Time limit against state rules

Tweed council – Dot Holdom, Kevin Skinner, council general manager Mike Rayner, Joan Van Lieshout, Warren Polglase, Barry Longland, Phil Youngbutt and Katie Milne.

Blainey Woodham

A PLAN to limit council speeches to the time it takes to cook a fast-boiled egg has left Tweed’s councillors with egg on their faces.

A three-minute time limit, which they tried to impose on their speeches during their monthly meetings, has to be axed because it breaches State Government regulations for councils.

The three-minute rule was put up by Cr Dot Holdom at the council’s February meeting.

The move was intended to muffle outspoken Greens Party Councillor Katie Milne and her long speeches, which had been blamed for causing drawn-out meetings.

But councillors quietly – without any speeches – ditched the rule at the start of Tuesday’s meeting.

The council’s corporate governance manager Neil Baldwin told them a government regulation on council meeting practice set the time for speeches at five minutes unless councillors vote to give the speaker an extension.

“Therefore council is not able to reduce this time interval,” Mr Baldwin said.

“The status quo will be retained.”

Several times later during the meeting, Cr Milne loudly complained when fellow councillors declined to give her an extension of time after using up the allotted five minutes to talk on issues being dealt with by the council.

Back in February, Cr Milne slammed the three-minute limit as “another clampdown by Cr Holdom on questions and participation in democracy”.

Under the new rules, questions were also limited to five queries per councillor – and that restriction stays.

A further limit of 100 words per question applies.

At Tuesday’s meeting, the councillors also considered a move to muzzle comments about the way complaints against them are handled.

In addition to confidentiality rules, which ban councillors from revealing what goes on at secret hearings into complaints that concern breaches of the council’s code of conduct, a solicitor or any other “support person” accompanying an accused councillor, would have to keep quiet during the hearing. Implementation of the extra rule was deferred until councillors discuss it at a closed-door workshop session.

Last month Cr Milne had blamed other councillors for her long speeches saying they were leaving it to her to raise issues.

“There is so much going on in the Tweed, to be limited to five questions is madness,” she said at the time.

“Yes, I do talk a lot in council meetings, but I resent the fact that workload is left to my shoulders.

“I really resent having to ask all the questions myself.

“We’ve got huge developments up for mini-cities and they want to limit my time talking about it to three minutes.”

Cr Milne said the limitations were part of “the most draconian code of meeting practice” of any council in NSW.