Greater Dandenong Council is reviewing protocols after audio was muted for most of its live-streamed public meeting on 14 July.
Councillor discussions on single-use plastics and gambling policies were lost in the 50-minute silence.
Minutes of the meeting recorded councillors’ unanimous support for the two policies, but no details of councillors and officers’ questions and comments about the policies.
A written record of public question time was documented in the minutes, as well as councillor reports.
Audio was restored for the last 20 minutes of the meeting.
During the 28 July public question time, the council was quizzed by resident Gaye Guest about its procedures for when audio goes down.
She asked whether the meeting should have stopped until volume was restored.
Strategic growth and advocacy executive manager Marjan Hajjari replied that it had been a “rare and unexpected” outage.
Equipment had been tested before the meeting, as was usual practice, but “unfortunately a fault arose that was not immediately detected during the live broadcast”.
“Council shares the community’s disappointment that the audio was not available for a portion of the livestream.”
Hajjari said the council was reviewing its protocols, strengthening contingency measures and improving communications for any repeat of the technical fault.
Greater Dandenong council meetings are open for public attendance, as well as live-streamed on the Harmony Square big stream and the council’s social media channel.
