It’s time to get tough on our badly behaving councillors

When councillors are slinging insults at each other and lodging code of conduct complaints at a rate of one a week, they are not debating the merits of a certain development or developing better service delivery, writes Kara Jung.

Adelaide City councillors are focused on feuds and factions.

• Bad behaviour halts Adelaide City Council meeting
• SA’s council watchdog has hit out at “trivial” ego-driven complaints
• ACC votes 7-4 in favour of media gag order

Over the border, new laws have been introduced to Parliament that would allow the Victorian government to suspend any councillor who poses a ‘threat’ to the running of their council.

The changes would also allow for mayors to be ousted by three-quarters of their fellow elected members.

And, in an Australian-first, the new Act would also require councils to develop four-year budgets and meet higher standards in strategic planning and financial management.

The reason behind the move is to hold badly behaving councillors to account.

Back here in SA, we’ve had an Adelaide City Council meeting suspended in a bid to stop elected members yelling ‘dickhead’ at one another rather than doing the job they were elected to do.

Over at Onkaparinga, they were spending thousands of ratepayers’ dollars on expensive Apple products, flowers, hotel rooms, booze, an Adelaide Oval roof climb and a $6818 golf membership.

The spending debacle also led to many code of conduct complaints and a council struggling to operate effectively.

Allegations of corruption, bullying and intimidation at Burnside Council sparked an independent inquiry in July 2009 that promised to reveal all. The report has never seen the light of day.

Last year, Burnside took out an intervention order against one of its own elected members and warned staff to stay away from meetings to keep them safe.

Last week, it was back in the headlines with another code of conduct complaint and the surprise dismissal of its chief executive.

At Tea Tree Gully, there was a code of conduct complaint because one councillor didn’t return another member’s phone call in a timely manner.

Councillors have a really important job to do, managing multimillion-dollar budgets to create better communities for you.

There will always be tensions and differences of opinion and, in healthy councils, this diversity works to achieve better results for its ratepayers.

But SA councils are now dealing with about one code of conduct complaint each week.

Valdman Cartoon.

And according to Ombudsman Wayne Lines, many of the complaints are “trivial” and ego-driven.

But despite Mr Lines urging councils to sort it out among themselves, little has changed.

With meetings being suspended and council operations thrown into disarray, it is getting a little ridiculous.

When you’re slinging personal insults at colleagues across the chamber you’re not debating the merits of a certain development or developing better service delivery.

Former local government minister Geoff Brock would express his frustration and then urge residents to complain to the very councils they were complaining about.

Our current Local Government Minister, Stephan Knoll, last week promised tougher new measures, saying mayors could soon have the power to boot councillors from a meeting.

When pressed on whether those tough new laws would allow the government to step in, or for badly behaving councillors to be booted for longer than the duration of a single meeting, he was vague.

I cringe at the idea of booting the people who were elected by the people.

But, sadly, elected members have shown that while they should be up to the task of regulating their behaviour, many are not — despite being given chance after chance after chance to work it out.

South Australians deserve better. Perhaps it’s time to introduce tougher laws that make it clear elected members aren’t there for name calling, but to do a job.

And if they can’t, then they don’t deserve a seat at the table.