It’s with mixed emotions that I speak in respect of this motion tonight.

With webcasting, the ratepayers get to see exactly how the City of Sydney runs managed democracy. It’s the City of Sydney Restaurant – the menu only has one item - trust us – you’ll like it – it’s been chosen by a panel of experts.

A place where it’s hard to tell who’s elected and who isn’t.

Without webcasting, the proceedings will now be interpreted through the print media and they seem to be your harshest critics of late. Good luck with that.

It seems that this desire to rescind Webcasting is based upon research conducted on the Internet.

Apparently, Councillor Google is now running the show.

Councillor Google says it’s expensive – sanity check – 0.6 Billion in the bank with $2M monthly interest revenue.

Councillor Google says it’s a bit tricky – we can build Cloud arches, cycleways, CCTV and trigeneration power plants but we can’t get a few wires and cameras going in the Chamber.

Councillor Google says only a few will be interested, maybe only 10-160 viewers – I would have thought it would have been worth it for one disabled ratepayer or a person that couldn’t get childcare for the night.

The other rationale advanced by Councillor Google was that Queensland had changed its mind about making streaming mandatory for larger councils.

It seems either no one thought to go beyond Googling Gold Coast Council or they simply ran out of time.

The Gold Coast Council uses the technology to explain its dealing with the electorate. On its first night it received 466 viewers and has been going strong since.

In arriving at this decision to rescind webcasting, it’s disappointing, that a case wasn’t made for the benefits of Webcasting and seeing democracy in action.

Unfortunately, this administration thinks along the same lines as Bismarck. City of Sydney deliberations “are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.”