Hinchliffe to close door on runners-up landing mayor job
Queensland Local Government Minister Stirling Hinchliffe will seek to close a door allowing the runner-up in a mayoral election to take the robes if a first-year mayor leaves the job.
One of the first actions of a returned Palaszczuk government, the move would ensure the resignation of Rockhampton mayor Margaret Strelow on Monday night would instead trigger a byelection, rather than elevating an anti-Adani activist who ran second in the March poll.
Margaret Strelow resigned as Rockhampton mayor on Monday.
The Local Government Association of Queensland has lobbied for the Palaszczuk government to urgently repeal the "undemocratic" runner-up provisions, which it committed to before the election.
Mr Hinchliffe said in a statement that once the new parliament was sworn in, the third-term Labor government would introduce and pass a bill to amend the Local Government Act retrospectively.
"I have received advice that should this be completed at the earliest opportunity, any vacancies to any mayoral or councillor positions that have recently arisen will need to be filled through a byelection," he said.
"This will ensure communities can have a proper vote to determine who represents them."
Ms Strelow had been re-elected at the March local government elections after 16 years in the role and an earlier three years on the council, but her resignation - within the first 12 months of her new term - would trigger laws requiring runner-up Chris Hooper to fill the position.
News that the "staunch supporter of protests and environmentalists" - who received 31.15 per cent of the two-candidate contest - was greeted positively by the Greens on Facebook.
But Capricornia LNP MP Michelle Landry said Ms Strelow had been the victim of a "witch hunt" perpetrated by the Labor government.
Under the laws, a mayoral resignation between 13 and 36 months triggers a byelection, with a successor appointed by the council if it comes during the final part of the term.
In a statement on Tuesday, LNP local government spokeswoman Ann Leahy said the "mess" needed to be fixed fast.
"The laws were rushed through the Parliament this year without any scrutiny by a committee," she said.
Ms Strelow announced her resignation after the Councillor Conduct Tribunal found she failed to inform the council's chief executive officer of a "personal hospitality benefit" received from Adani during a council business trip to India in 2017.
She said the official visits were part of her job as mayor and her "refusal to agree that I may have been compromised" was a "matter of personal integrity".
"As a matter of honour given the misconduct finding, I tendered my resignation to the chief executive officer this afternoon," she wrote in a statement posted to Facebook on Monday.
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Matt Dennien is a reporter with Brisbane Times.