“Deepest pockets win”: what does electoral reform for the City of Melbourne look like? 

“Deepest pockets win”: what does electoral reform for the City of Melbourne look like? 

With donations revealed and the city’s new Lord Mayor Nick Reece inaugurated, the electoral dust has just about settled on the new council term for the City of Melbourne.

However, after hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations were given to prominent leadership tickets – Team Reece, Team Wood, Team Kouta, and the Liberals – and with the municipality’s voting system coming under increasing scrutiny, preference strategists and councillors, both past and present, are calling for reform.

Cr Reece has publicly acknowledged he is open to the idea, though how or what such reforms would look like is not yet known.

He told CBD News on January 20 that he supported “the reform of campaign finance arrangements for local government and will work with my newly elected fellow councillors and the Victorian Government to achieve this.” 

Under the current system, leadership tickets strike preference deals with one another to determine how the votes will flow, and businesses get two votes while residents only get one.

Veteran preference strategist Ray Collins said this inequity prevented a fair and equitable representation of the community and also in effect blocked residents from being elected.

He sees the current system as deeply flawed and said it was in urgent need of change, as it favoured those with the greatest war chest and was not truly representative of ratepayers.

In Mr Collins’ eyes, a return to the ward system – which every other Victorian municipality operates under – would be fairer. He believes that while it doesn’t eliminate the ability for strategists to work the system, it would allow for a more diverse and genuinely representative council to be elected.

“We would have a true local representative and a decent cross-section of the community on council,” he said. 

Another point of contention for Mr Collins is the risk that donations from developers and people affiliated with developers pose to democratic decision-making on planning matters.

While councillors must declare a conflict of interest, back-room dealings and logrolling can still occur, according to Mr Collins.

Currently, candidates are required to release details of donations, including sources and amounts, 40 days after the election, but Mr Collins said that real-time disclosure should be introduced so voters are informed of potential vested interests before filling out their ballot paper.

Throughout Lord Mayor Cr Nick Reece’s campaign, he publicly spoke of his self-imposed rule to not accept donations from property developers in the City of Melbourne, nor from tobacco or gaming interests.

However, the election donation registry revealed that Cr Reece had received significant donations from property developers outside the City of Melbourne and from several donors who are linked to developments within the municipality.

Most notably, he received a $60,000 donation from the Electrical Trades Union (ETU), which has recently had an application to rezone its North Melbourne headquarters considered by the council.

As reported by The Age, Cr Reece also accepted a donation from Audi Centre Melbourne two days after voting to discontinue part of Roden St in West Melbourne, which adjoins the business, as part of the council’s plans to create a new linear park.

$20,000 was also donated by Spring Street Advisory, which operates out of an office on Collins St and offers strategy development and implementation services to property development companies.

CBD News is not suggesting any of these donations influenced the Lord Mayor’s decisions or were improper, only that it raises concerns regarding his campaign pledge with respect to donations from developers. 

Former three-term Greens councillor Rohan Leppert believes there needs to be greater transparency surrounding who has donated to a campaign.

According to Mr Leppert, because it was difficult to define a developer in law, there was confusion surrounding who is, and who isn’t, a developer.

Mr Leppert said that he personally defined a developer as someone who has a narrow interest in a company whose primary purpose is to purchase and sell property at a profit.

However, due to donors such as the ETU not looking to profit from a development, there is uncertainty about whether or not they are considered a developer.

“Because the public will assume that a developer is someone who stands to make substantial profits from the development of property that they own, it’s the definition of developer that’s causing all of these problems,” he said.

Additionally, Mr Leppert said that the addresses of companies and their ABNs should be provided so voters can see who is donating to whose campaign, preventing developers from creating alternate business names to lodge donations under.

In NSW, it is unlawful for a person to make a political donation on behalf of a property developer, as well as for a developer to solicit another person to make a political donation. However, Victoria has no such legislation.

CBD News contacted the Minister for Local Government Nick Staikos for comment but he did not respond.

The state government is currently undertaking consultation for the creation of lobbying reforms that could potentially extend to local government, with legislation slated for October this year.

The reforms come after the Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission’s (IBAC) Donations and Lobbying Report recommended that the state’s new regulatory regime for lobbying extend to both state government and local government.

IBAC also recommended that greater obligations be placed on lobbyists to document and publish information about contact with government representatives, “real-time” reporting of donations and that donors should make a declaration outlining any interest in a local government matter that they have.

In addition to the lobbying reform consultation, the state government is considering changes to Victoria’s electoral and political donations system following recommendations from an Electoral Review Expert Panel. •


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