Lockdowns in Melbourne ended in late 2021. Throughout the past few years council meetings were held in public with residents present in the gallery. During this ‘return to normal’ all public questions asked, irrespective of whether the questioner was present in the gallery or not, were read out, answered, and recorded in the minutes. Yet at the last council meeting without any explanation, council resorted to its ridiculous policy of NOT reading out and answering questions if the resident was not present in the chamber. Nor were the questions recorded in the minutes. Even more bizarre is the fact that previously absent questioners’ names WERE RECORDED IN THE MINUTES. Not for the last meeting!
There are other questionable practices that require explanation. For example: historically, all proposed amendments were noted in the ensuing minutes, whether or not they were seconded and if they were seconded a vote taken as to whether the amendment became the substantive motion. Again, the current minutes from last council meeting fail to record an amendment moved by Zyngier and seconded by Pennicuik. Admittedly minutes are not supposed to be a Hansard recording of what was said. But they do have to record what decisions are made in council meetings and the voting on the issue. So we now have another subtle change in what is recorded without explanation and without reference to long standing previous practice.
A quick perusal of previous and recent minutes reveals that on the following dates council minutes DID record amendments as well as the resulting vote(s) in the minutes. The dates are: 8th June 2021; 9th August 2022; 8th February 2023 and 28th February 2023.
Council’s approach to its governance rules and the lack of consistency certainly requires examination and explanation. But this is more than a simple case of lack of consistency. It harkens back to the central issue of lack of transparency and questions how well this council acts in accordance with its own policies, practices and legislation.
PS: here’s a couple more examples of what a mess council’s governance rules are – or more precisely, how little that is done is in accordance with the existing policies.
- The publishing of agendas. According to the governance rules, agendas will be available on the Friday post noon before every ordinary council meeting. Over the past year or so, agendas have come out either late Wednesday afternoon, Thursday, and even late Friday – well after the supposed 12pm time line.
- Public questions. We now have the farcical situation that at every council meeting there has to be a motion to bring forward the public question section nearer the beginning rather than towards the end of the meeting as pronounced in the governance rules.
Surely all that is required is for the Local Law to once and for all enshrine the simply procedures so that public questions are heard at the start of all council meetings and that definitive times are imposed on the publishing of agendas.
The governance rules also need to make it absolutely clear as to what will feature in the minutes and the constraints of word limit, and questioners’ presence in council chambers be removed. As it currently stands some questions are well and truly over 150 words, yet are permitted. Others that might be 156 words are deemed to have exceeded the limit and are not read out. The hallmark of what’s been happening is not only inconsistency, but raises the question of why bother having rules and regulations to begin with if they can so easily be ignored and bypassed when it suits.
Glen Eira Debates 
November 2, 2023 at 9:16 AM
They do whatever they want when they want. What a joke.
November 2, 2023 at 12:39 PM
Accountability and transparency is anathema to GECC. Most decisions are made under delegation with zero accountability or transparency. On the Public Question front, here’s a public question Council refused to accept on the spurious grounds of length. Note it is only 99 words long. Same meeting that that question was refused, Council published another question from a different submitter that was more than 150 words long. Under Council’s 4D policy I doubt they’ll ever explain.
“Last year’s changes to Local Law weren’t accompanied by a report explaining either the need for each change or what Council expected would be the effect of each change. For each change to Local Law 232 “Public questions to Council”, what was the need, and after 6 months under the new regime, have the changes had the desired chilling effect? Is the new Council happy with its operation and, since Chairperson has had all discretion removed from them, what is Council’s definition of a word that it uses to ensure there is no breach of the mandatory 150-word limit?”