Councillors should be banned from having any role in the handling of projects by developers who have donated to their campaign, Queensland’s parliamentary Speaker has said, after fresh controversy over developer donations erupted on the Gold Coast.



The independent MP Peter Wellington said legislative reforms should not only stop councillors voting on donor-related developments, but also prevent them taking up those matters with council staff and others behind the scenes.

It follows revelations the Gold Coast deputy mayor, Donna Gates, voted more than 30 times in favour of developments linked to donors who gave tens of thousands of dollars to her 2016 election campaign.

A Four Corners report noting that Gates did so legally, despite declaring potential conflicts of interest, prompted the premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, to acknowledge concerns about developer influence and flag possible legislative changes.

The program also explored the mayor Tom Tate’s bullish pro-development stance, in a community divided by multibillion-dollar proposals for a casino and cruise ship terminal on its publicly owned oceanfront.

Tate, who in a council meeting previously referred to Four Corners as “idiots”, responded by banning the ABC from a media conference he held on Tuesday, saying he did so on legal advice because he planned to sue the broadcaster.

Both Palaszczuk and the deputy premier, Jackie Trad – who is reportedly leading a push for a ban on developer donations but meeting internal resistance from Labor party officials – said the government would await an upcoming Crime and Corruption Commission report on local government addressing developer influence.

Wellington, who forced the introduction of Australia’s first real-time donations disclosure regime in Queensland, said councillors should “definitely not” be voting on donor projects even when declaring a conflict of interest.

Wellington, who began his political career as a councillor, said there should be a blanket ban on them having any dealings on a donor-related project, either by voting or exerting influence elsewhere on their behalf within council.

“My view is, if they’re going to take the donations, they should not be involved in any of those matters that come before council – be it in preliminary discussions with council officers, or on a vote, not just not being in the chamber,” he said.

“I’ve come from a local government background and even if councillors say, ‘Oh look, I won’t be involved in the vote’, there’s nothing to stop them being involved in discussions with staff and other parties and other councillors.

The need for councillors to “automatically absent themselves from any involvement” in donor-related decisions was especially acute in the case of property developers “because developers provide big dollars to candidates from both sides of the political fence [and] stand to benefit directly, financially, from the council’s decision”.

Wellington, who in his swan song term in office regularly holds a casting vote as Speaker in a hung parliament, said he had long supported a total ban on developer donations in Queensland.

“[But] if the government says no, we won’t ban donations, the other option is to say, OK, if the government won’t ban the donations, then ban the councillor’s involvement in any of the deliberations of that [developer’s] application,” he said.

This would capture councillor involvement in decisions that go to “delegated authority” by council staff and not a council vote.

“I’ve always made that very clear that I believe we should follow New South Wales, I’m on the public record supporting banning developer donations because they stand to benefit directly [from decisions],” Wellington said.

“But I really believe the bigger issue is, if someone wants to take a donation, they should not be involved in any of that applicant’s deliberations.”

AJ Brown, a Griffith university professor and expert in public integrity and anti-corruption, said it was his understanding that councillors could still vote while declaring potential conflicts of interest “typically everywhere”, not just in Queensland.

“I don’t know that any state’s got this under control,” he said.

Brown said it raised the broader problem of dealing with donor influence at the state and federal level.

“There’s absolutely nothing different between a councillor – who has received legitimate, legal donations for an election campaign – and state politicians voting on issues or projects or legislation in which their party or electorate account has received money from particular political donors, who have a known interest or an obvious interest,” he said.

“I don’t think there’s a solution you can impose on local government without really imposing the same solution on state and federal government, which gets us back to the fact that there needs to be much tighter controls on the ability of corporates, and not just developers but anybody, [for] when and how they make donations and where they make them to.

“The only alternative to allowing private donations is to make elections as publically funded as possible and that’s part of the answer.

“But it’s a really good question, how we do that for local government.”

Wellington said it was true that “the big end of town make big donations to both sides of the political fence”.

“I think they’re doing it because the basic principle is, there’s nothing for nothing. People make a donation for something in return,” he said.

But the “very clear distinction” at the local government level was that “a person putting an application in to council stands to benefit directly financially”, as opposed to a “union which might be out there campaigning for a cause for the betterment of many members”.