Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDC) has amended the rules which govern people speaking in public forums at council meetings.

Public forums, which usually take place at the start of a meeting, are a formal opportunity for the public to bring issues to the attention of the council or community board.

Council’s ‘standing orders’ (rules of engagement) state that a period of up to 30 minutes (or longer if the meeting determines) will be available for the public forum at each scheduled local authority meeting. Speakers can speak for up to three minutes; no more than two speakers can speak on behalf of an organisation; and when more than six speakers want to speak the chairperson has discretion to restrict the speaking time. In general, the issues raised in a public forum should fall within the terms of reference of that meeting.

“blatant fascism, censorship and control”

- Tim Ryan, Keep Hawea Beautiful

New standing orders adopted by council in 2016 said chairpersons could stop people speaking at public forums on matters “subject to a hearing, including the hearing of submissions where the local authority, a committee, or hearings panel sits in a quasi-judicial capacity”.

The council report said this was to prevent speakers from raising a topic already considered in a submission and hearing process. It did not explicitly preclude them from speaking on the topic, but council said in the past year there have been “instances of people attempting to address the council in relation to a hearing panel recommendation”.

The council report said allowing people to speak in public forum in relation to a hearing decision “creates a potential risk to the decision making process”.

“This could be perceived to be a further opportunity to influence the final decision that is not extended to all submitters,” the report said. “This could give rise to potential for challenge on the grounds that the council was not acting in good faith and did not listen fairly to all sides.”

Council communications and engagement manager Naell Crosby-Roe said new standing orders, adopted on Thursday (January 31), make it mandatory that a speaker in public forum may not speak on an item subject to a submissions and hearings or quasi-judicial process.

“[It] does not affect their ability to speak on other matters,” Naell added.

“It would appear that QLDC has little faith in their chair people to apply the original standing orders in an effective manner,” Hawea Community Association chair April McKenzie said this week.

The Keep Hawea Beautiful lobby group Tim Ryan called the rule change “blatant fascism, censorship and control”.

“Perhaps our public servants have forgotten that they are our servants, not dictators," he said.

PHOTO: Wanaka App