Parliament of Victoria | Legislative Council | Motion by Mr Limbrick
13 May 2026
David ETTERSHANK (Western Metropolitan Region):
I rise to make a brief contribution to the motion from Mr Limbrick and advise that Legalise Cannabis Victoria will be supporting the motion. I thank Mr Limbrick for bringing this question before the chamber, and I would like to endorse most of the comments that were made by Mr Limbrick and also Dr Mansfield in her contribution.
I want to say at the outset that I love local government. It is the one level of government that is immediately accessible to the community. Local governments address a range of issues that immediately affect their own communities. They speak to their communities, and they are part of their communities in an organic manner that we cannot replicate here. And yet you see them regularly treated with such a lack of respect, with a paternalism, by both major parties.
The model code of conduct was introduced in 2024 and applied from the start of that term. Prior to that it was incumbent on each council to create its own code of conduct based on the principles found in the Local Government Act 2020 and decide what its internal dispute resolution process should be. It was a good process, as it required councillors to actually sit around the table and figure out how they would work together.
It was an exercise in sharing responsibility for the culture and good governance of the council. While it did not automatically guarantee good behaviour in council, it did at least afford councils the opportunity from the start to seriously grapple with the question of what makes for good governance and what makes for a healthy culture.
With an imposed top-down model in the form of the councillor code of conduct, which is the only thing this government seems to do well – well, the only thing this government seems to do – it is little wonder that councillors are appealing to external parties more often to adjudicate on disputes and to correctly interpret those rules, rules that councillors had no hand in writing or endorsing.
There is a lot of inconsistency between arbiter decisions – and that has been discussed in the chamber already – and that is both within councils and between councils. Some decisions have been surprisingly harsh, while others have been fine and others have failed to get the point. This inconsistency erodes council and public confidence in the process. Plus, they are expensive, and most of our councils need additional costs like they need a hole in the head.
I believe the increasing use of external arbiters to resolve disputes is an obvious result of the state removing the requirement for councils to take responsibility for developing their own codes of conduct and their own internal dispute resolution processes. Local governments, as I said, are the most accessible part of our democracy and the most immediate form of local representation, but they are treated with contempt by both the parties.
Local councils are not the only place, and certainly not the only level of government, where you will find racism, homophobia, sexism or corruption. They certainly do not have a monopoly on bad behaviour. Yet you would not know that if you saw how paternalistically councils are regularly treated by state governments.
Why then do they have a code of conduct imposed upon them which hampers the ability of councillors to engage in the work that they are set up to do? I thank Mr McCracken for his contribution. It was really good. Freedom of speech is a given in this place. We are protected by parliamentary privilege. Councils are shaped by and make decisions for their local communities, and like all forms of government, they should be forums for rigorous discussion and diversity of opinions. How else can we ensure that issues of public concern are given the broadest possible consideration by our representatives?
Mr Limbrick’s motion is therefore entirely appropriate. The Victorian government needs to review the model councillor code of conduct laws to ensure our local representatives are free to challenge ideas and policies without the threat of unnecessary and expensive dispute resolution, which not only dampens debate but erodes trust in local government and discourages local participation.
[Motion agreed to]
