Good morning Mayor Innes, Councillors, General Manager, Staff, Gallery and those comfortable Live Streaming at home my name is Patricia Hellier from North Batemans Bay.
Before I address my item today I would like to inform the Mayor that the Agenda papers for this meeting were not on display in the Batemans Bay Library on Friday 9th March or yesterday Monday 12th March and I believe they were not on display on the Narooma Library.
I wish to address Item No. GMR18/005 at this point in time I would like to acknowledge that I agree with a number of Councils comments in the Content section of Model Code of Meeting Practice Document.
Firstly I would like to draw Councillors to Page7 from the Model Code 2.1 and I note that Council supports Section 2 and I wish to highlight 3 of these points -
TRANSPARENT – Decisions are made in a way that is open and accountable
INCLUSIVE - Decisions respect the diverse needs and interest of the local community
TRUSTED - The community has confidence that councillors and staff act ethically and make decisions in the interest of the whole community.
Council Agenda it is stated by the General Manager the Focus Area 9.1.2 Provide strong leadership and work in partnership to strategically plan for the future and progress toward the community vision.
I NOW ask the question to you our elected Councillors when will the community be provided with a plan for a future progress towards a community vision?
Page 8 of the Agenda Contents 4.3 Outcome 2nd Line on Council Agenda– “Council does not agree with limiting the amount of speakers” this statement does not reflect on the Contents section 4.3 and needs clarifying and correcting as this is not contained in this Contents section 4.3?
Page 9 of the Agenda Contents 4.8, and 4.9- Has not been addressed in this Agenda Outcome should the statement in Outcome 2nd Line – 4.3 which states “Council does not agree with limiting the amount of speakers and the need to declare if they are for or against an item because a speaker may present the positives and negatives or a particular issue ” should this be placed in 4.8 and 4.9 and this needs clarifying and correcting My view to place a limit of speakers on each of these items is a denial “Freedom of Speech”.
Page 9 of the Agenda Contents 4.10 Why is Council not supporting “audio visual material being played during a Council Meeting” and will this eliminate the Council Auditors during their presentation at Council meetings?
Page 9 Contents 4.13 – Speakers at Public Forum must not DIGRESS from the item – I note this item will be considered in the review of the Code of Meeting Practice BUT I believe it should be noted that whilst some may have the view that a speaker is digressing from an item on the Agenda the facts are that a number of times the speaker is using an ANALOGY which is partial likeness to, or agreement with another thing , reasoning from parallel cases. I believe I have witnessed some Councillors within this chamber claiming the speaker has digressed I believe this is an endeavour just to stop that speakers address to the Councillors.
Page 26 8.2 - ORDER OF BUSINESS – I note this has not been covered in this AGENDA
On a number of occasions I have addressed the previous Council on items which I believe should be included on Councils Meeting Agendas and I have researched other Councils Agendas and I have suggested a Prayer or two in this Chamber would not go astray on many occasions, I firmly believe that Business Arising from the Minutes should be included and on the Agenda and business papers for and ordinary meeting on Page 11 of the OLG Code under the heading Agenda and business papers for Ordinary Meeting 3.20 - The general manager must cause the agenda for a ordinary meeting of the council states (a) all matters to be dealt with arising out of the proceedings of previous meeting of council this can only occur through a Business Arising provision on the Agenda. I also believe that there should be reinstatement of General Business instead of Urgent Business at the end of the meeting.
For the information of ALL the newer Councillors I researched the Councils previous Code of Meeting Practice when it was adopted at the end of 2014 there was over 20 addition pages included in this document which I believe placed a number of restrictions on Councillors in this chamber.
Thank you
