Cornering Conflicts of Interest - Four Corners investigates City of Gold Coast

LG Leader November 2017

As many readers may be aware, the conflict of interest provisions in the South Australian Local Government Act 1999 have a basis in equivalent provisions of the Queensland Local Government Act 2009. It follows that Queensland Elected Members are faced with the same, or similar, difficulties in understanding and applying the conflict of interest provisions.

It is interesting to note that the investigation conducted for a recent Four Corners episode has highlighted that Elected Members in the City of Gold Coast, have been voting on and supporting projects, despite having declared a conflict of interest.

“All that Glitters: Developers, Deals and Donations” aired on the ABC on Monday 18 September 2017, sparking serious concerns as to whether those Elected Members had been unlawfully influenced into supporting development projects by developers who had previously donated to their election campaign.

The Queensland Crime and Corruption Commission (“QCCC”) also recently conducted an inquiry into developer donations and whether council decisions were being influenced. As a result of the QCCC findings, together with the Four Corners episode, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk acted swiftly to introduce a Bill to ban all developer donations. This ban would have retrospectively applied to both State and Local Government from 12 October 2017. However, due to the upcoming Queensland State election, all Bills introduced prior to 29 October 2017 (when the State Government went into caretaker mode) have lapsed. Notwithstanding this, the Bill may be reintroduced into the next parliament.

It will be interesting whether the South Australian Government “follows suit” and moves to ban developer campaign donations. Irrespective of what is to come, the Four Corners program acts as a timely reminder to all Elected Members to ensure that they are actively declaring conflicts of interest and to be conscious of the public perception from voting on matters where an actual or perceived conflict has been declared.

Watch “All that Glitters: Developers, Deals and Donations” on ABC iView here.