Local residents will no longer be able to address the weekly meetings of a Sydney council after the passing of a motion designed to protect the mental health of council staff.
A forum gave members of the public time to address Lane Cove council on local concerns in a segment before ordinary council meetings. The forum has now been moved to a different day to the scheduled meetings.
Some councillors said they feared the decision to separate the addresses from the public and the weekly meetings – which meant councillors and council staff no longer had to be present for the public forum – could hurt local democracy.
Moving the forum outside the council meeting meant it would not run to the same set of rules (the code of meeting practice), Councillor Merri Southwood said. There was therefore no longer a requirement for councillors to attend, “whereas if [the forum] is held under the code of meeting practice, there are certain rules about the number of times a councillor can be absent”.
Lane Cove’s mayor, Scott Bennison, confirmed council attendance would not be mandatory but would be recorded and published on the council website, and that the general manager would be in attendance. Other senior staff would not be required to attend, but could on a voluntary basis.
The proposal was moved by Councillor David Brooks-Horn over concerns for staff psychosocial safety.
The general manager, Craig Wrightson, spoke to the proposal being an occupational health and safety change, due to language and behaviour from community members in public forums that “has got to stop”.
“You can’t unwrite what is happening at the moment. I don’t know why people don’t understand the basics,” Wrightson told a recent council meeting.
“I’m not going to have my staff come to council meetings, the way we are going. Enough is enough.”
Wrightson read out a recommendation of the Office of Local Government saying “public forums should not be held as part of a council or committee meeting”.
“Council or committee meetings should be reserved for decision making by the council or committee of the council.”
Under the model code of meeting practice, councils do have the flexibility to determine their own rules for holding public forums that best meet local circumstances, the OLG confirmed. Best practice provisions in the model code allow for public forums to be held separately from council meetings on the basis that informed decision-making is best achieved through a gap between the public forum and the meeting, allowing councillors time to consider matters raised at the public forum.
Other Sydney councils approach the issue in various ways. While Parramatta does provide for public forums at council meetings, participation must adhere to strict rules such as limits on speaker numbers. A motion to seperate public forums from council meetings in Georges River last year did not pass. But in Ku-ring-gai, public forums are seperate to council meetings, and speakers at public forums cannot direct questions to the council.
Councillor Kathy Bryla voted yes to the motion, but said she still held concerns about its implications.
“I could never fully vote down a motion that was on a topic of mental health, because that is a big concern in the community,” she said.
“I did not feel comfortable with the part about separating the rights for our community to be heard under our code of meeting practice as it currently stands.”
Concerns that the change would hinder active citizenship were shared by several councillors.
“The public forum is a really key part of the way in which our community engages with local democracy,” Councillor Rochelle Flood said. “We should be thankful for having such an engaged and actively involved community.
“I think it is incumbent on us as a council not just to look at what suits the councillors, but also what makes it easiest for the community to engage.”
Southwood said community members may stop coming to public forums because “they don’t know who is going to be there to listen”. “The whole notion of people participating in a democratic process, I feel, is diminished.”
The vote also came about with limited opportunity for community consultation, Flood said.
“This was only released to the public one week before … it went to a vote,” she said.
“I am concerned it is potentially a bit of a kneejerk reaction in shifting the forum.
“We could have looked at alternative solutions to ensure that the community were engaging in a constructive way that wasn’t harmful to staff or council.”
