Gunnedah Shire Council is mostly ahead of the curve when it comes to being virtually accessible but may need to get up to speed with its out-of-town meetings.
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Thats the upshot of a new directive from the Office of Local Government (OLG) that will require all NSW councils to broadcast their meetings on their websites.
The council already did this for transparency [and] to be all-inclusive at its town chambers, deputy mayor Rob Hooke said.
But it appears it will need to extend this to its twice-yearly meetings in a shire village, such as Kelvin, Breeza or Curlewis, which were not broadcast, he said.
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We dont know if theres a clause within the new provisions that will allow us to carry on the way we are, he said.
After the OLG released the new Model Code of Meeting Practice in recent days, Local Government Minister Gabrielle Upton said webcasting would be mandatory.
If its good enough for federal and state MPs to go live to the nation, then there is no reason why local councillors should be exempt, Ms Upton said.
The reality is that residents and ratepayers who want to know what is going on at their council can get online and be informed.
New codes
The new rules state that meetings of councils and their committees must be either live-streamed, or recorded and uploaded later.
This can be audio only or audiovisual.
A spokesperson for the Minister told the Namoi Valley Independent the OLG dont care the hardware or software used, as long as the result was clear.
It has just got to be audible and visible if they go down the audiovisual path, using whatever the individual council finds is the best and most effective way.
Cr Hooke said the council had been consulted on the new rules and fortunately, our position which is our status quo at the moment has pretty much been adopted, with the ability for those councils that want to to go visual as well.