Bid to live-stream meetings

Efforts to publicise ‘‘secretive’’ council workshops have prompted a bid to get the meetings livestreamed.

From the start of its current term in late 2016 to June this year, the Nelson City Council (NCC) has held 93 workshops, of which 18 were private. None were publicised.

In the same time, Tasman District Council held 86, and Marlborough District Council held 27.

Nelson councillor Matt Lawrey has submitted a motion for NCC to live-stream all public meetings and workshops, including those held for the regional transport committee.

Lawrey said he had been raising the issue for two years.

‘‘We have paid for the livestreaming technology with ratepayers’ money, there is increasing concern about a lack of transparency at Nelson City Council, and all that’s technically required is the flick of a digital switch to make this happen.’’

He said he would be ‘‘surprised’’ if councillors voted against the measure.

‘‘Fundamentally, if a meeting is public, what possible reason can you put up, really, for not making it accessible to the public? If we’ve agreed that committee meetings and council meetings should be live-streamed, I really don’t see any argument for saying that workshops can’t be.’’

Community activist Graeme O’Brien said the motion was ‘‘fantastic’’.

O’Brien said he had spent three years trying to make NCC workshops more easily accessible, but felt he was finally making headway.

He said live-streamed videos were useful for people who were interested in council proceedings but were unable to make the time to attend meetings.

‘‘You can see from the hits on the videos, there’s always a couple hundred [views], which is more than you’d ever see at council at 9am on a weekday morning.

‘‘Whether it’s a workshop or anything, if the public are allowed to attend, just switch the button on. It’s all there, it’s all been paid for – it’s not like it costs any money to upload it.’’

O’Brien said the only reason not to live-stream public meetings or workshops was to avoid letting people see what happened in those meetings, or to avoid having a recording of those meetings.

He said it was also important for anyone wanting to submit to the council to have access to the information councillors might receive in workshops.

‘‘It’s a real big issue for people who want to see that it’s open, and to see that we have a real say in these consultations.’’

The motion was to be voted on at yesterday’s full council meeting.