Victoria’s peak body for council employees, LGPro, has called for changes to the standards of conduct for councillors to deal with behaviour that it says is leading to an unacceptable staff distress and turnover of Council CEOs.
LGPro has put a case for legislative reform to Local Government Minister Melissa Horne in a submission that exposes flaws in the current legislative regime.
The submission suggests that current penalties are inadequate, and that Councillor Conduct Panels should be empowered to suspend Councillors for up to three years.
It argues that such changes would send a very clear signal that misconduct or serious misconduct is treated very seriously, with very real consequences for those that engaged in unacceptable conduct.
LGPro President Liana Thompson took the ABC airwaves this week to press the case for change. The submission was also featured in an article by The Age.