Queensland councils brace for a fight with the state Labor Government over election voting overhaul

Mayors and councillors from around the state will gather in Brisbane next month for an extraordinary meeting to prepare for their next major fight with the state, writes Sarah Vogler.

THE relationship between Labor State Governments and Queensland councils has not always been amicable.

War has broken out on several occasions in the past, including over forced amalgamations under former premier Peter Beattie and the shifting of the council election date in 2012 under Anna Bligh, to name just two of many.

And now mayors and councillors from around the state will gather in Brisbane next month for an extraordinary meeting to prepare for their next major fight with the state.

This time Minister Stirling Hinchliffe’s planned council election voting overhaul is firmly in their sights.

Mr Hinchliffe began privately signalling his intention to scrap “just vote one” optional preferential voting during talks with the sector in the past few weeks.

He wants voters to number every box instead under compulsory preferential voting (CPV).

The Sunday Mail understands the Minister – who was one of the main architects of the switch to compulsory preferential voting on a state level when the Labor Government blindsided the LNP Opposition during a night of political one-upmanship in the hung parliament three years ago – is preparing to go further still, considering Senate-style proportional representation as well.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Local Government Minister Stirling Hinchliffe. Picture: Mark Cranitch

The proposals are included in a tranche of reforms the Minister needs to introduce to meet the recommendations of the Crime and Corruption Commission’s council election probe.

The changes are expected to come before Parliament in April so they can be passed by the middle of the year.

Councils have been preparing for this next tranche of reforms.

They knew the corruption scandal that has engulfed Queensland councils in recent years was always going to lead to further changes. It had to.

No Government could sit back and do nothing while mayors and council staff were being charged, and community confidence in local government was being tested.

Add to that the damning findings of the CCC’s Belcarra investigation into the 2016 council elections and reform was inevitable.

Councils have, for the most part, copped the changes so far on chin.

The Local Government Association of Queensland even tried to get out in front of the Belcarra findings by proposing its own changes, such as campaign expenditure caps to stop candidates buying mayoral and councillor elections by outspending their rivals.

But they say the changes to the voting system, which were not recommended by the CCC or by former Brisbane lord mayor Jim Soorley’s council election review, are a politically driven step too far.

They say it is a move designed to help Labor improve its electoral stocks in Brisbane City Council after going backwards in the last election.

At this stage only Labor’s BCC Opposition have been quick to publicly welcome the move with leader Peter Cumming taking a bow when the plans were discussed during a heated BCC meeting last week.

He has previously said Labor could have won two more wards had CPV been in place in 2016.

Mr Hinchliffe insists it is about consistency. It is how we vote federally and now on a state level as well.

He says CPV has favoured the Coalition federally.

While previous Labor State Governments have been used to picking fights with local government, this will be Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s first real time inside the ring with the sector this term.

If she and her Minister truly believe they need to do more than what has been recommended by the CCC to improve the local government arena, they will need to make a convincing argument as to why more changes are needed, not just to councillors and mayors but to voters as well.