Government backs down on council compulsory preferential voting

Queenslanders will not be forced to allocate preferences at the March 2020 local council elections.

The Queensland government had, in February, suggested changing the way Queenslanders vote at council elections by introducing compulsory preferential voting, bringing them in line with state and federal polls.

Stirling Hinchliffe said having a similar voting system at all three levels of government – local, state and federal – would make the process simpler for voters.Credit: Glenn Hunt/AAP

Local Government Minister Stirling Hinchliffe, in Cairns on Tuesday morning to speak at the Local Government Association of Queensland annual conference, announced the state government had changed its mind and optional preferential voting would remain.

Comment has been sought from Mr Hinchliffe, who was on a flight back to Brisbane to attend Parliament.

LGAQ president Mark Jamieson welcomed the change.

Cr Jamieson, the Sunshine Coast mayor, told delegates the state government deserved applause for heeding the concerns of councils.

The government’s move to drop compulsory preferential voting for council elections follows a strong campaign by the LGAQ against the proposal.

Mr Hinchliffe is expected to table further amendments to the local government legislation in state Parliament on Tuesday afternoon following the 2017 Operation Belcarra investigation into several councils.

LGAQ spokesman Craig Johnstone said the decision was met with applause at the conference.

“It means they have scrapped compulsory preferential voting,” he said.

“They have seen the light.”

The Queensland government intends to bring the second reading of the Operation Belcarra local government amendments to Parliament on Tuesday afternoon, he said.

“They will bring on the second reading debate and it will be confirmed that that aspect that they were trying to introduce has been dropped for these council elections,” he said.

“He wasn’t really clear as to whether they will ever revisit it.”

The LGAQ in February strongly opposed the proposed changes to the way in which Queenslanders vote at local government elections.

A survey of 1200 Queenslanders showed 70 per cent were happy with the way they voted for their councillors.

More than 76 per cent of Brisbane residents who were surveyed said they were happy with the scheme used to elect their councillor.

The Queensland government also appears to have dropped a proposal where a councillor would be “deemed to know” when he or she needed to declare a political donation, Mr Johnstone said.

“That caused quite a lot of problems,” he said. “It was a reverse onus-of-proof situation.”

The Queensland Law Society raised questions about these proposed changes in its submission to the second stage of Belcarra amendments.

“When operational, some of the new obligations may not be practical and, indeed, expose local councillors to a real risk of prosecution for unintentional administrative oversights,” the society wrote.

Previously, Mr Hinchliffe said having a similar voting system at all three levels of government – local, state and federal – would make the process simpler for voters.

“Consistency across the electoral systems that are used in the state of Queensland across three levels of government would provide a simplicity and a greater level of understanding, I believe, for voters, no matter which election they’re turning up for," Mr Hinchliffe said in February.

Conservative councillors believed Labor was trying to restrict the impact of Greens voters, while Labor insisted the proposed change was for consistency.

However, only the largest local councils across Queensland have political party-affiliated candidates.

Mr Hinchliffe is expected to brief state MPs on Tuesday afternoon.

- with Lucy Stone