Legislation aimed at cracking down on council corruption will penalise ratepayers and could prove undemocratic because it was rushed through Queensland Parliament too quickly, an independent Cairns councillor says.

The changes to the law have meant some local governments were forced to delegate decisions to their chief executive officers due to the majority of their councillors being swept up by stricter conflict of interest provisions.

Local Government Association of Queensland (LGAQ) chief executive Greg Hallam said it was a problem for six councils and called on Local Government Minister Stirling Hinchliffe to intervene.

The changes, introduced in response to the Crime and Corruption Commission's (CCC) Operation Belcarra, affect councils where the majority of councillors were elected on a team ticket, because the whole group must now be excluded from votes where a conflict arises, resulting in the absence of a quorum.

Independent councillor Brett Olds said the tougher laws had unforeseen knock-on effects. ( Facebook: Brett Olds )

At Cairns Regional Council, seven out of 10 councillors were elected as part of the Unity Team.

Last week, at the first Cairns council meeting since changes to the Local Government Act came into effect, three matters had be delegated to the chief executive officer, including a tender decision for an amount exceeding $1 million, because the Unity Team had received donations from applicants.

Independent Cairns Councillor Brett Olds said the tougher laws put matters that should be decided by elected representatives into the hands of bureaucrats, which could be seen as undemocratic.

"The state wants to crack down on corruption and that's a noble thing and honourable thing, but in rushing this legislation through like they've done at a great rate of knots they've allowed some knock-on effects to fall through the cracks which ultimately seem to be penalising the general public," he said.

"I don't think the community is going to too happy when they start finding there's some big decisions coming up ... but because the majority of the councillors won't be able to vote on that, it just gets delegated.

"I don't think that's the way it's supposed to work."

Greg Hallam from the LGAQ said the new laws would leave the councils in limbo for years. ( AAP: Dave Hunt )

Mr Hallam said it was a "real problem" for councils in Cairns, Townsville, Mackay, Mareeba, Mount Isa and Palm Island.

"Where groups were elected and they have the majority of the votes on the council floor, those groups are in a unique situation; they can't vote on matters — not just the individual but the entire group — and that's making it very difficult to make significant decisions in the community's interest," he said.

Mr Hallam said the changes only affected groups of candidates publicly identified as a "team" and not those endorsed by a political party, despite them being "for all intents and purposes ... the same thing".

He said the Minister should grant exemptions where it became a recurring problem for councils or where they became "deadlocked".

"They need to get cracking on those dispensations to enable council to do the job they were elected to do."

Mayor defends deferring matters to CEO

Cairns Mayor Bob Manning, a member of the majority Unity Team, conceded council business would be more "cumbersome", but was otherwise reluctant to attack the changes.

"That is the law and we will make that work and we won't do anything other than make that work," he said.

"Our obligation is to the people of Cairns to make sure the government of this city is carried out legally and appropriately."

Councillor Manning denied it was undemocratic to delegate matters to the CEO for decision, saying people were not necessarily more accountable by virtue of being a councillor.

"What safeguards did the people of Ipswich have? Those people were duly elected but they acted outside the law," he said.

Townsville Mayor Jenny Hill said her council had already acted to address conflict of interest issues. ( AAP Image: Dan Peled )

"Now I would expect when a delegation like this is given, the CEO will very much take into account that report which was written by council officers with a recommendation on it."

Townsville City Council delegated two agenda items to its CEO at a recent meeting.

But Mayor Jenny Hill noted: "The approach now required under legislation for the council to refer these matters under delegation to the CEO is the same approach that this council had already adopted for matters where Team Jenny Hill had been a recipient of an electoral donation.

"We had been taking this approach well before the current legislative reforms had even been drafted."

Earlier last week, Gold Coast City Council Deputy Mayor Donna Gates stood down from the council's planning committee, citing the tougher requirements around declaring conflicts of interest.

"[The] decision is entirely based on the clunkiness [sic] of the new legislation which will delay meeting process times," she said.

"There is now a need to identify not only any perceived conflict of interest but the details of those conflicts, and I think as everybody is aware, I've been a good fundraiser, all within the law, but it now makes it very time-consuming and I don't want my colleagues to have to sit through time-consuming declarations that delay their community involvement and this is what this does.

"It keeps people away from their communities and it's wrong."

Councillors 'fearful' of new laws

Last year, the ABC's Four Corners program revealed Cr Gates had voted in favour of development applications linked to her campaign donors nearly 30 times since the last election after acknowledging perceived conflicts of interest, which was within the law at that time.

Mr Hallam said many councillors were "fearful" about the consequences of the legislative change.

"Let's be very clear, there's also very substantial penalties attached to this, and people will think twice and be overly conservative in my view about some of these matters because there are up to four-year jail sentences," he said.

Mr Hallam said while developer donations were now banned, councils were in "no man's land or limbo" for the next few years.

He said the State Government should review the legislation to iron out issues and limit the time period donations could give rise to conflicts of interest to those made in the previous and current term of local government.

"That would mean you wouldn't be having to go back into the mists of time a decade ago to think about who might've given you a donation," he said.

When asked to comment, a spokesperson for Mr Hinchliffe said it was a matter for the department and not the minister.