After weeks of not being able to not hold council meetings remotely, Ballarat City Council could soon be able to meet from the comfort of their own homes.
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In an announcement by Premier Daniel Andrews on Wednesday morning, it was revealed the Victorian Parliament will be recalled two weeks early for a one-day emergency sitting on Thursday to pass vital legislation to assist the ongoing response to the coronavirus pandemic.
One of these pieces of vital legislation included an amendment that would allow local governments to hold council meetings remotely.
Mr Andrews said the current legislation did not hold up under current circumstances.
"Under the local government act at the moment, councils must meet in person and can't do virtual meetings," he said.
"That is obviously not conducive to stopping the spread of the virus.
"(Thursday's sitting) will be a quick session of parliament, a very important session of parliament."
This decision has been praised by Ballarat Mayor Ben Taylor, who told The Courier this decision is something councils have been calling for for some time.
"We're very pleased with this decision, it's something we've been calling out for... to have the opportunity to run our council meetings," he said.
"If the government's able to come through with something in parliament to make these changes we'd be very happy and it would be very welcome."
If the legislation passes however, Cr Taylor says Councillors will not be given back the power they relinquished to City of Ballarat chief executive officer Justine Linley three weeks ago.
He added that arrangement would likely remain for the next few months until things begin to return to normal.
"We will still have our council meetings but we probably wouldn't change the delegations in the short term.
"We need to ensure the CEO has the ability to respond quickly. We don't want to have to wait three weeks to address something important.
"A prime example would be the new Lucas Community Hub testing facility. The CEO needed to have the authority to sign off to those commercial agreements."
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