Bathurst council: Acknowledgement of country at meetings

The acknowledgement of Wiradyuri land will follow the public forum at each monthly meeting and be read in conjunction with the prayer.

All NSW councils were required to develop a new code of meeting practice or adopt a model code handed down by the Office of Local Government.

Bathurst chose to extensively rewrite its code and the proposed new procedures have now been adopted following several weeks of public consultation.

In the end, though, the status quo has been preserved in most instances.

Council's original draft code of meeting practice had proposed limiting discussion in the public forum at the start of each monthly meeting to items on that night's agenda.

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But the proposal sparked something of an outcry, with most of the 25 submissions received by council objecting to the change.

A number of councillors also expressed their concerns at a working party last month and the proposal was removed from the final draft tabled at council last week.

A proposal to limit each public forum speaker to just four minutes was also dropped in favour of retaining the existing five minutes of speaking time, with a warning bell after four.

The new code also starts a discussion about the webcasting of council meetings, which must be in place across all NSW councils by December 14 this year.

"Council must include supplementary provisions in their adopted code of meeting practice that specify whether meetings are to be live-streamed or recordings of meetings uploaded on the council's website at a later time," the code states.

"The supplementary provisions must also specify whether the webcast is to comprise of an audio visual recording of the meeting or an audio recording of the meeting."