Brisbane City Council slashes ‘unfair’ union spending in elections

Brisbane City Council has provided its submission on proposed local government election expenditure caps, after the State Government was forced to walk back a proposal that would have allowed unions and third parties to spend millions more than mayoral candidates.

Unions and third parties should spend no more than $156,000 influencing the Brisbane City Council election race, down from the $3.8m cap proposed by the State Government, according to the LNP council.

Deputy Premier and Local Government Minister Steven Miles was forced to walk back a State Government proposal quietly issued last month that would have allowed unions to spend millions more than mayoral candidates after criticism it was “dodgy” and unfair.

Brisbane City Council has now provided its submission on proposed local government election expenditure caps, arguing Brisbane mayoral candidates should be allowed to spend up to $1.3m each – not the proposed $250,000 – and councillor candidates up to $50,000.

It says a cap on third parties that would represent $6000 per each ward – equalling $156,000 in Brisbane – would be a fair amount.

Deputy Premier and Local Government Minister Steven Miles. Picture: Steve Pohlner

And it completely rejected the state’s suggestion that third parties be able to pool their total spending across all local government elections to spend in one race, if it chose.

Such a rule would allow unions a $3.8m war chest to deploy in Brisbane, which is the only race involving party politics.

“We submit that anything above this level of expenditure (of $6000 per ward) could result in an unfair influence of a third party in the democratic process,” the submission says.

“We do not support or in any way can justify that registered third parties should be able to pool their expenditure caps in other local government areas to expend them in one local government area.

“We can see no valid reason that would enable pooling of local government areas for third parties, to maximise spending in selected markets.”

Council’s submission also disagreed with the proposal for a seven-month capped expenditure period running from August to the council elections in mid to late March.

It said the impact of the expensive Christmas advertising market, and the fact it would capture an incumbent councillor’s Christmas season and summer safety messages, would significantly reduce their ability to communicate their policy agenda ahead of the vote.

It instead proposed the capped period run from January 1 until the March election date.

Local Government Association of Queensland chief executive Alison Smith has previously supported spending caps, as long as they did not distort the democratic process.

Faced with the criticism last month, Mr Miles said the government would listen to feedback and it was “unlikely” the government would adopt the policy as outlined in its unpopular discussion paper.