Disclosures of Interest

Under Council’s Code of Conduct Policy, Councillors and Designated Persons are required to complete and submit disclosures of interests within 3 months of:

• becoming a Councillor or Designated Person
• 30 June of each year, and
• becoming aware of a new interest that must be disclosed in the return.

Who is a “designated person”?

Under Part 2 of Council’s Code of Conduct, designated persons include:

• the CEO
• Senior Staff of Council for the purposes of section 332 of the Local Government Act 1993
• any other member of staff or delegate of Council who holds a position identified by Murray River Council as the position of a designated person because it involves the exercise of a function that could give rise to a conflict of interest, and
• a member of a Committee of Council identified by Council as a Committee whose members are Designated Persons because the functions of the committee involve the exercise of functions that could give rise to a conflict of interest.

Information contained in returns made and lodged are to be made publicly available in accordance with the requirements of the Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009, the Government Information (Public Access) Regulation 2009 and any other guidelines issued by the Information Commissioner.

Identifying “designated persons”

The requirement to publish returns of interests is designed to operate as a transparency mechanism to ensure that key decision makers in Council appropriately disclose and manage pecuniary interests they may have in matters they are dealing with.

Council should be mindful when identifying a position as the position of a designated person or a committee as a committee whose members are designated persons, that the consequence of this is that Council will be required to publish personal information about those persons on their websites.

Council should weigh this consequence against the risk that the requirement to publish returns of interests is designed to address to ensure that this is a proportionate mitigation of that risk. This assessment should be based on a consideration of the nature, responsibilities and functions of a role or a committee and the type and level of delegations it exercises.

Positions or committee memberships involving the performance of low-level administrative or regulatory functions that carry limited or no discretion or financial delegations, should not be identified as positions of designated persons.

The types of positions or committee memberships that should be identified as designated persons are those that exercise functions or decision-making that involve the potential for significant risk to the council, including of damage to the council’s reputation, where conflicts of interest are not disclosed and appropriately managed.