Queensland's premier has vowed to ban property developers from donating to state and local government candidates after the corruption watchdog found councils to be a "hotbed for perceived corruption".
The Crime and Corruption Commission has recommended swift, long-overdue reform of the state's "clearly broken" local government system following an investigation into the 2016 Gold Coast, Moreton Bay, Ipswich and Logan council elections.
In its report tabled on Wednesday, the CCC made 31 recommendations to correct "widespread non-compliance" with electoral legislation and to improve equity, transparency, integrity and accountability.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said her cabinet would consider all the recommendations next Monday but immediately committed to banning developer donations, saying the report highlighted "serious cultural and structural issues" within councils.
"It is a broken system which needs to be fixed and as premier of this state I have a moral obligation and a duty to the people of this state to ensure they have absolute confidence in local government," Ms Palaszczuk said.
CCC chair Alan MacSporran said there was a "far greater scope for corruption to flourish" in local government given the work councils do.
"It certainly at the very least is a hotbed for perceived corruption and that occurs when you have a lack of transparency," Mr MacSporran said.
"It is constitutionally valid to ban or seek to ban donations from property developers because it is a known evidence-based corruption risk."
Local Government Association of Queensland president Mark Jamieson criticised the move to ban developer donations, claiming it would drive activity "underground".
"We believe regulation and transparency is the answer, not prohibition," Mr Jamieson said.
The Queensland Greens called for the donation ban to extend to all for-profit corporations including the mining and gambling industries, but Mr MacSporran said there was insufficient evidence to ban other interest groups.
The CCC is continuing to investigate a number of matters, however it has stated it will not prosecute people where the current framework may have contributed to non-compliance or where the time period for a prosecution had expired.
"The people who gave evidence at the public hearing, a number of those would have been potentially liable for prosecution," Mr MacSporran said.
"To be frank, many of these people who were longstanding councillors and candidates should have known better.
"If these recommendations are put into place no one can have the excuse they didn't understand and didn't know what their obligations were."
Notably, the CCC chose not to refer Gold Coast mayor Tom Tate and long-serving Ipswich councillor Paul Tully to the state electoral commission for failing to keep a dedicated campaign bank account because of systematic issues.
It also cleared Federal Liberal MP Stuart Robert of wrongdoing for facilitating party donations of $30,000 to his staffers Kristyn Boulton and Felicity Stevenson when they ran as independent candidates at the Gold Coast election.
However, a number of matters remain under active investigation, including that of Logan Mayor Luke Smith due to alleged donation disclosure errors.
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