Drafts Of Model Standing Orders For Municipalities

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27472, 5 October 1954, Page 9

Drafts Of Model Standing Orders For Municipalities

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, October 4. Model standing orders for municipalities have been compiled by the by-laws sectional committee of the New Zealand Standards Institute. The final draft includes amendments made as a result of representations by a committee representative of newspaper organisations, which contended that the draft standing orders did not provide adequately for publication of the proceedings of councils. The preparation of the standing orders was undertaken at the request of the Municipal Association of New Zealand. The Standards Institute convened a committee comprising five nominees from the Municipal Association, three from the Counties’ Association, and one from the Institute of Town Clerks. Two Government officers were invited to join the committee to assist with technical matters. Consultation was maintained during the preparation of the draft with the municipalities, borough councils, town boards, and county councils. In a statement referring to these orders Mr P. R. Scoble, chairman of the press committee, said today that the approved draft was examined by his committee, and a large number of amendments recommended. The< amendments approved by the standing orders committee included a provision that notices of all ordinary special and emergency meetings are to be sent to

local newspapers at the same time as they are sent to members, but the committee rejected a proposal that printed reports, issued to members before meetings, should be supplied to the press at the same time, but not for publication until after their presentation to the council. Other recommendations made by the press committee ; were rejected for Various reasons, but generally on the ground that if the orders were unacceptable to individual councils, no useful purpose would be served, as the councils generally would not observe them. Commenting on this observation in a letter to the director of the Standards Institute, Mr Scoble Wrote:—“Our concern is to have model standing orders that will be in the interests of the ratepayers and the people at large. We are not concerned with the possibility that they may be unacceptable to some ‘individual councils.’ The few councils which habitually withhold information are precisely those which should be called upon to justify their own standing orders, and explain why the practice of others should not be followed by them. We and our individual newspapers will not be influenced by the argument that in order to secure unanimity the model standing orders should be watered down. They ought, to embody the best practices, not the' worst.”