AT Nambucca Valley Council’s general meeting on Wednesday 19 March, councillors moved to address what management deemed to be an “illegal resolution” made at a previous meeting.

The resolution in question was agenda item 10.2 from Council’s 27 February general meeting and related to changing the time and frequency of Council’s general meetings.

Advertise with News of The Area today.
It’s worth it for your business.
Message us.
Phone us – (02) 4981 8882.
Email us – media@newsofthearea.com.au

Mayor Gary Lee put forward a hastily-included Mayoral Minute to defer item five of this resolution – a ‘review of council’s Code of Meeting Practice’ due to be presented at this meeting – until a later date.

As reported in NOTA, at the February meeting, the Council decided to change from bimonthly to monthly meetings in a motion which included, in total, five items.

The first three items related to altering the time and frequency of general meetings and public forums, and were implemented immediately.

Items four and five were to be completed by Wednesday’s meeting and related to amending the Council’s “Code of Meeting Practice” to reflect the changes and a review of the code itself.

According to section 12 of the Local Government Act, newly elected councillors must draft and adopt a new Code of Meeting Practice within twelve months of assuming office.

The act also states that “A council may amend a code adopted under this Part by means only of a code so adopted”, essentially meaning that any changes to the code must go through the process of being available in draft form for public submissions for “not less than 28 days”, before being implemented.

However, item 362 of the same section states that “if the council is of the opinion that the amendments are not substantial, it may adopt the amended draft code without public exhibition as its code of meeting practice”.

Nambucca Valley Council General Manager Bede Spannagle explained that he and senior management had decided that changing council times and frequency was a “minor” and not a “major” change, therefore a review of the document was not required before bringing in the changes.

He pointed to the fact that a review of the model Code of Meeting Practice was currently being undertaken by the Office of Local Government and he believed it would be cost-effective to wait until this document was available before undertaking the Council’s own review.

Councillor Jane Smith said the decision on how the council should proceed was “a tough one” for her.

At February’s meeting, item five of the original motion – to ‘Provide a report to review the Code of Meeting Practice to be presented at the next Council meeting’ – was included at Cr Smith’s suggestion.

Although in support of the motion at the time, Cr Smith maintained that she would not have voted for the changes if a review of the code was not to be undertaken before any changes were made.

“Five should have been enacted before points one, two and three were enacted, so I’m not going to vote in support of this and I think that potentially an extraordinary meeting should be called for us to deal with this mess that’s been created,” she told the Council at Wednesday’s meeting.

Mayor Gary Lee’s motion was narrowly passed five votes to four.

If unsuccessful, council could have been forced to return to bi-monthly meetings until a new motion could be passed to change meeting times and perhaps more serious consequences of the ‘illegal resolution’ would need to be considered.

Although a staunch supporter of bi-monthly meetings, Councillor Susan Jenvey surprised many in the chamber by voting in support of the deferral, explaining that she was concerned about reputational damage to the council.

“This should be a salutary lesson to this council,” she told the room.

“Councillors should not be presented with large foreshadowed motions they haven’t seen – you do need time to go over resolutions, the wording really matters,” she cautioned.

By Ned COWIE