Sacked and under scrutiny: What’s behind Victoria’s council chaos

In mid-January, while Melburnians were unwinding and most local governments were still in holiday shut-down mode, a group of councillors in Melbourne’s north were screaming at each other through their computers.

Darebin City Council was forced to reconvene multiple times during the summer break because it was so badly behind schedule.

But at the meeting on January 22, tempers boiled over amid countless interjections, attempted points of orders, accusations of corruption and shouting.

“It’s not a dictatorship,” the Labor aligned-councillor Emily Dimitriadis chimed in.

“I’m sorry, you elected me acting mayor,” independent councillor Susan Rennie retorted. “Don’t do it next time because this is what you get.”

“You weren’t elected to be dictator of this meeting,” independent councillor Gaetano Greco snapped, joining the Zoom meeting from his car.

Darebin local and council observer Serena O’Meley outside the Preston Town Hall.Credit: Penny Stephens

Watching on from home, Darebin resident Serena O’Meley was appalled by what she described as a litany of abuse and belligerence: “I was in disbelief.”

Scenes like these have become part of the context for a record number of interventions by the state government into municipalities across Victoria this council term, following reports of unruly meetings, absenteeism, financial mismanagement, and in one extreme case, a murder.

And they fed into reforms working their way through state parliament, which will include handing the local government minister unprecedented power to sack councillors. This has some people nervous about open democracy in local communities.

Why are so many councils in crisis? Are standards getting worse, or is the state government interfering unnecessarily?

Of the state’s 79 councils, four currently have no elected councillors after the state government sacked or suspended the entire group and installed administrators – Casey was sacked in 2020, Whittlesea in 2020, Moira Shire in 2023 and Strathbogie in December.

Each of those communities will be able to elect fresh councillors in the upcoming October council elections – except for Moira. The situation at the far-north Victoria council was so dire that administrators are in charge until 2028, after the murder of a senior council employee sparked an investigation that uncovered a litany of failures by a dysfunctional leadership.

A council sacking is typically preceded by the appointment of a state government municipal monitor. Six councils are currently under the scrutiny of these monitors: Darebin, Brimbank and Moonee Valley in the city, and Geelong, Buloke and Glenelg in the regions.

Six more – Moira, Horsham, South Gippsland Shire, Wodonga, Strathbogie and Yarra – have been subject to monitors during the current council term.

The monitors are tasked with reporting to Local Government Minister Melissa Horne about how well each council is managing conflicts of interest, relationships between councillors and council staff, decision-making and meetings.

Both the Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV) and the Victorian Local Governance Association believe the presence of monitors isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Since the last council elections in 2020, there have been at least 36 internal arbitrations between fighting councillors, 10 councillor-conduct panel processes, and eight councillors temporarily stood down from their roles.

The City of Darebin has long been mired in controversy. The current council is on its second round of monitors this term. The latest appointment in April was attributed to a lingering need to “improve its governance processes and practices” after a well-documented history of apparent dysfunction dating back decades.

O’Meley has watched the council closely for eight years, becoming so concerned she created the Darebin Independent Observer blog.

She was happy to see monitors appointed again, insisting the tone of meetings deteriorated after the last monitor departed in early 2023.

“Darebin Council is dysfunctional,” she said. “One faction refuses to co-operate, which constantly breaks down meetings and delays important decisions.”

Monitor appointments to Moonee Valley Council in January – which were welcomed by mayor and Labor-aligned councillor Pierce Tyson – came on the back of a still-current Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) investigation relating to some councillor relationships with a local soccer club.

Brimbank Council, which had monitors appointed in February, has had a murky history: it was sacked in 2009 after an investigation found the majority of councillors had abused their roles and that the Labor Party was “inappropriately” influencing the council.

The City of Greater Geelong has an extensive history of tension with the state government. In 2016, the Andrews government sacked the council after an inquiry found it had become dysfunctional and could not govern properly.

The state government appointed monitors at Geelong in January 2023 after a long delay in appointing a new chief executive. Six months later, former Bass Coast Shire chief executive Ali Wastie was finally appointed to lead the council.

But in April, the state government announced that the initial 12-month period of monitoring would be extended until the end of this year.

Some councillors and commentators argue that combative council meetings are no worse than state or federal parliaments at question time.

“The standard in the Local Government Act is we want robust political debate,” said Dean Hurlston from ratepayer group Council Watch.

“If you’re a nutter and you get up and talk about dumb shit – [the community] will vote you out. It is for the community to decide the standard.”

But O’Meley disagrees.

Local government activist Dean Hurlston.Credit: Simon Schluter

“In parliament, if elected representatives don’t follow the rules they are thrown out of the chamber. In local government it takes months for a formal complaint to be arbitrated, meaning it is too late to effectively address poor behaviour.”

Infighting comes at a cost. Hume City Council has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on arbitration and legal fees this term on internal disputes.

Independent Darebin councillor Susan Rennie welcomes changes to law to tackle bad behaviour at councils.Credit: Justin McManus

The previous monitor at Darebin estimated in-fighting cost the community a “conservative” minimum of $600,000 since 2020 and a high turnover rate of staff.

Rennie, the independent Darebin councillor, said while she welcomed the recent monitor appointment, it was a “regretful” outcome because councils had to bear the costs of the monitor positions and it “undermines community trust in local government”.

In his three decades on councils, Pyrenees Shire councillor and MAV president David Clarke admits he’s never seen a period “so fractious”.

He believes another issue adding to the tension is the upcoming changes to most councils to become single-member wards, which is pitting current councillors against each other.

“Those in the same ward are looking at each other saying, ‘Before you weren’t my competitor, now you might be’,” he said.

Clarke said robust debate was part of politics, but that councils crossed a line when they became so bogged down in dysfunction that reports and deadlines were missed and decisions delayed and deferred.

In April, the state government announced it had re-appointed two monitors at Glenelg Shire in south-western Victoria. Monitors were initially requested by the then-mayor.

Current mayor and independent Karen Stephens said they provided an opportunity for councillors to learn.

She said the COVID-19 lockdowns meant councillors, particularly new ones, could not be properly inducted and build relationships with fellow councillors and staff.

“It’s very hard when you’re doing online meetings to build those good relationships,” she said.

Then-Geelong mayor Darren Lyons after his council was sacked in 2016 by the Andrews government.Credit: Penny Stephens

In December, the state government suspended all councillors at Strathbogie Shire in central Victoria after a monitor concluded the council could not function, finding some councillors regularly failed to read briefing papers and there was a lack of respect between some councillors and council officers.

Laura Binks, an independent who was among the suspended Strathbogie councillors, said the government’s intervention was justified.

“It was the only way we could break the pattern of incivility,” she said.

But there are pockets of scepticism about state intervention, particularly the concentration of ministerial powers in reforms currently before the state parliament.

Local Government Minister Melissa Horne has appointed monitors to many councils due to governance concerns.Credit: Joe Armao

Horne, who declined to be interviewed, maintains the reforms will deliver uniform councillor codes of conduct – each council now sets their own – and mandatory training for councillors.

They will also introduce stronger sanctions for councillor misconduct, including fines, and give the minister the power to suspend or disqualify individual councillors who create “a risk to health and safety or prevented the council from performing its function”.

MAV welcomes most of the reforms, but worries there are insufficient checks on the minister’s proposed powers.

“There’s got to be some kind of appeal mechanism or something similar … like through a court or a tribunal,” Clarke said.

Opposition local government spokesman Peter Walsh said the proposed changes to the act – currently before parliament’s upper house – were another example of state government interference in the operation of councils.

A statement attributed to Horne said: “Victorians rightly have high expectations of their local councillors and these changes will ensure residents can have confidence their best interests are being served.”

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