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New Zealand law explained for everyone

Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987

Local authority meetings

50: Maintenance of order

You could also call this:

"Keeping meetings respectful and calm: rules for behaving at local authority meetings"

Illustration for Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987

When you attend a local authority meeting, the person in charge can ask you to leave if they think your behaviour will disrupt the meeting. They must have a good reason to think this, and they can only ask you to leave if they believe you will cause problems if you stay. The person in charge is trying to keep the meeting orderly and respectful.

If you are asked to leave a meeting but you refuse, or if you leave and then try to come back in without permission, you can be removed by a police officer or a local authority staff member. This will happen if the person in charge of the meeting asks them to remove you. You will be stopped from entering the meeting again if you do not have permission.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM123099.

Topics:
Government and voting > Local councils
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"Rules for public meetings of local councils"

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Part 7Local authority meetings

50Maintenance of order

  1. The person presiding at any meeting of any local authority may, if that person believes, on reasonable grounds, that the behaviour of any member of the public attending that meeting is likely to prejudice or to continue to prejudice the orderly conduct of that meeting if that member of the public is permitted to remain in that meeting, require that member of the public to leave the meeting.

  2. If any member of the public who is required, pursuant to subsection (1), to leave a meeting of a local authority—

  3. refuses or fails to leave the meeting; or
    1. having left the meeting, attempts to re-enter the meeting without the permission of the person presiding at the meeting,—
        1. any constable, or any officer or employee of the local authority, may, at the request of the person presiding at the meeting, remove or, as the case may require, exclude that member of the public from the meeting.

      Compare
      • 1962 No 113 s 6