Local tribunals with lawyers needed to stamp out petty councillor complaints

SA’s council watchdog has hit out at “trivial” ego-driven complaints from councillors, telling them to sort it out themselves rather than wasting his office’s time.

South Australian Ombudsman Wayne Lines. Picture: Tait Schmaal

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State Ombudsman Wayne Lines has teed off at councillors’ petty infighting wasting public money and wants local tribunals with legal representation to deal with “trivial” council complaints.

He has been visiting local councils, urging elected members to think twice before reporting trivial complaints against their colleagues to his office, saying too many minor complaints had been directed to both his office and the Independent Commissioner Against Corruption, which he said was a waste of public money.

He has suggested panels and tribunals deal with trivial code of conduct complaints, but that was “all still in a thought bubble”.

“We would like to see a greater threshold for when there needs to be reported and more involvement of councils, either individually or at a regional level,” Mr Lines said at a Walkerville Council meeting this week.

“(They would be) fielding allegations of breaches and resolving them at a local level, if it is possible.

“Most likely as a tribunal, perhaps having some investigative administrative assistance, a council member and maybe a lawyer assessing the information then having the power to make a legislative decision on the allegation.”

The ombudsman receives up to 4000 complaints a year, a quarter of which are in relation to Local Government.

Adelaide City Council, left-to-right from front, Simon Hou, Mary Couros, Alex Hyde, Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor, Anne Moran, Helen Donovan. Back Arman Abrahimzadeh, Housman Abiad, Robert Simms, Phil Martin, Franz Knoll and Jessy Khera. Picture: AAP Image/Russell Millard.

At the meeting, Mr Lines said the Code of Conduct for council members had to be condensed and any duplication with the Local Government Act needed to be ruled out.

He said the code should supplement The Act’s general duties, rather than reinterpret or rephrase them.

“Unfortunately, there are some councils that have imploded because of the infighting … they are thinking about their own egos, their own positions and their own interests,” Mr Lines said.

“Every complaint, even if it is trivial, uses up resources, so if it is to do with personality clashes or disrespectful behaviour can I encourage you to try and resolve these sorts of issues within the council informally.

“Allow us to use our expertise and our resources (to focus on matters) that are really serious and impacting on good governance and the integrity of our decision making bodies.”

Last week, Adelaide City councillors were ordered to have a training session about how to play nice following a fiery council meeting where one member was called a “dickhead”.

That session would be to “revisit” code of conduct and meeting procedures.

Local Government Minister Stephen Knoll, who is currently reviewing code of conducts as part of Local Government Act reform, said he too wanted to see better behaviour between councillors.

“Councillors need to spend their time fighting for their ratepayers, not fighting each other.”

Local Government Association of South Australia president Sam Telfer was unsure if a panel would be the right option amid fears it could “exacerbate existing riffs within councils”.

“I think throughout this local government reform process we will be able to, with the State Government, be able to design something that is workable that tries to get the results we are looking for,” Mr Telfer said.

“For too long there has been too many frivolous complaints and the real serious ones are not getting enough attention.”