The City of Sydney effectively ran an “anti democracy” rally on Saturday funded by the ratepayer. At the same time, after a Clover Moore Independents Party Recession Motion on Webcasting, the City was forced to delay or deny much needed transparency.

Both are about democracy and both were a spin of the dice. Any less than 2,000 at the rally would be devastating. Lots of money was spent, and we’ll find out how much next week, some 300 showed up and the result is utter humiliation. Not sure how many turned up from the advertising on Grindr.

The dice was also spun on Webcasting. At risk was upsetting the stage-managed democracy that’s run by City in this Chamber – the recommendation is to bury it.

Ironically, the money spent on the business anti-democracy rally would have gone a long way to bring fresh democracy to this Chamber.

Ironically, most of the participants at the anti-democracy rally ideologically support webcasting.

Ironically, more than 300 people would certainly watch the webcast in a year, and

Ironically, give me the money you spent on the anti-democracy rally and I’ll get more than 2,000 to a webcasting rally – without advertising in Grindr.

This is a terrible decision.

Questions asked:

Q. The papers say that less than 5% of LGAs in Australia webcast. How was this figure derived?

Q. You state that live streaming is a poor investment yet on today’s agenda we have three items where there is no return on investment and a net cost. The recommendation is that they must go ahead (trigeneration, funny farm and rubbish obliteration) despite a return never being possible. Therefore, what is the investment criteria applied to the democracy benefit from webcasting?

Q. Where did the audience estimate of 10-160 viewers come from?

Q. I find 10-160 views to be very encouraging. Surely it’s worth it for one disabled person or for a single-family member that is interested in Council but could just not get here?

Q. You claim privacy and legal risks are the cornerstone of rejecting webcasting. How are the risks different for a Councillor doing a doorstop interview or tweeting.