By Alesha Capone and Charlene Macaulay
Wyndham’s deputy mayor has called for more resources to be allocated to the Local Government Investigations and Compliance Inspectorate in the wake of its report into last year’s Wyndham elections.
Cr Kim McAliney said that during and after the election, the inspectorate had responded to more than 2000 inquiries and 400 complaints from the Victorian public – despite the agency having no more than six investigators.
Cr McAliney said chief municipal inspector David Wolf did the best he could with the resources available to him, but that it was “noticeably apparent the department is hugely under-resourced”.
“It’s embarrassing, particularly as their role is to protect the integrity and transparency of the democratic process of council elections,” Cr McAliney said.
She called for an immediate review of inspectorate office staffing and also for a review panel to be established, to look at improvements to strengthen the candidate nomination process for the 2020 municipal elections.
“Both residents and candidates need to feel confidence in the integrity of the electoral process and that there are serious consequences for those that work outside it,” she said.
But Cr Intaj Khan said that despite it being a difficult election, he didn’t believe the electoral system was in need of an overhaul.
“I think the current system is a perfect system,” he said.
“People are always going to make complaints due to their personal associations with individual groups because they didn’t get elected … this report clearly outlines nobody has been charged, nobody has been fined and we have to accept that.”
Following the release of the inspectorate’s report, Wyndham chief executive Kelly Grigsby said the process appeared to indicate that there was “still room for improvement when it comes to the administration of council elections”.
Ms Grigsby said the council would “welcome reform in this space” through the review of the that is under way at the moment.
The review’s direction paper proposes retaining the current enforcement role, functions and powers of the inspectorate.
Local Government Minister Marlene Kairouz said the inspectorate’s findings about last year’s Wyndham elections would be considered as part of the Local Government Act review.
She described the inspectorate’s report into the Wyndham election as “very concerning”.
“Candidates should only run if they understand their obligations as a councillor and intend to serve the community to the best of their ability,” she said.
“It’s clear many candidates in Wyndham did not do this.”
