June 19, 2026 — 4:08pmRestrictions on developer donations to Victorian councillors will not be delivered in this term of parliament, with a new package of local government laws failing to crack down on the problematic flow of money.Eight years after the anti-corruption watchdog launched an inquiry into Casey Council and almost three years after its damning Operation Sandon report on the scandal, the Allan government has still not acted on the integrity headache plaguing councils.Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan’s bill to enhance the governance standards of councils fails to tackle election donations.Ruby AlexanderThis week, as he introduced laws designed to strengthen governance rules for councils, Local Government Minister Paul Hamer said it was important to learn the lessons from the Casey scandal “to prevent similar failures from occurring again”.But integrity experts criticised the government for the lack of action on capping or banning donations from developers. A spokeswoman for the government said donation reforms would be considered in time for the next council general elections in 2028.The bill’s main purpose is to “enhance the integrity and governance standards of councils”. But it is silent on reforms to the current donation rules, which enabled Melbourne Lord Mayor Nick Reece and his “Team Nick” group of councillors to raise $950,484 for the 2024 City of Melbourne election campaign from wealthy business people, trade unions and people who own large amounts of property in the City of Melbourne.In the same campaign, “Team Kouta”, fronted by former AFL star Anthony Koutoufides, received $325,280 from property developer Intaj Khan, who was running alongside the former footballer for the position of deputy mayor.Both candidates were able to do this entirely within the existing rules, and there is no suggestion of impropriety on the part of the candidates or donors.The governance changes in the legislation include provisions enabling councils to remove mayors serving a one-year term where they have lost the confidence of the council and failed to meet community expectations, along with standardising council meeting procedures.In his speech introducing the bill, Hamer highlighted the deficiencies in council processes uncovered by the Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission’s Operation Sandon, as well as the Commission of Inquiry into the Whittlesea Council.“It is essential that the lessons from these independent inquiries are adopted to prevent similar failures from occurring again,” he said.Local Government Minister Paul Hamer says governance failures and corruption in local government hurt the community and erode public trust.Penny Stephens“Victorians deserve a local government sector that is delivering for the public benefit. Governance failures and corruption in local government hurts the community and erodes public trust in the sector.”Hamer said the legislation “addresses the remaining recommendations and translates the lessons learned” from Operation Sandon, even though it does not deal with restrictions on donations.Laws governing donations to state government campaigns were rushed through parliament this month – capping donations at $7500 per donor each four-year electoral cycle and requiring disclosure of all donations above $1250 – after the previous regime was struck out by the High Court. But these laws did not extend to local government.Dr Colleen Lewis, an associate of the Centre for Public Integrity, said the preamble to Hamer’s bill started by declaring it would enhance the integrity and governance standards of councils. Yet the bill did not address political donations, which Lewis said was “absolutely a fundamental integrity and governance issue”.“The question the premier and the minister for local government need to answer is why it doesn’t do that, and why, after what was revealed through Operation Sandon, would any government genuinely concerned about enhancing the integrity and governance standards of local councils and councillors deliberately choose not to include a donation cap or to introduce genuine real-time disclosure political donations?” Lewis said.Lewis said real-time donation disclosure meant within 24 or 48 hours, not a three-week time lag.“Political donations really are fundamental to integrity in government at any level,” she said. “Councils come up time and time again as having problems … for goodness’ sake, they’re the ones who approve massive amounts of money for developments.”Local governance expert Rhys Thomas said it was disappointing the long-standing issue of complete and real-time declarations of election campaign donations had been overlooked again in the review of council governance arrangements.“It’s hard to understand why the introduction of donation limits and disclosures for state elections was important enough for urgent legislation and a parliamentary sitting well into the night, while the equivalent rules for councillors don’t even rate a mention,” he said.Thomas hoped the review of the state campaign donation regime that would occur after this year’s Victorian election could be expanded to include provisions for council elections.“It remains possible that a councillor candidate can essentially receive unlimited donations and, if they are made via a campaign group or community organisation, the identity of the donors can remain secret,” he said.Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. 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