Feedback sought on reforms paper

‘Aldermen’ face the axe New fee for candidates

JOKE council candidates would have their mettle tested under proposed local government reforms that would also do away with the “archaic and gender-biased” title of alderman.

New Local Government Minister Mark Shelton yesterday released for public comment a directions paper detailing 51 areas of potential local government reform.

Proposed changes included replacing the term “alderman” with “councillor” on Tasmania’s city councils to “align language with community expectations”, as supported by the Local Government Association of Tasmania. Hobart City Council last year voted to allow elected representatives to choose whether they were known as councillors or aldermen.

“The term [alderman] is considered archaic and gender-biased,” the directions paper said.

The paper proposed council candidates be charged a fee upon nomination which would be refunded if they received at least 4 per cent of the vote.

Council candidates would also have to complete a pre-nomination training package to ensure they understood a councillor’s role and responsibilities before they put their name forward.

On the proposed fee, the paper said: “This principle is common in other local government jurisdictions and aims to attract serious candidates and reduce nominations by those without real intentions to be elected. “Having considered fees in other jurisdictions, the likely fee would be around $100 for councillor nominations and $250 for mayoral nominations.”

The paper has also suggested changing the laws to allow only Australian citizens to vote.

The current laws allow non-citizens to vote by enrolling on the general manager’s roll, which attracted controversy last year amid claims of Chinese Communist Party interference in the Hobart City Council election.

“A person must be an Australian citizen to be eligible to vote in local government elections,” the paper suggested.

“This is consistent with the voting rights at a state level and with most other jurisdictions’ local government voting rights.” Another possible change put forward would mean one person was allowed only one vote per municipality, removing the right of business owners to possibly vote twice within the same local government election.

Mr Shelton, a former Meander Valley Council mayor who yesterday spoke at the LGAT annual meeting, encouraged Tasmanians to give their feedback on the Reforms Directions Paper as part of the review of Tasmania’s local government laws.

“Feedback will be taken into consideration by the Government, and I encourage anyone interested to provide feedback through this process until 30 September 2019,” Mr Shelton said.