WWCC Mayor Dallas Tout has slammed the NSW Government’s decision to alter policy relating to the Conduct of Meeting Practice for Local Governments. Photo: WWCC Livestream.
Wagga Mayor Dallas Tout has blasted the NSW Government’s decision to alter the Code of Meeting Practice policy set to come into effect on 31 December.
In what the NSW Government is describing as a means to “spearhead a change of culture to boost transparency and community confidence in local government”, the new Code of Meeting Practice will prevent private briefings or workshops prior to ordinary council meetings, require any closed information to be made public once it ceases to be confidential and prevent councillors from attending meetings if they are unable to be there in person.
Minister for Local Government Ron Hoenig said the purpose of the new policies was to provide transparency to the communities councils represented.
“The council chamber should be a place of dignity, where debate and decision-making takes place in full view of the community,” Mr Hoenig said.
“Making decisions on behalf of communities is the very role of a councillor, and all councillors should never lose sight of this core responsibility.
“These changes should ensure that, in a council chamber or committee meeting, mechanisms are in place to prevent the derailing of meetings and overshadowing the important work of local government.
“Council and committee meetings must be effective, transparent and genuine, and strive for outcomes to benefit the community.”
Despite Mr Hoenig’s insistence that the new changes will provide clarity for communities, many councillors from around the state, including Wagga Mayor Dallas Tout, have slammed the changes, claiming they are a response to the behaviour of metropolitan councillors.
“It’s going to change the whole face of local government.
“The two biggest things are removing workshops. So what that will mean is that you’re unable to have discussions about any item or get any background information prior to going to a meeting.
“I think the purpose of that was a lot of it’s based on behaviour in metro councils, not regional councillors so much. There is talk that some decisions were being made behind closed doors, and this was a way to shut that door.
“The problem is, when you broad-brush a solution like that across an entire state, people are doing the right thing, pay the price, and that’s what’s going to happen here.
“Because we can’t do workshops, there’ll be more discussion on items. There’ll be more questions, and any questions that come to staff have to be documented and sent back out and form part of the meeting papers; as well as that, meetings will be going a lot longer, and there’s potential to have a lot more deferrals.”
Mr Tout said the second key factor was limiting councillors’ ability to attend meetings remotely.
“The second one is the ability to dial into meetings. Again, I think it’s a response to essentially the behaviour in the metro councils, where some councillors who were elected last September, October, haven’t been into a council meeting room yet.
“A lot of councillors have other full-time jobs now, but they still want to contribute to the community as a councillor, and if they’re away for work for that night, they’re unable to dial in from their motel room or whatever. So it’s shutting the door on the capacity of councillors to do their job.”
Mr Tout said Wagga Wagga City Council, among a slew of other regional councils, had contacted Mr Hoenig’s office over the changes, but was unable to change his office’s mind.
“A lot of the councils have already talked to him, individually and as part of groups, and they’ve got nowhere,” he said.
“We need the community to submit things to his office and express their opinion. That’s the whole idea. So when the government does change, then that feedback won’t be forgotten, and neither will the consideration to go back to a commonsense solution.”
