My Account
Public and media access to the Hibiscus & Bays Local Board workshops was debated for the third time at last month’s meeting, and remains off limits.
Workshops, which include briefings by Auckland Council staff and the circulation of information relevant to decision making, are held almost weekly. Currently, no proper Minutes are kept and public access is not permitted. Decisions are not taken at the workshops, but recommendations that lead to decisions are made.
Hibiscus Matters has been seeking public access to workshops since 2014 – it was first championed by Cr Greg Sayers (at the time a local board member) and David Cooper. Open workshops were voted down in September 2014 and again in November 2015.
Reasons given by those opposed include that Council staff are not in favour, and that open workshops would be more time consuming. On the other hand, Mr Cooper and those who supported the most recent motion to open workshops consider that transparency is key to public confidence in the local board’s decision-making process.
This paper firmly believes that closed workshops are undemocratic and allow local issues that do not meet the criteria for Confidential, to be discussed behind closed doors.
At the June 21 local board meeting, member Cooper went in armed with an opinion from Council’s legal department which expressed concern that excluding the public from workshops may create a perception of lack of transparency, even if this was not the ultimate intention.
He also believed he had the support of a majority to see his motion to provide open access to the workshops pass, however at the last minute one member changed her mind and voted against. This led to a vote that was evenly split, 4/4 – David Cooper, Caitlin Watson, Vicki Watson and Mike Williamson in favour and Julia Parfitt, Janet Fitzgerald, Chris Bettany and Gary Holmes against. Chair Julia Parfitt then used her casting vote “in favour of the status quo” to defeat the motion.
Mr Cooper says he will look into the matter further and has not ruled out raising it for a vote again in future.
Cr John Watson says that many of the same issues apply to the governing body. He says that this term, the Council is making an effort to have fewer items discussed in Confidential at public meetings, but that its workshops remain closed with a majority of councillors happy to keep it that way.
“You can’t complain about low voter turnout at election time when you’re essentially shutting off access to media to get stories out that can engage the community and keep them informed in what goes on at Council,” he says.
