Byron Council staff have announced changes to the Code of Meeting Practice, including the NSW government’s ‘mandatory’ limiting the public’s ability to address Council only on matters published on the meeting’s agenda.
Currently, members of the public can speak to Council at their meetings on any topic within a time limit.
Other restrictions currently in place with Byron Council include prohibiting recording the meetings, despite Council broadcasting them live.
Staff say the Draft Code of Meeting Practice reflects the NSW Government’s Code.
Other changes include allowing the Mayor to call an extraordinary meeting without needing signatures from two councillors, as well as ‘Stronger provisions for dealing with disorderly conduct by cesouncillors or members of the public, including penalties for non-compliance’.
Under modes of address 7, it states, ‘Where physically able to, councillors and staff should stand when the mayor enters the chamber and when addressing the meeting’.
Consultation is open on the draft code which is based on the NSW Government’s 2025 Model Code of Meeting Practice, mandated by the Office of Local Government’, says the media release.
‘The Code governs how Council meetings are conducted, ensuring that proceedings are orderly, transparent and consistent with democratic principles,’ Esmeralda Davis, Director Corporate and Community Services, said.
‘We have an active and engaged community here in the Byron Shire with many people interested in Council issues so I encourage people who value opportunities to present to Councillors during Public Access to read the Draft Code and provide feedback,’ Ms Davis said.
Public disruptions banned
As for ‘disorderly conduct’, councillors have been given a choice by staff to either adopt a provision that allows any chairperson to expel a disorderly person, or ‘does not limit the ability of the council or a committee of the council to resolve to expel a person, including a councillor, from a council or committee meeting, under section 10(2)(a) of the Act’.
Under section 15.19, the NSW government’s mandatory provisions states, ‘Members of the public attending a meeting of the council:
(a) must remain silent during the meeting unless invited by the chairperson to speak,
(b) must not bring flags, signs or protest symbols to the meeting, and,
(c) must not disrupt the meeting.
Fines up to $2,466.20 for failing to comply
Under section 15.22, it reads, ‘If a councillor or a member of the public fails to leave the place where a meeting of the council is being held immediately after they have been expelled, a police officer, or any person authorised for the purpose by the council or person presiding, may, by using such force as is reasonably necessary, remove the councillor or member of the public from that place and, if necessary, restrain the councillor or member of the public from re- entering that place for the remainder of the meeting. Note: Failure to comply with a direction to leave a meeting is an offence under section 660 of the Act carrying a maximum penalty of 20 penalty units’.
In New South Wales, as of the 2025-2026 financial year, one penalty unit is valued at $123.31. Therefore, 20 penalty units would equate to a fine of $2,466.20.
Other changes – proposed by staff – include giving Council or a committee of council the powers to ‘adopt multiple items of business on the agenda together by way of a single resolution where it considers it necessary to expedite the consideration of business at a meeting’.
Submissions on Byron Shire Council’s Draft Code of Meeting Practice can be made on Council’s website until 23 November.
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