to receive, consider and publish independent advice, from a designated authority, on proposed changes to their general rate revenue each year. The intent of this requirement, according to the government, is to provide and make public independent advice on councils' rating decisions and to provide accountability and engagement with councils' annual business plans.

Clause 79 amends section 123 of the act, which sets out the requirements for council annual business plans. In preparing a draft annual business plan and before finalising the draft plan and undertaking consultation on it, councils must provide critical information to the designated authority by 31 December each year. This critical information includes any proposed change in total revenue from general rates and the reason for the proposed change, the council's view of the impact on ratepayers of the proposed change, information as to whether consideration has been given to alternatives to the proposed change in total revenue from general rates and, finally, information as to how the proposal is consistent with the council's long-term financial plan and infrastructure and asset management plan.

Importantly, the bill provides that the designated authority must provide advice to councils, by no later than 31 March, on the appropriateness of the proposed change in total revenue from general rates for the financial year compared to the previous financial year. Under this bill, this advice must be included in draft and adopted annual business plans, together with the council's response to the advice. While councils are not required to comply with the advice, the annual business plan must include an explanation of whether the change in total revenue from general rates is consistent with the advice and, if not, the reasons for that inconsistency.

Under this bill, if the designated authority is of the view that a council has not responded appropriately to its advice, it may report that to the minister. That then gives the minister the option to make recommendations or a direction to the council on the basis of the advice from the designated authority. The new powers granted to the minister have been the source of feedback provided to Labor and the source of much discussion.

The previous shadow minister for local government and I have consulted with stakeholders at some length on the proposed rate monitoring scheme. I would like to acknowledge the many individual councillors and CEOs, as well as the LGA and the unions covering council workers—that is, the ASU and the AWU—for their engagement with Labor on these important matters.

Other amendments in this bill address audit and risk committees. The value of audit committees is widely recognised within the local government sector. Many councils have already taken additional steps, beyond those required by the act, to improve the independence of audit committee members and to expand the role of their audit committees. They should be commended for that work.

Clause 83 of the bill seeks to amend section 126 of the act to expand the role of audit committees to a new role as audit and risk committees, consisting of a majority of independent members. Labor understands the intention of these amendments is to provide better quality independent advice to councils on a range of critical financial and risk management matters, and we support this intent. We support provisions that provide independent assurance and advice to councils on accounting, financial management, internal controls, risk management and governance matters.

In relation to the Public Finance and Audit Act, this bill does not change the way in which the Auditor-General undertakes activities. Labor understands they will continue to be as the Auditor-General deems advisable or on the direction of the Treasurer or ICAC. Clause 93 removes the ability of councils under the current section 151(3) of the act to use the unimproved site valuation of land as the basis of rating, to provide for a consistent approach across the state.

Moving on to the third area of reform, the bill proposes two significant changes to council representation. The first of these, which is contained in clause 9, will require all councils to have no more than 12 elected members. It is proposed that these changes will be progressed through representation reviews, given that it may also necessitate consideration of other internal council representation structures, such as wards. It is proposed that councils that undertake a representation review between the commencement of this section and 1 January 2022 will have the maximum number of members before the 2022 periodic elections. All other councils will make this change prior to the 2026 local council elections.

The bill also proposes that all councils have a directly elected principal member, which obviously most councils already do. That person will be called a mayor, according to clause 18. As with the change to elected member numbers, this change will occur through the representation review cycle. The bill proposes a range of changes to supplementary elections to reduce the impact these can have on councils, particularly shortly before and after periodic elections, which is certainly something that is being dealt with in my area at the moment in relation to Mitcham council.

Clause 146 of the bill amends section 19A of the elections act so that the Electoral Commission of South Australia will be responsible for the nominations process from now on. This means that ECSA will manage an online nomination process and provide councils with a list of accepted nominations relevant to their council area within 24 hours after the close of nominations. This information will also be published online. The increased disclosure by candidates of information that is of interest to voters remains an issue that is of great interest to the community. Labor supports moves to make local government representatives more accountable and the election process more transparent.

The fourth and final area of reform focuses on regulation. The bill at clause 17 proposes to replace the current requirement for councils to have a community engagement policy with a new community engagement charter, which the government says will support a more modern and flexible approach. The charter will relate to community consultation and participation with respect to any decision, activity or process where compliance with the charter is required by the act.

As currently drafted, the charter sets some minimum standards for more significant council tasks, such as the annual business plan, but will be largely focused on a principles-based approach to allow councils to determine the exact activities that they will undertake to best engage with their communities on their business. Improving engagement with local communities is, of course, something that Labor supports.

The government bill at clause 52 proposes to remove informal gatherings and discussions from section 90 of the act and insert a new section 90A, titled 'Information sessions and briefings'. As I understand it, this is in response to concerns from councils around the state that the current approach to informal gatherings is overly prescriptive and can be understood to prevent council members from discussing matters between themselves, and that is something that my local councillors have raised with me directly over the past few years.

Information sessions and briefings are defined as any meetings held or arranged by the council or the CEO inviting one or more council members for the purpose of providing information or a briefing to attendees. This recognises that meetings arranged for council members to be better informed on matters of council business are a useful tool to assist them to perform their roles effectively.

The bill also proposes some changes to assist councils to better manage requests to review internal decisions of council. This will allow councils to decline to undertake a review if the decision was made more than six months prior to the request to decline if the matter has, or has substantially, been dealt with in another process such as a conduct investigation and to charge a small fee for a request which is anticipated to be around $20. Labor broadly supports reforms that help provide the public with more confidence in council decisions and actions and that assist councils to better and more effectively administrate and make decisions.

The fourth section of the bill also attempts to alter the current process by which community land status can be revoked. The bill proposes to establish two categories of community land for the purposes of the revocation process. Under such an arrangement, the minister's approval will only be necessary when the land is owned by the Crown or an agency or instrumentality of the Crown or adjoins such land; secondly, when the council knows, or should reasonably know, that state government financial assistance was given to the council to acquire or improve the land; and, thirdly, when the land is used as a community space and the council proposes to sell or dispose of the land. All other community land may have its status removed simply by a council resolution after following the steps laid out in the legislation.

Labor has further questions about this section, particularly its application to instances such as relating to the Walkerville YMCA site. Members may be aware that, led by our shadow assistant minister for the City of Adelaide, the Hon. Emily Bourke, of the other place, Labor has been standing up for the community affected by the attempted revocation of land at the Walkerville YMCA. I recently attended a forum about it with our Labor leader, Peter Malinauskas, and we heard firsthand how important community land is to local people, particularly the large number of people who utilise the incredible services that are provided at the YMCA at Walkerville.

Labor will certainly continue to stand up for people in that community, because it was pretty clear from the forum that the member for Adelaide clearly is not. Labor recognises the importance of community land to local communities. Any process of revocation of community land should be transparent and should engage with the local community. Community land is a community asset and processes regarding revoking its status must be absolutely rigorous.

This bill also seeks to compile all council members' registers of interests into one simple plain English form which is then published on the council website. This removes the current requirement for councils to maintain one return with all details and another shorter return for publication online. Labor supports this level of transparency and the administrative efficiencies it will achieve.

I note that there are currently a number of provisions scattered through the act that require councils to publish material online and to have material available at the council office for inspection or for provision of copies on request. These provisions will be replaced with a single list of all council documents that must be published online, and we would see that as an improvement.

Finally, I thank those who have given of their time and continue to give of their time, particularly to me as a brand-new shadow minister for this area, who have assisted in the formulation of Labor's response to this bill, which is ongoing. I thank councillors and CEOs. I would like to repeat my thanks to the Local Government Association and unions working in this space, the ASU and the AWU. I also thank the Attorney's staff, both in her department and office, who have been helpful to me as I have been getting my head around this rather complex bill. I am grateful for their time.

As Labor's new shadow minister for local government, I look forward to continuing to meet representatives from our 68 councils across the state, as well as the Outback Communities Authority and those on the APY lands, who I was fortunate to catch up with recently. Local government is a large and sprawling portfolio but one that has an everyday impact on the lives of people in South Australia. I look forward to contributing constructively to this policy area, seeking out fresh new ideas and doing what I can to benefit all South Australians through this portfolio.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (12:39): I rise to make a contribution to the Statutes Amendment (Local Government Review) Bill 2020. I note there has been plenty of discussion at a range of levels and plenty of discussion inside the Local Government Association as to this review. I certainly understand that locally in my councils and across the state a bill that enhances the ability to manage behaviour better internally in councils will be widely welcomed.

Currently, what seems to happen is that as soon as there is a hint of an incident, everything gets legalled and you end up with councils having legal fees that can run into hundreds of thousands of dollars. For a regional council and one like my home council, at Coorong, that adds up. When you are a ratepayer, you would rather your money be going into roads, rates and rubbish. I know councils do a lot more than that—before I hear the outrage—but that is their core principle still, and they need to be kept up.

As a general overview of the Statutes Amendment (Local Government Review) Bill 2020, it does represent the most significant changes in our local government system that have been brought forward in a single bill since parliament passed the Local Government Act at the end of the last century. The bill is the culmination of 18 months' worth of discussion and consultation, and it is part of our Marshall Liberal government's comprehensive reform agenda aimed at easing the cost-of-living-pressures for South Australians and providing better services.

In regard to some of the key reform areas, the program has focused on four key areas where it was clear that improvements in the practice and the system of local government are needed. These areas are stronger council member capacity, better conduct, helping our council members to perform their roles to the best of their ability and ensuring that the right measures are in place to deal with conduct issues when they arise. I note that there is quite a large section of the bill in place to deal with these matters, including the provision of a panel to deal with codes of conduct.

Codes of conduct are one of the matters I was referring to earlier in my contribution. It does eat up a vast amount of resources—and not just money, but time, for mayors, chief executive officers and other people in the system to get things right. It does seem to eat up an inordinate amount of time. In Coorong council there was an incident at a meeting where one councillor slammed a laptop down on another councillor's hand; that is assault, and sadly I do not think the right outcome has come of that.

These are matters that do need a better system and a clearer system, a more transparent system, to make sure that people have taken the time to represent their community at the local government level—and I applaud everyone who does take the time, whether they be elected members or mayors. They are doing a great job for our local community but, as I said, they need to focus on the job and make sure they do the right things.

For instance, before the last council election, the former Coorong council completely lost their way under former Mayor Neville Jaensch and former CEO Vincent Cammell. They completely lost their way. I chaired meetings—and some of these attendees were multiple attendees—not just as the local member but as a local ratepayer from Coomandook, and 500 people attended these meetings because something as simple as our roads were not being serviced, something as simple as that.

I acknowledge councils do far more than roads, rates and rubbish, but once you start not doing your roads—especially in a rural area with rubble roads where, I can assure you, there is plenty of rubble available, and it is not as if we do not have good stone at Coomandook, Tailem Bend and surrounding districts—and you take your focus off what you need to do, that is when the citizens get outraged. Thankfully, that saw a major change in council. Paul Simmons, a lifelong friend of mine, is now the new mayor. Bridget Mather, who came from Queensland, is the new chief executive officer and she is doing a fantastic job. They are both doing a great job in getting systems back on track.

One thing that councils should also not be involved in is political campaigning. In the last election in March 2018, the former mayor and his CEO campaigned quite openly for the Nick Xenophon Team or SA-Best or whatever they are this week. It was just there in your face. I think they would have been better off sticking to the running of council instead of getting into political arguments.

The code of conduct strategy will help reform local government, help get it back on track and help people, who have taken the time to represent their community in the right way, get on with the job of government at local government level. That is exactly what they need to do.

We are also looking at lower costs, enhancing financial accountability and improving efficiency within the local government sector by delivering greater confidence in council audits, improving council decision-making, financial reporting and making information about council financial performance more accessible to both council members and communities. This is vitally serious.

There was a rumour going around my area about one of my councils—it was not Coorong. I am not going to name the council. They said that their budget was going to blow out by another $10 million by a certain date. I did my research, I went to visit the council and the story was completely unfounded. I rang the constituent who had informed me that this was happening and this was the story being spread around the local area and I told him I had met with the council and that it was just not true—it was not true.

People should not be chasing ghosts; they should look at reality and look at the financial documents that they can access or go and talk to the councils. Councils are there to help and they are doing it in tough conditions, as everyone is, especially this year with the COVID-19 requirements. We also need efficient and transparent local government representation, improvements to election processes that are fair, transparent, run independently, that provide the right information at the right time and encourages participation from potential council members and voters alike.

We are also looking at simpler regulation in the bill, improvements to rules and regulations that seek to protect the interests of the community by making sure that councils operate with transparency and accountability and that their decisions and actions are and are seen to be in the public interest.

Earlier in my contribution, I was talking about stronger council member capacity and better conduct, and a new conduct management framework for council members which separates poor behaviour from matters that can affect the integrity of council decisions and which provides clear pathways for the investigation and resolution of issues that arise. There is the introduction of a behaviour standards panel to deal with repeated or serious misbehaviour, to enable more efficient resolution of difficult issues that can arise between council members with an expanded range of sanctions, including the suspension of members. As indicated, I am aware of some poor behaviour and we do need to have better behavioural management in place. I certainly believe that the bill will do that, and it is welcomed by those in the local government sector.

There is the review of other conduct matters within the Local Government Act 1999, including the simplification of conflict of interest provisions, clarification of council employee conduct requirements and council members' obligations to complete appropriate training, and a new role for the remuneration tribunal of South Australia to set remuneration bans that will apply to all council chief executive officers.

Chief executive officers are well remunerated. If a CEO is getting the same pay as a backbencher, they are right at the lower end of the scale. In fact, I would not think of anyone in the city council whose package would be anywhere near $200,000 a year. Good on them, as it is a very competitive industry, but many chief executive officers will be getting well north of $300,000. Some would be on the rate of a minister, which is around $350,000 per annum or more. Good on them if they are doing the job, but they are well remunerated.

This bill creates a new role for the Remuneration Tribunal and remuneration bands will apply to all council chief executive officers. Part of what we are looking at is lower costs and enhanced financial accountability. The introduction of a rate monitoring scheme will require all councils to receive, consider and publish advice on proposed changes to their general rate revenue each year from a designated authority. It looks as though the Essential Services Commission of South Australia (ESCOSA) will run that.

The local government bill 2020 includes an ability for the minister to make directions to a council on receipt of a report from the designated authority if there is a view that a council has failed to respond appropriately to this advice. There will be a requirement for all councils to include a funding plan within their long-term financial plans, which outlines expected revenue amounts and sources over the 10-year period. It is expected that this will be an important basis for the advice provided by ESCOSA within the rate monitoring system.

There will also be an expansion of the role of councils' audit committees to become audit and risk committees, to provide councils with greater assurance on the adequacy of their financial and risk management practices. There will also be a requirement for all audit and risk committees to include a majority of independent members, as opposed to a majority of council members.

There will be an expansion of the Auditor-General's powers under the Public Finance and Audit Act 1987 to include the review of councils or their operations and to include the ability of the Auditor-General to audit specific councils. There will also be the removal of councils' ability to use site unimproved property valuations as the basis of rating.

The inclusion of heads of power in the Local Government Act 1999 will require councils to provide the Minister with annual information that may be necessary to establish and maintain a council information website, as included in the government's response to the South Australian Productivity Commission's final report, Inquiry into Local Government Costs and Efficiency.

I think the rate monitoring scheme is one issue that has raised a lot of discussion within the local government sector and with constituents. Obviously, this is where the rubber hits the road. The reforms are focused on improving the quality of information and advice that is provided to councils, their administrations and their communities. This advice is critical when councils are fulfilling their responsibilities to manage their financial position, and most importantly, when they make a decision about the rates that their community will pay.

We have certainly listened to feedback from the local government sector and we have provided a scheme which creates a more nuanced approach than what we were looking at with the original rate capping scheme. Instead of a flat cap on rates across the state, each individual council will be provided with advice as to what is an acceptable increase in their area, taking growth, debt levels and major projects into account.

Councils will now be required to receive and consider advice from an independent body—again, which most likely will be ESCOSA—on their proposed revenue from general rates for each financial year. Councils will need to provide information on their proposed rate revenue to ESCOSA by February in that financial year, along with critical information on the context on which this revenue change is proposed.

This will include the council's view of the impact of the rate change on its ratepayers and whether the council has considered alternative mechanisms, such as the responsible use of debt, use of council reserves or exercising spending restraint and, most importantly, how the proposed change is consistent with the council’s long-term financial plan and infrastructure and asset management plan.

The council must also include the advice from ESCOSA in its draft business plan every three years when it is released for consultation, along with the proposed response to this advice. Councils will not be required to comply with the advice but, if they do not propose to implement it, they should clearly explain to their communities why that is the case. When the council makes its final decision in the context of adopting its annual business plan and budget, this should include advice received from the independent body, which will be ESCOSA, and the council's response.

The intention of this is to give ratepayers greater confidence that the rates they are paying, which is the biggest issue when rate time comes around from community members who come into our offices as state members, are what is necessary for their councils to provide the services they value. If ESCOSA is of the view that a council has not responded appropriately to the advice then that may be reported to the relevant minister, which is obviously the local government minister of the day.

Efficient and transparent local government elections are another vital part of the reform. This will change a lot of views. We do not have it in the Coorong at the moment. We do not have a directly elected mayor. The mayor gets elected from the body of councillors once they are elected, but it will be a requirement for all councils to have a directly elected mayor and to consist of no more than 12 members, so there will be more reform where some councils obviously have more members than that.

There will be a simpler process by which councils regularly review their internal structures and improvements to the local government election processes, including ESCOSA being responsible for receiving and managing nominations for council, requiring candidates to release more information about themselves and earlier information about the large campaign donations they receive.

Part of the bill will require all councils to take greater steps to inform property franchise holders of the need to self-enrol and require the City of Adelaide to manage a process to ensure that property franchise holders have a natural person nominated to exercise their vote to prevent a potential challenge to these elections. The bill will also narrow the circumstances in which supplementary elections must be held to reduce costs for councils and require any council member standing for state parliament to have a leave of absence from the council member role during the election campaign.

One of the final issues I will talk about is the simpler regulation that will come into place that is replacing prescriptive and detailed community engagement requirements in the Local Government Act 1999 with a simpler and far more flexible community engagement charter, which the community will enjoy I am sure, which will include streamlined requirements for the publication of notices. There will also be improvements to councils' internal review of decisions to enable councils to better manage persistent or vexatious requests, which we all see at our state government level.

There will obviously be requirements removed around informal gatherings in favour of a simpler approach to the proper management of information and briefing sessions and streamlining of the council members' register of interest processes. I welcome this bill to the house. I welcome the debate. I welcome positive amendments that come forward to make this work better.

I am certainly a strong believer in the three levels of government, whether they be local, as we are discussing now in the Statutes Amendment (Local Government Review) Bill, state government or federal government, because you need that representation close to the ground to make things work. That is why I am a strong believer in local government working alongside state government, as well as the federal government, so that we get the right result for our communities. I certainly trust and hope that this bill will give us an act that will help drive positive reform in the local government sector well into the future.

Dr HARVEY (Newland) (12:59): I rise to support the Statutes Amendment (Local Government Review) Bill, which will see a range of improvements to councils aimed at easing the cost-of-living pressures for South Australians and providing better services. A key election commitment of our government was to cut red tape, lower costs and help improve service delivery for South Australian ratepayers, and we have endeavoured to do this through a number of improvements and reforms.

These improvements focus on four key pillars: firstly, strength and framework around council member capacity and poor council member behaviour and conduct; secondly, lower costs and enhanced financial accountability; thirdly, efficient and transparent local government representation; and, fourthly, simpler regulation.

There were 18 months of consultation with councils, the Local Government Association (LGA), local government professional bodies and statutory authorities, including the Independent Commissioner Against Corruption. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Sitting suspended from 13:00 to 14:00.