Tuesday, 30 July 2024

Adjournment

Ingrid STITT (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (17:41): I move:

That the house do now adjourn.

Ballarat City Council

Joe McCRACKEN (Western Victoria) (17:41): (994) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Local Government, and it relates to integrity matters at Ballarat City Council. The action that I seek is for the minister to direct the local government department to investigate some of the actions that have been occurring in the Ballarat City Council in terms of the governance that has been happening. A big problem that has happened recently in Ballarat City Council is that recordings of meetings have been tampered with by council officers without councillors being informed. This happened at one of the City of Ballarat’s most recent meetings. In the recording of the public meeting there were some words that were redacted in the sense that they were blurred out. They were muted, and you could not hear them on the public recording, which is extremely concerning.

When public recordings go up on a website, they should be a fair, true, accurate record of what happens at a council meeting. That means that we can see things in full context, but this was not the case in Ballarat. Council officers have, of their own accord, unilaterally stopped this happening, and there was no permission sought from councillors either before or even afterwards. It has taken a number of attempts by councillors to even bring this to light so that it becomes public knowledge. This is a circumstance which is quite worrying, because it is not up to an unelected council officer to be making these sorts of changes to what should be an accurate record of a meeting of a council. It is not up to any unelected official to be doing that. Councillors themselves are the ones responsible for approving minutes of previous meetings.

I hope that by bringing this to light we can have some reflection and indeed perhaps the local government minister will look into the actions of Ballarat City Council to make sure that these things are not redacted. One particular councillor was speaking, and it was his words that were blurred out in relation to quite a topical local issue. I think residents have the right to know what was said, regardless of what their opinion was on this matter. I urge the local government minister to have a very serious look into this so that we do have transparency and integrity in local government, which is, I am sure, what we all deserve and need.