Newsletter 72 – Code of Meeting Practice

NORTH SYDNEY COUNCIL AND ITS CODE OF MEETING PRACTICE

A puzzlement

At its meeting on 8 December, Council considered the Minister for Local Government’s Model Code of Meeting Practice.

The Minister directed that if Council (along with every Council in NSW) did not adopt the Office of Local Government’s Model Code, any inconsistent provisions of Council’s existing code would be void.

Seems simple.

Part 4 of the Model Code is mandatory, and it provides:

The council may hold a public forum prior to meetings of the council and committees of the council for the purpose of hearing oral submissions from members of the public on items of business to be considered at the meeting.

Public forums may also be held prior to meetings of other committees of the council.

Public forums will be held by audio-visual link.

Public forums are to be chaired by the mayor or their nominee.

Council (formally) adopted the mandatory provisions and then added a number of constraints that in summary:

• A person wanting to speak at a public forum, must:
◦ make an application on an approved form prior to 10am on the day on which the public forum is to be held,
◦ identify the agenda item(s) to be spoken to, and where possible, whether they were intending to speak ‘for’ or ‘against’ the item, and
◦ not speak on more than 2 items.

• No more:
◦ than four (4) speakers are to speak on any agenda item, and
◦ no speaker is to speak for more that 3 minutes with the time limit being strictly enforced.

• Council’s Chief Executive Officer is given the power to:
◦ reject an application to speak (provided reasons are given),
◦ in consultation with the mayor (or chairperson), increase the number of speakers to 8,
◦ determine the order of speakers, and
◦ after hearing the speakers, recommend that the Council defer consideration of an agenda item.

Keep in mind, not one of those added provisions was mandated by the Model Code. They are limits that the majority of Councillors imposed.

Confusingly, the Mayor said:
• whilst ever I’m chair … we will not be limiting the numbers of two for / two against.
That begs the question, if it is not intended to enforce the limits, why include them in Council’s Code?

The proceedings on the night were hard to follow. The debate, at times, seemed to proceed on the basis that the Model Code was, in its entirety, mandatory.

That is, simply, not the case. The Model Code, if imposed, would replace only the inconsistent provisions of the code previously put in place.

When the clarion call from our community is for transparency and open dialogue, why put limits on the community members who come to address council? Why?