A ratepayers organisation says there's a concerning culture of control brewing in Victoria's local government sector.
In response to sordid stories of councillors behaving badly, 2020's Local Government Act brought a fresh emphasis on governance rules and councillor codes of conduct.
The move has also led to the introduction of written media policies in many of the state's 79 councils to clarify and codify what should be communicated to the media.
Under previous legislation, the mayor of a council has always been designated the "principal spokesperson" for council, but more extreme interpretations have since come into effect across the state.
But there's a growing concern from ratepayers and experts a "risk mitigation" approach is starving local debate and eroding the ability of councillors to represent the community.
Concern for public information
Chris Eddy works as a consultant for local government after a 20-year stint in local government as a CEO and executive.
In recent years, he's also launched a podcast called Local Government New Roundup, which delves into the news and views of the sector.
"These policies are made and introduced to deal with real issues and to avoid problem issues occurring in the future," he said.
He said councils' media teams were balancing competing pressures of protecting staff from embarrassment, the council's reputation, and public expectations of transparency and accountability.
"What the act requires of the mayor of each council is for the mayor to be the principal spokesperson for that council; that's part of the legislated role of the mayor," Mr Eddy said.
"It's then down to each council to articulate in a policy what that actually means because there are exceptions to every rule."
But Mr Eddy said the mayor being spokesperson on every issue, especially where technical or emergency information was involved, had its pitfalls.
"The risk is whether the right information is being provided to the community, whether it's being provided in a timely fashion and particularly in an accurate fashion," Mr Eddy said.
Mr Eddy said the interpretations of the act are also open to the political influence of council voting blocs and dynamics.
"Often these policies have political elements involved, depending on the appetite or the position of the mayor and councillors," Mr Eddy said.
He said he expected the policies to be tested as the state goes into another council election term next year.
"Often, councillors want to have the opportunity to be out and about and seen to be connected to councils' news and events," he said.
"Expect to see after this year and into next year certain activities that test the boundaries of the media policies if they have them."
'Tail wagging the dog'
Ratepayers Victoria vice president Dean Hurlston said the power struggles between public servants and elected representatives were different to those seen in state and federal politics.
"The culture is that council staff joke regularly 'we're in control of this narrative, the councillors are to be stage-managed and controlled because they come and go," Mr Hurlston said.
While many of the written media policies do make provisions for councillors to voice their political opinions, all requests must be run through a central media team.
"What they seek to do is to control councillors and to control their behaviour, to shut down political debate and opposition to things that might be put forward," Mr Hurlston said.
Mr Hurlston was also concerned that, under the new act, councils with media policies in their councillor code of conduct could use any breaches against them in arbitration.
"It can be weaponised against councillors who hold dissenting or different views. That is really, really unacceptable," he said.
But because each policy is written differently, any test cases that are decided in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal may not apply to other council areas.
"It's really the tail wagging the dog … It is not for council staff to ever seek to limit or control what a councillor says in public," Mr Hurlston said.
"[Councils] do not want divisive politics, they do not want fantastic debate and really good differing points of view.
"What they want is to look like everybody's happy clappy, everybody's in agreement and no-one disagrees, [and] that does not get good outcomes for the community."
