Tamworth council moves ahead with banning policy for troublesome figures

The policy outlines the process for banning residents who display "aggressive behaviour" towards council staff, including phone operators, parking officers, and councillors themselves.

Tamworth council already has the power to ban people from its locations, and senior staff said the new policy is designed to help streamline the process.

"We've always used the Inclosed Land [Protection] Act to ban people, this policy just gives us a formalised platform to say 'council has adopted this position to protect our staff'," Tamworth council's general manager Paul Bennett said.

If banned, residents would lose access to places like the library, entertainment venues such as TRECC and AELEC, and landfills.

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The banning policy needs public feedback before it gets final approval.

If approved, it will also establish a private list of banned persons for distribution to all customer-facing roles within council.

Council staff say the new policy is necessary due to an increased number of incidences since the start of this year.

"Over the last year we have noticed an increase in behaviours we would call disrespectful towards council staff, whether it be our parking rangers on the streets or our customer service staff on the phones, and here in the chamber itself," Executive Manager Strategy and Performance Jason Collins said.

Mayor Russell Webb said the banning policy has "nothing to do" with recent court cases involving councillors.

"We have to have something in place to protect our staff in a formal way and that's what this is all about," he said.

Cr Webb also discussed how the new policy would interact with the community guidelines council already enforces for its online spaces and social media accounts.

"Online activity is one that is challenging to a lot of organisations and we'll take whatever action necessary to protect our staff," he said.

"We already do ban people who display aggressive behaviour on social media. It can cause upset to a lot of people, and if they're doing that to our staff members we have to do something about it, but that's something that's already been happening for some time."

Multiple councillors showed support for the policy at their fortnightly meeting on June 6.

"We have an obligation and duty of care to protect the safety of our staff and also visitors who are frequenting our public facilities," Cr Brooke Southwell said.

"We've been subject to this ourselves in the last few months, so to have a ban provides more grounds for us to ensure staff are safe."

"No one should ever come to work and be subject to abuse and violence," Cr Steve Mears said.

Councillors Mark Rodda and Bede Burke also spoke in favour of the policy, but raised questions about how the bans would be enforced.

In response to councillors' concerns Mr Bennett said bans made under the policy would last two years, and be subject to council review.

He also said banned residents would still be able to contact council via email for important topics like rate payments or related issues.

The policy will soon be placed on public exhibition for 28 days for community feedback.

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