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On 15 August 2024, the Local Government Amendment Bill 2024 was introduced to Parliament. This Bill is the second tranche of local government reforms and comprises the most significant changes to the Local Government Act since 1995.

This landmark Bill carries through on the reform theme to earlier intervention, effective regulation and stronger penalties and introduces the new independent office of the Local Government Inspector, appointed by the Governor of Western Australia.

The Inspector will strengthen oversight of all 139 local governments with greater early intervention powers to ensure compliance. The Inspector will be able to assign monitors to proactively work within local governments to resolve dysfunction before it escalates.

They will be responsible for handling complaints and managing investigations and inquiries, with significant powers to investigate complaints and take actions for breaches of the Local Government Act 1995 and its regulations.

Adjudicators, who will be legal practitioners, will replace the Local Government Standards Panel, making more efficient decisions and handing out more serious penalties for significant breaches and offences.

The new laws increase most penalties, particularly for conduct breaches including withholding or suspending council member allowances for up to 3 months.

This Bill also includes other significant reforms that will:

• Require councils to adopt a rates and revenue policy to facilitate better financial planning and increase public transparency of proposed rate changes.
• Widen the scope of audit committees to ‘audit, risk and improvement committees’, with an independent chairperson, who can be shared with smaller local governments.
• Require all council and committee meetings to generally be open to the public unless specific circumstances apply.
• Clarify the roles and responsibilities of the council, mayors and presidents, councillors and local government chief executive officers.
• Facilitate the shared employment of local government CEOs and senior employees.
• Ensure council members do not receive their allowances if they fail to complete mandatory training courses.
• Deliver a range of administrative amendments, including superannuation entitlements for council members and improvements to streamline the making of local laws.

New fact sheets have been created with more information on these topics:

• Reforms to governance and committees
• Local Government Inspector and Monitors
• New breach system.

Local government reform webinar

The Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries will be holding a local government reform webinar on 20 August 2024 to provide an overview briefing on the Bill, including an address by the Hon Hannah Beazley MLA, Minister for Local Government.

Register your attendance

A copy of the Bill, the Second Reading speech, Explanatory Memorandum and a blue bill showing the proposed amendments can be found at the WA Parliament website.

You can read more about the status of the various reforms on the Local Government Reforms webpage.

Questions about the local government reforms can be directed to actreview@dlgsc.wa.gov.au