Introduction

On 1 September 2011, new legislation for the conduct and administration of local government elections received Royal Assent. The purpose of the Local Government Electoral Act 2011 is to ensure the transparent conduct of elections of councillors of Queensland’s local governments.

The new Act retains many elements of the previous local government electoral legislation including:

• the direct election of mayors
• automatic disqualification from being a councillor upon becoming a candidate for election in a state or federal election
• the prohibition of dual candidacy
• voting systems of a local government – optional preferential voting for a local government area divided into single-member divisions and first-past-the-post in any other case

Key features

1. A key feature of the Act is moving the responsibility for the conduct and administration of all local government elections to the Electoral Commission Queensland (ECQ). Giving the ECQ a mandate to conduct all local government elections will create an independent, central point of coordination and administration to ensure community expectations of efficiency, transparency and integrity in electoral arrangements are met.

2. Returning officers for local government elections will now be appointed by the ECQ for each local government area. The Council’s chief executive officer will only be appointed to the role in exceptional circumstances. This change will allow chief executive officers to focus on the daily operations of council, including delivering key services to the community under the stewardship of councillors independent of election processes and results.

3. Under the legislation, the electoral commission is responsible for keeping a register of gifts (the gifts register) for each candidate or group of candidates in all local government elections.

Legislation Excerpt

Local Government Election Act 2011