The LGAQ has supported the Queensland Government's move to disclose donations in real-time but wants the disclosure to extend to a register of interests for council candidates.
The real-time electronic donation disclosure system went live on Thursday morning as part of the Palaszczuk Government’s commitment to transparency at state and local level.
“Queensland now has some of the most progressive, open and transparent political donations laws in the country,” Premier Palaszczuk said.
“Instead of waiting more than six months to see who is donating to a political party, from March 1 voters will have access to this information within seven business days."
Whilst supportive of the initiative the LGAQ would like to see the same transparency rigour applied to council elections through the implementation of a mandatory register of interests for new candidates. This would be commensurate with current disclosure requirements for candidates running in state elections.
LGAQ Advocate General Manager Sarah Buckler wrote to the then Minister for Local Government Jackie Trad earlier this year expressing LGAQ's desire for increased transparency and accountability around local government elections to ensure the community knows exactly who they are voting for.
"I know the Palaszczuk Government shares the LGAQ's desire to have the local government sector as open and transparent as possible...our joint efforts to increase transparency and accountability would be reinforced by making it mandatory for anyone seeking to nominate as a candidate for local government election to submit their register of interest at the time of nominating," Ms Buckler said.