Time for answers on public question time

A report is being prepared for council into the merits of question time – which is held before the start of each ordinary monthly meeting – and whether it needs to be reformed.

It follows Councillor Monica Morse’s call earlier this month for stricter guidelines on how members of the public can have their say.

She suggested questions from the general public be based only on the current meeting’s agenda items.

It follows repetitive and, in some cases, inappropriate and impolite questions asked of councillors and council staff at previous question times.

Disability advocate and public question time regular Bob Triming is worr-ied it could be the beginning of the end of this facet of council’s interaction with the public.

At last week’s monthly meeting of council, Mr Triming was back on centre stage during public question time arguing the tradition’s operation should not be changed.

Mr Triming told the meeting that the conduct of public question time had improved markedly since Cr Gary Rush took over as mayor, making mention of what he described as the mayor’s “well-informed immediate responses in most cases”.

Mr Triming noted he first broached the harassment of staff during public question time at council’s monthly meeting on March 19, 2008.

“We have recently seen inappropriate attacks on staff and councillors as well as the same subject being brought up at every meeting by the same person,” Mr Triming said.

“This is wrong. Everyone should be the subject of respect, courtesy, compassion and sensitivity and not be insulted or denigrated by defamatory or personal reflections.”

Mr Triming had a number of suggestions to put forward to deal with Cr Morse’s concerns.

These included cancelling public question time altogether; allowing only 15 minutes as this would allow only three speakers each meeting; permitting discussion only of items on that night’s agenda; and requiring questions to be submitted in writing in advance.

“Councillors, think carefully and if there are going to be alternations to such an important part of these meetings, submissions should be sought from the general public first,” he said.

“Some of us frequent attendees at council meetings are annoyed. We come here to participate because we care about Bathurst. We should not be penalised just because of two or three regular offenders.”

Mayor Gary Rush told the meeting that one very important thing about this country was freedom of speech.

He said there would be a report to council looking into the merits of public question time and noted there would be discussions if there was a need for changes to the format.

“But I will say public question time has served this council very well over a long period of time,” Cr Rush said.