State government reforms will aim to crackdown on councils that shut out the public during ordinary meetings.
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Councils can close council meetings to the public to discuss confidential information, for security reasons, or to conduct a meeting in an ordinary manner.
Under the new draft Local Government Bill, confidential information will be specifically defined in a similar fashion to the Freedom of Information Act.
According to the Know Your Council website, Ballarat City Council ranks among the worst in the state for making decisions behind closed doors in 2016-17.
Fifteen per cent of council votes were taken “in-camera”, with the public and media unable to be in the room.
The average for similar councils was 9.28 per cent, while the state average was 9.45 per cent.
Local Government Minister Marlene Kairouz said council meetings should always be open to the public unless they involve confidential matters.
“As part of our proposed reforms, the types of confidential information that would keep a meeting closed to the public will be limited and tightly defined,” she said.
Council’s agenda for its ordinary meeting on Wednesday night had 15 items listed for the closed section of council.
The list included the procurement of IT services for council, a Ballarat Regional Landfill Construction contract, and the tender for construction of the Ballarat Sports and Events Centre.
There was also an item listed as “Eureka Stadium Tenancy”, regarding the Mars Stadium.
Ballarat City deputy mayor Daniel Moloney said there were better ways to balance the protection of sensitive commercial information and informing the ratepayer.
“Other councils do it well, for instance they refer to contractor A, B and C, without naming them directly,” he said.
“We shouldn’t be wrecking people’s business but equally we have to find ways to make it more transparent, because the scales are tipped currently towards protecting businesses rather than the ratepayer.
“Nearly all councillors during election run on the basis of transparency – and while there has been great progress – there is still more we can do. I’d love us to have more and more items outside of confidential business.”
