Each local government is required to keep a public record of its decisions. You can access this information by contacting your local government.
Minutes of meetings
The minutes of local government meetings are a record of the business transacted at meetings and the decisions made by local governments. As a public document, the minutes need to be well-prepared to make it easy for anyone to locate items of interest, understand the reasons for certain decisions and identify the outcomes of meetings.
The chief executive officer must prepare the minutes of each meeting of a local government under the supervision of the chairperson. The minutes must record each decision of the local government with sufficient detail so that the proceedings of the meeting can be easily understood. (They do not necessarily need to be a verbatim transcript of the proceedings at the meeting).
The minutes of the local government must be confirmed by councillors present at the subsequent meeting of the local government. When confirming the minutes, councillors cannot change a decision made at the previous meeting - they can only make amendments to correct any errors in the minutes.
A copy of the minutes of each meeting must be made available for public inspection, at a local government's public office or on its website, within 10 days after the end of the meeting.
Reasons for decisions
If the local government accepts the recommendation of a local government officer's report, the reasons for the decision will usually be recorded in the officer's report.
The minutes must also include the following:
- the reasons for the local government's decision if the decision was inconsistent with the recommendation of staff about:
- a contract over $200,000 or one per cent of net rates and charges whichever is greater
- a decision made under a policy or approach ordinarily followed by the local government.
- any declarations of material personal interests or conflicts of interest and what action the councillor/s took to deal with their declaration.