Live streaming council meetings

Not everyone can make it to Tuesday night meetings. Some residents and ratepayers have children to care for, or they might have disabilities, transport issues or they may be away for example.

This service improves ACCESS and TRANSPARENCY of the council’s decision-making process.

Some WA councils have provided this service for years without issue, they include Joondalup, Bunbury, Geraldton, Mundaring (audio only) and Vincent.

We urge the City of Stirling to embrace this simple digital technology and move with the times.

The motion to have live streaming at The City Stirling was raised by Cr Bianca Sandri and was debated at the City of Stirling Development and Resources Committee Meeting on the 5th of June 2018.  See article in the Stirling Times by Laura Pond – City of Stirling investigates live streaming council meetings.

A majority of Councillors on the committee at the meeting voted to take the idea forward to a Councillor workshop for further investigation.  Only Cr Karen Caddy and Cr Suzanne Migdale voted to stop the idea outright.   They were both concerned that Mayoral candidates next year would use the medium for “grandstanding’.

Cr Caddy was concerned that people might download the videos and upload snippets on social media to take their comments out of context.  But Cr Sandri said that the videos would be covered by copyright and downloading and republishing any part of the videos would be illegal and that would be clearly noted next to the video links on the City’s website.

See page 22 of the June 5th committee meeting minutes.

Note on page 25 of the Minutes, officers have listed numerous “legal risks” which are all reputational;

City of Stirling Councillors seem to live in constant fear of the threat of litigation by the City’s litigation-happy CEO, and this is a classic example.  Looking at this list one has to wonder if it isn’t the CEO who is worried about the City’s reputation (i.e. his reputation)?   Perhaps he is worried that he and his directors will have to provide more and better responses to public questions at council meetings?

It must be noted that apart from a couple of incidents in Queensland (where else?) there have been no defamation cases against Councillors because of live streaming.

As someone said, they will only get sued for defamation if they say something defamatory, and that can happen with or without live streaming.  We have only heard of one case (a rumour) that a Councillor at Stirling was sued many years ago because of something they said at a meeting by someone in the public gallery.  Apparently, they settled out of court?

But the main concern is that defamation amounts are based on the size of the audience that heard the offending comment.  City officers warn that there is a potential on the internet for comments go “global”.  It is mind-boggling to imagine what sort of a comment (or action) a City of Stirling Councillor would have to make to go viral and get on the cover of the New York Times?  That would have to be one hell of a defamatory comment? Given that Stirling Councillors are very professional and in control. It is extremely difficult to imagine that Stirling council meetings would ever get that entertaining.

For a start, very few people actually watch whole meetings on-line.  It is a service for people interested in agenda items that affect them.

At this stage, a decision will be made at the 4th Sept 2018 council meeting (7 PM). You will have to attend this meeting in person if you want to watch it debated 😉

Please contact your Ward Councillors or just email – Att Mayor and Councillors stirling@stirling.wa.gov.au and urge them to make live streaming happen.

Download a copy of the petition using this link;
http://stirlingcommunitymatters.com/…/Petition-for-live-str…

Please make sure hard copies of the petition are returned to Lisa Thornton before the 2nd of September 2018 so she can take them to the council meeting on the 4th.

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By Leisha Jack