Local government councillor briefings should be open and transparent
Today the NSW Legislative Council voted to disallow the Minns Labor government’s second attempt at introducing a new code of meeting practice for local councils in NSW.
The Local Government (General) Amendment (Meetings) Regulation 2026 was intended to prevent closed-door confidential briefings of councillors to reduce corruption risk. However, the Greens say the unnecessarily complex regulation has failed to achieve its aim, as well as introduced new unintended consequences that reduce public access to information and reduce democratic participation of elected councillors.
Greens spokesperson for Local Government and former Deputy Mayor of Albury Dr Amanda Cohn said the regulation had been weaponised to exclude councillors from meetings with residents and community groups, an unintended consequence the Minister for Local Government himself described as “ridiculous”.
“The obvious solution is to simply allow councillors to be briefed before meetings in full view of the public and the media” Dr Cohn said.
Greens spokesperson for Democracy and former Inner West Councillor Kobi Shetty said:
“This code was meant to improve transparency and strengthen our democracy in local government. It’s unfortunately had the opposite effect.
“We’ve heard some shocking examples where Mayors are using their new powers under this code to provide backroom briefings that only include councillors from their own party. This means the other councillors aren’t fully informed when they’re expected to make decisions on behalf of the community. This is not how a fair democracy works, and it was not the intent of this new code.
“The Minister for Local Government had ample opportunity to rectify these issues and he once again failed to do so. It’s disappointing the Minister didn’t act promptly – had he done so, the code would not have been disallowed. We hope he listens to these valid concerns, and that the next iteration gets the settings right. We can tackle corruption risks without undermining local democracy.”
________________________________________________________________
Media Contact: [email protected]