The state made livestreaming council meetings optional again. Wollongong is keeping it
In May 2026 the NSW Legislative Council passed a disallowance motion that removed the 2025 update to the Model Code of Meeting Practice. The changes it had introduced, including mandatory livestreaming, new limits on councillors joining meetings online and changes to briefings, no longer apply, and the 2021 code came back automatically. That code lets a council publish a meeting recording live or afterwards. Wollongong’s draft code, which was on exhibition until 12 August 2026, keeps it live and moves Public Forum back inside the meeting.
The Code of Meeting Practice is the document that decides whether you can watch your council debate, when you are allowed to speak to it, and what it may discuss behind closed doors. It is dull in the way that voting rules are dull, and it matters for the same reason.
What the state did
Wollongong’s consultation page sets it out plainly. In May 2026 the Legislative
Council passed a disallowance motion that removed the 2025 update to the Model Code, which
means the changes introduced earlier this year such as mandatory livestreaming of meetings,
new limits on councillors joining meetings online and changes to briefing practices, no longer
apply
. The 2021 Model Code has automatically come back into effect under the Local
Government Act 1993
, and councils now have to bring their own procedures back into line
with it.
We read the reinstated Model Code to see what it actually requires. Clause 5.34 says each
meeting is to be recorded by means of an audio or audio-visual device
. Recording is
compulsory. The live part is not: clause 5.36 says the recording is to be made publicly
available on the council’s website at the same time as the meeting is taking place,
or
as soon as practicable after the meeting
.
That or is the whole story. Under the 2025 update the live option was the only option. Under the code now in force, a council may lawfully decide that a recording posted later is enough.
What Wollongong is proposing
Council resolved on 29 June 2026 to exhibit an updated draft, building on its version of 15 September 2025. The changes it lists:
- Livestreaming stays. The draft says council meetings
will continue to be livestreamed so the community can watch them online
. That is now a choice rather than a requirement. - Public Forum moves back into the meeting. The order of business will be adjusted so it happens as early as possible, rather than sitting outside the meeting proper.
- Councillor briefings narrow. Council says that in the last week of June 2026 further regulations reinstated the prohibition on briefings about items already listed on a meeting agenda. It will comply, while continuing workshops and forums on matters not headed to a council meeting, plus induction and professional development.
- Planning matters will continue to require a staff report containing an assessment and a recommendation.
- Confidential reports get new provisions ensuring they are released once the information is no longer considered confidential.
- Meeting conduct gains a note that there are penalties under the law for refusing a direction to leave a meeting.
The two that affect a resident most
Livestreaming and the Public Forum, and they pull in the same direction.
Moving Public Forum back inside the meeting and early in the order of business is a meaningful change for anyone who has sat through an evening waiting for an item. It also means the forum is part of the recorded, streamed proceeding rather than a preliminary to it.
Our view, labelled as such. Keeping the livestream when the obligation has been withdrawn is the right call and worth saying so, because the easy path was to quietly take the option the state just handed back. The Illawarra has three other councils writing the same document to the same deadline pressure, and their choices on this clause are worth watching: the reinstated code makes a later-posted recording perfectly lawful, and a recording posted afterwards is a different thing from watching a debate as it happens.
The narrowing of briefings is harder to read from outside. A prohibition on briefing councillors about items already on an agenda is aimed at keeping deliberation in the open, which is a good aim; whether it works depends on what moves into the workshops that remain permitted. That is not visible from a code, and it is the thing to watch afterwards.
How to comment
The exhibition runs from 1 July to 12 August 2026. Feedback can be given
through the form on the consultation page, by email, by post to the Governance and Risk
Manager at Wollongong City Council, Locked Bag 8821, Wollongong DC NSW 2500, or by phone on
4227 7111, quoting Updated Code of Meeting Practice 2026 feedback
. The council notes
that any submissions become public documents and may be viewed by other persons on
request
. The draft code and the council report are both published as PDFs on the
consultation page, and a hard copy can be read at the administration building on Burelli
Street.
How we sourced this
The description of the disallowance, its effects, the 29 June resolution and every proposed change is from Wollongong City Council’s own consultation page, read on 4 August 2026. The clauses of the reinstated Model Code are quoted from the Office of Local Government’s published Model Code of Meeting Practice, which we downloaded and read the same day.
The two Model Code clauses are transcribed by eye. The published PDF sets its text in
two columns, and machine extraction injects the neighbouring column into the middle of a
sentence, so clause 5.34 comes out as an audio or audio- other staf at meetings visual
device
. We checked both clauses against the page rather than trusting the extraction,
and the quotations above are the clauses as printed.
What we have not done. We have not read the draft code itself or the council report behind it, both of which are published on the consultation page, so the list of changes is the council’s summary of its own draft rather than our reading of the instrument. We have not checked what the other Illawarra councils are proposing, and the observation that they face the same task is an inference from the state-wide effect of the disallowance rather than something we have confirmed council by council. We have not sought comment from the council.
Sources
- Wollongong City Council, Updated Code of Meeting Practice 2026 (consultation page, read 4 August 2026): the May 2026 disallowance and its effects, the automatic return of the 2021 Model Code, the 29 June 2026 resolution to exhibit, every proposed change quoted or listed above, the 1 July to 12 August exhibition period, and the submission methods and public-document warning.
- NSW Office of Local Government, Model Code of Meeting Practice for Local Councils in NSW (PDF, 80 pages, downloaded 4 August 2026): clause 5.34 requiring each meeting to be recorded, and clause 5.36 permitting the recording to be published either at the same time as the meeting or as soon as practicable after it.
Speak at council meetings, or read the draft differently? Tell us and we will check it against the documents and log the outcome here.