Address a Council meeting

Each person/organisation can register for one of each of the follow Public Access types: 

Public Access

Five (5) minutes is allocated for speeches in favour of and against items on the Agenda (total ten (10) minutes per agenda item). Should there be more than one speaker addressing Council in favour of or against the recommendation of the same Agenda item, speakers will share the allocated five minutes.

General submission

A person/organisation is permitted one submission of 2 minutes duration per meeting on matters that are not on the Agenda.

Question

A person/organisation is permitted to ask one question of Council per meeting. One minute is allocated per question. The text of a question must be submitted at the time of registration, and must be in relation to an item on the Agenda or a matter currently before Council.

The Mayor, Councillors or General Manager will provide a response to questions asked of Council at the meeting if possible. If a response is unable to be provided the question will be taken on notice, with an answer to be provided to the person/organisation prior to the next Ordinary Meeting and placed on Councils website. 

In order to participate in Public Access, you are required to be clear about whether you are for or against the item on the Agenda. 

Speaking for a recommendation means that you are in favour of the recommendation passing in its current form. It would mean that your ideal outcome is the current recommendation, with no changes.

Speaking against a recommendation means that you do not wish to see the recommendation pass in its current form. It would mean that your ideal outcome is the current recommendation either not passing or being changed in some way.

If you are only for or against part of the recommendation then you would usually be considered against the recommendation. This is because there is likely to be some aspect you wish to see changed.

A simple way to think of this is to ask yourself, “Would I be happy if the recommendation passed as it currently stands?”. If yes, you may be speaking for the item. If no, you are probably speaking against.

Only two speeches in total in favour of and two speeches in total against each item on the agenda are allowed. If two people are registered for the same item, they will share the allocated five minutes.

If too many registrations are received, we will be contact registrants to determine who will participate.

If agreement cannot be reached, priority will be given on a first come first served basis.

Upon joining the meeting via Zoom, you will be placed in a Waiting Room. From here you should be able to hear the meeting (if commenced) and see any documentation being displayed (or a holding image). If you can see or hear either of these, you are successfully ‘in’ the meeting.

When it is your turn to address Council, you will be admitted as a Panellist and able to be seen and/or heard (dependent on whether you are sharing video, audio, or both).

At the conclusion of Public Access, the Chairperson will ask Councillors to identify any individual items of business that they wish to reserve.

Following this, a motion will be raised to adopt the unreserved items of business. A further motion is raised for the order of business for the remaining items to be changed.

Items reserved that were raised in Public Access will be addressed first, followed by any other reserved items.

This means that one of two situations may occur:

1. The item you addressed is not reserved. In this case it will be block resolved (passed) and no debate will occur.
2. The item you addressed is reserved. In this case it will be debated with other reserved Public Access items near the commencement of the meeting.

Yes, this can be arranged for you. We recommended submitting any accompanying images or video to Councillor Support by no later than 12pm midday the day before the meeting.

Public Access participants are welcome to stay for the meeting as part of the gallery.