Committee Details

About the Bill

On 20 November 2025, the Minister for Local Government and Water and Minister for Fire, Disaster Recovery and Volunteers introduced the Local Government (Empowering Councils) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025 into the Queensland Parliament. The Bill was referred to the Local Government, Small Business and Customer Service Committee for detailed consideration.

View: Explanatory speech
View: Bill
View: Explanatory Notes
View: Statement of compatibility

The objectives of the Bill are to:

• empower councils by:
  • providing that senior executive employees of a local government are appointed by a panel of the local government, rather than solely by the chief executive officer (CEO)
  • providing that Brisbane City Council appoints its senior contract employees, rather than the CEO
  • facilitating local government access to essential State-owned quarry materials, and
  • clarifying Indigenous local government rating powers and provide a framework to facilitate Indigenous local government rating in the future
• empower mayors by:
  • reinforcing that the mayor is the official spokesperson of a local government, and
  • clarifying that the mayor is the default chairperson of ordinary and special meetings of a local government, and committees for which the mayor is the chairperson. This role includes managing the conduct of the participants at the meeting.
• improve the councillor conflicts of interest and register of interests frameworks
• reduce unnecessary red tape and regulation
• provide certainty to councillors about matters relating to remuneration, leaves of absence, vacation of office, and eligibility
• promote good governance and decision-making
• enhance safeguards for local government election candidates and participants, and
• make various minor, administrative and/or technical amendments.

Further information

Further information including written briefings, correspondence, response to submissions, transcripts and answers to questions taken on notice will be available under the Related Publications tab in due course.

Call for submissions

The committee invites submissions on any aspect of the Bill, from all interested parties. Guidelines for making a submission to a parliamentary committee are available here: Guide to making a submission. Please ensure your submission meets these requirements.

Click here to make an online submission to the Bill

If you are unable to provide a written submission, please contact the secretariat to discuss other options.

The closing date for written submissions is 12:00pm, Tuesday 16 December 2025. 

Submissions must include:

• the author’s full name
• if the submission is made on behalf of an organisation, the level of approval (e.g. a local branch, executive committee or national organisation), and
• at least two of the following:
  • email address
  • mailing address, and
  • daytime telephone number.

Please ensure your submission includes the above or it may not be considered by the committee.

Please note: Your name and submission may be published on the committee’s inquiry webpage, which will mean it can be viewed on the internet. You can request for your name to be withheld from your published submission, or for both your name and your submission to be kept confidential (i.e. not published). Decisions about whether and how submissions are published are at the discretion of the committee.

PUBLIC PROCEEDINGS

The committee has scheduled a public briefing on the Bill by officers from the Department of Local Government, Water and Volunteers on Wednesday, 10 December 2025 and a public hearing on Friday, 16 January 2026. See the timeline below for further information.

Committee’s report

The committee is due to table its report on Friday, 30 January, 2026. The report will be published here.

Once the committee’s report has been tabled, the Government has three months to respond to the report’s recommendations (if any). At that time, the Government Response will be published here.

TIMELINE