Subscribe to RSSThe Revolution Will Be Televised
Auckland Council is planning webcasting and televising of its council meetings.
This is an excellent move in the interests of transparency and democracy.
The Council has issued an RFI to invite tenders to supply it.
The documents, on the Government tender site, say the Council’s objectives are to:
- Make council’s political process more transparent to the public
- Increase awareness of how council’s elected representatives’ decisions are made
- Reduce reliance on media to report on democratic process and decisions
- Recognise the increased size and impact of Auckland Council in New Zealand and the accompanying need to perform at a world–class level
Suppliers have until October 21 to respond.
It'll be easier to find out the chatter going on at Auckland City
Generally speaking, there is still too much official business conducted behind closed doors - and Official Information Requests are often a waste of time by the time you get the request actioned and the documents you seek are heavily blacked out.
But we have moved some way from the early days of the Super City when Auckland Transport Board meetings were being held behind closed doors. They are now split into two although the open one is often light in substance.
There’s a need for some commercially sensitive business behind closed doors such as, in the case of Auckland Transport, the Auckland electric train tender negotiations but so little indication is ever provided in the description of items on closed agendas as to the nature of the business you have no idea if the matters are ones that deserve to be discussed with public and media present.
Anyway this is a great move - and let’s hope CCOs follow suit.
Who would actually televise the meetings is unclear although SKY does have a parliamentary channel that is idle until at least early afternoon on the days when parliament sits.
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Which reminds me, wasn’t it said somewhere that withheld documents about the tender process would be made publicly available once the tender process was complete?
This is a prime opportunity to make use of the WiFi network the Council operates, and make the content available for free across that network.
It’s a shame that internet access in NZ generally is so constrained and expensive, because streaming high-definition video is a great way to blow through data caps. The sooner that particular travesty is addressed, the better it will be for our democracy.
Andrew, yes there were some, in the past I have noticed such things being added to the documents with the next meeting of that committee
Be nice to see real revolution with the council discussing devolution from the rest of NZ!
Any idea how far this will extend? Will it be Local Boards as well as Governing Body (co-governance and all that).
As Jon has noted - it’s not such much the way meetings get publicised. A good writeup would do the same (and would be easier to scan for important stuff than a televised version).
The much more important thing is to reduce the amount of “closed door” stuff!