Northern Beaches Council is proposing to cut the amount of time residents and councillors will be allowed to speak at meetings and to ban photography anywhere near them.
This will be the second time the Northern Beaches Council has sought to limit the Public Forum that opens each Meeting where residents may speak to Motions or Items or present insights into matters directly impacting them and the community.
At the February 27 2018 Meeting the draft Meeting Code proposed abolishing the Public Forum but would still include the Public Address. Then it was proposed that, if the draft Code of Meeting Practice was adopted, the Public Forum would continue as a separate community meeting held five times a year in venues rotating across the region and not be part of the council meetings.
At that Meeting, amendments moved and seconded by Cr. De Luca and Ferguson meant the Vox populi would persist.
The same idea is again being regurgitated to see if anyone will salute.
Pittwater Residents at the February 2024 Meeting making their views known about state government plans to overrule Pittwater's LEP and DCP. Photo supplied
Some of the residents of Pittwater who attended this month's Council Meeting in support of a demerger poll at the May 2024 Meeting. Photo supplied
Residents attended the NBC Meeting of June 25 2024 to defend Pittwater's trees and two slated for destruction in Ruskin Rowe, Avalon Beach. Photo: Supplied
In 2018 Councillor Vincent De Luca OAM moved two Amendments to the draft Meeting Code, seconded by Councillor Kylie Ferguson;
C. Council change Clause 4.14 so it accords with the wording of the Office of Local Government and reads:
A notice of motion for the expenditure of funds on works and/or services other than those already provided for in the council’s current adopted operational plan must identify the source of funding for the expenditure that is the subject of the notice of motion. If the notice of motion does not identify a funding source, the general manager must either:
a. prepare a report on the availability of funds for implementing the motion if adopted, or
b. by written notice sent to all councillors with the business papers for the meeting for which the notice of motion has been submitted, defer consideration of the matter by the council to such a date specified in the notice, pending the preparation of such a report.
and;
D. Council add as Clause 5.19, Public Forum:
a. a Public forum will be conducted at each Ordinary Council Meeting for a period of 30 minutes (maximum of 10 speakers at 3 minutes each)
b. Public Forum should not be used to raise routine questions, matters or complaints. Such matters should be forwarded in writing to Council where they will be responded to by appropriate Council offices
c. any question to Council must be submitted with the request to address Council and will be reviewed by staff prior to the meeting. If the question is deemed to be a routine matter it will be processed as a customer request and a response will be provided in accordance with customer service standards
d. if a question cannot be answered at the meeting a written response will be provided in accordance with customer service standards.
Councillor De Luca stated, regarding the first amendment that this had been used in the past to deliberately stop minority councillors from putting Notices of Motion.
"Councillors were unable often to get information as to funding sources or were told that the funding sources they they had identified were inappropriate, and that therefore their Notices of Motion could not go forward. "
"The Office of Local government has recognised that there has been, in some councils, that politics prevails even among council staff, in resisting certain elected representatives desires to move Notices of Motion. There should never be any fettering of an elected representatives ability to raise a Notice of Motion. That is why the Office of Local Government have recommended that very clause that I seek to include and put to the public."
In speaking on the second amendment, to not abolish the Public Forum, Cr. De Luca said;
“We have heard from our community tonight that they do not want the Public Forum as proposed (in the then current draft)..’
We should not be restricting our community’s right to address us through any avenue available.
We are only sitting a mere 10 times a year. It is not an unfair or unreasonable expectation by our community for them to expect us to listen to them every month.
I commend the Amendment Motion to you and ask you to do what our community wants not what we, as elected representatives, feel is more efficient, to shorten council meetings.
The perception is, (by the community) is that we are gagging the community for our own benefit."
Cr. Kylie Ferguson also spoke, as seconder, in support of the Motion, stating she had once used such a forum to have her say when no other avenue was open to her.
“It’s important that the community gets to have their say. I once wrote to councillors and to be honest, got no reply. My frustration went through the roof and I thought; what can I do, where can I get to have my say’ and took my three minutes." Cr. Ferguson stated
"I think also, now that we’re online, we’re reaching a greater demographic. We have our loyal favourites that come here every month but we need to get to everyone. This is a great platform now that we have meetings (broadcast online) where people can see ‘hey, they have got the same issue as me’... . ‘they’re going through the same thing’.”
When I spoke and then turned around and everyone cheered me it made me realise ‘I’m not on my own’
“I think the Public Forum is important – it’s 30 minutes of each meeting – I’d extend the meeting by 30 minutes if it meant that everybody got to have their say. It’s so important.
They can listen to us until the cows come home – but it’s them that we really need to know (and hear) – what’s at the base roots, what’s going on, what’s affecting them, what’s making them miserable and what do they need to be championed on.
We’re here to listen and I thank all those (attending) for coming and for bringing to us these issues. We may not know all that is going on and I thank you for bringing these (matters) to us.” Cr. Ferguson said in closing.
“I see the five public forums outside of council meetings as an addition to those now available.” Councillor De Luca further stated.
"I have had a member of the Pittwater community ask that council meetings be held in the former area - I see that those public forums could be in addition to those held outside council, not replace public forums, and there is nothing in my Motion that prevents those five public forums.
" We’ve seen tonight, in the Business paper, the structure of our committees. That document shows that Precinct committees have been abolished.
Then at previous council meetings we’ve seen that section 355 management committees for community centres, parks and other advisory committees have been abolished.
This council, in its short time, has done more to abolish community consultation mechanisms than any other council in the history of the northern beaches.
So, therefore, we should not be acting to abolish further avenues for our community to actually have their say by way of public forum.
It is not an unfair or unreasonable expectation of our community to expect us to listen to them every month.
“Restricting Councillors and preventing them from submitting Notices of Motion unless they personally investigate and provide a funding source has been used in the past in some councils to restrict the Motions of independent councillors being submitted. This undermines democracy and grass roots participation. I hope people will have their say by making a submission."
The Amendment to the Item was put, and carried. Those who for were: Crs Amon, Daley, De Luca, Ferguson, Grattan, Harrison, McTaggart, Sprott, Walton, Warren and White.
Those Against rejecting the rejection of hearing the community: Crs Bingham, Heins, Philpott and Regan.
On Saturday July 27 2024 Pittwater Greens Councillor Miranda Korzy said she opposed staff proposals contained in a draft Code of Meeting Practice, to cut speakers’ time during public forums and addresses from three to two minutes.
These had once been 5 minutes but had been reduced under the NBC.
Similarly, all councillors would be limited to speeches of two minutes during the meetings, unless they had proposed a motion, Ms Korzy said.
A ban on photography during meetings would also be extended to before and after, “whilst in the vicinity of the meeting location”, she said.
“Cutting speeches to two minutes might be a great relief for some, but the loss of those 150 words might prevent someone from explaining the intricacies of a complicated issue or describing a particularly pertinent example.
“Meetings often run from 6pm to 11.30pm, with many of us arriving home well after midnight, and I would dearly love to see them shorter.
“We’re all aware they deteriorate after about 9pm with participants getting tired, niggling at each other across the floor and losing concentration.
“However, the proposed solution, based on the idea of making meetings more efficient, will add to the slow curtailment of democratic debate.
“The root of the problem is that the council unavoidably has too much business on its agenda, due to its size since the forced amalgamation, and some councillors’ antics delay progress through the agenda.
“The open-ended ban on photography is also an incursion on democracy, and a nonsense when the council itself screens the meetings online.
“Councillors and members of the community would be prevented from focusing the lens on those attending, even outside the chamber, which would limit anyone snapping photos showing numbers of supporters for any issue.”
The council will vote on Tuesday to place the draft Code of Meeting Practice on Public exhibition.
