Parliamentary privilege on Council agenda

Limiting the ability of parliamentarians to speak adversely with parliamentary privilege about members of the public is one of the matters listed for discussion at Redland City Council’s meeting on Wednesday.

The quaintly titled proposal for “More respectful debate in parliament” is one of six motions that Redland City Council will discuss being put forward to the 2020 Local Government Association of Queensland (LGAQ) Conference.   The six proposed motions for the LGAQ conference are:

• Motion 1 – Local Governments’ Powers to Conduct Elections
• Motion 2 – Regulated Dog Management Review
• Motion 3 – More Respectful Debate in Parliament
• Motion 4 – Asset Sustainability Ratio
• Motion 5 – Prescriptive Planning
• Motion 6 – Regional Funding

If any of these motions are passed at the LGAQ Conference then they will be put forward to the State Government as a proposal from the local government sector in Queensland.

Some of these proposals are matters of public interest yet there has been no effort by Council to engage with the community.

Voting for council elections

Prior to the last local government elections, Redland City Council voted to ask the State Government for the Redlands local council elections to be held by postal ballot only. This was a proposal which appeared to suit incumbent councillors and was never canvassed with ratepayers. 

The State Government rejected Redland City Council’s request and the 2020 local council elections were conducted with voters being able to have a postal vote, vote in a polling booth or even vote by telephone in some cases.

If local governments in Queensland were given the power to conduct their own elections, as proposed in Motion 1, then it could be expected that Redlands’ voters would only have a postal ballot for the next local council elections.

If the Council was genuinely interested in electoral reform then any changes to the voting process should be the subject of genuine community engagement.

A reform which should be in the Council’s agenda is to switch from optional preferential voting to compulsory preferential voting.

Parliamentary privilege

Motion 3 calls for more respectful debate in Parliament by removing the longstanding right of parliamentary privilege when Members of Parliament are talking about members of the public.   

The so called desired outcome is said to be a matter of affording protection to members of the public against attack from Members of Parliament.

Just possibly, this motion might have been conceived as a response to comments made in State Parliament about Mayor Karen Williams and former councillor Paul Gleeson.

The proposed Motion 3 states incorrectly that members of the public don’t have an opportunity to respond to “personal attacks and imputations” made in Parliament.

In fact, the Queensland Parliament affords any citizen a citizen’s right of reply.

Agenda for the Council meeting on 5 August

Other items on the Council’s meeting agenda for 5 August include:

• Proposed local law to deal with issues such as jetty jumping
• Proposed Botanical Garden – Kings Road Russell Island
• Recreational Vehicle Parking
• Amending City Plan to protect environmental corridors

There are four closed session items on the agenda:

• 19.1 Voluntary Transfer of Land Concession
• 19.2 Project Delivery Group – Delegated Authority Report to Chief Executive Officer for Award of Contracts over $2m for Financial Year 2021/2021
• 19.3 2019-2020 Round 2 Sponsorship Report – Applications over $15,000
• 19.4 Sutgold Pty Ltd –v- Redland City Council & Anor Appeal No. 1612 of 2020

Here are the contents of the meeting agenda:

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Redlands2030 – 4 August 2020