Brisbane City Council’s LNP councillors reject proposed election campaign spending caps

Brisbane’s LNP City Councillors have voted to reject spending caps on election campaigns proposed by the Palaszczuk government.

At a council meeting on Tuesday night, the LNP motioned to endorse positions made by the Local Government Association of Queensland objecting to council election campaign restrictions proposed by Queensland Government Minister Stirling Hinchliffe.

Mr Hinchliffe proposed spending on mayoral election campaigns be capped at $100,000, with the Local Government Association of Queensland proposing that figure be pushed to $200,000 for mayoral elections and $50,000 for councillor elections.

However LNP councillor Matthew Bourke said spending caps should not exist at all, and that it is unfair for the Brisbane Lord Mayor to be restricted to the same spending cap as the Redlands lord mayor given Brisbane has more than 600,000 extra voters.