Decision details

Moved by Councillor Phelps, seconded by Councillor Vithoulkas -

It is resolved that:

(A)        Council note:

(i)          on Monday 16 September 2019, the Daily Telegraph published an article entitled "City Councillors in a 'plagiarism' row" about the copying of motions by certain City of Sydney Councillors without appropriate attribution to the original author;

(ii)         the use of foreshadowed motions that contain substantially similar content including: sentence structure, facts and research to a previously failed motion without proper accreditation of the original author is a common practice at City of Sydney Council meetings; 

(iii)        at academic institutions, a standard of conduct is placed on all staff and students who are expected to uphold academic integrity. Plagiarism is considered a serious breach of ethics by these academic institutions, and when an individual breaches the expectations placed on them by the Code of Conduct, the institution takes disciplinary action; and

(iv)       the City's Code of Meeting Practice states that "an amendment should not be moved that is substantially the same as an earlier rejected amendment on the motion", however, this does not address situations with substantially similar foreshadowed motions to a previously rejected notice of motion; and

(B)        the Chief Executive Officer be requested to:

(i)          amend the City of Sydney Code of Conduct to include a clause which states:

'If a Councillor prepares a foreshadowed motion to be put forward where the words or ideas are not substantially different from the original motion, the new motion is to be passed as an amendment to the original motion in the original Councillor's name.'

                        and

(ii)         investigate and create a plagiarism policy for the City of Sydney, including appropriate amendments to the Code of Conduct.

A show of hands on the motion resulted in an equality of voting as follows:

Ayes (5)          Councillors Chung, Forster, Phelps, Scott and Vithoulkas

Noes (5)          The Chair (the Lord Mayor), Councillors Kok, Miller, Scully, and Thalis.

The Lord Mayor exercised her casting vote against the motion. The motion was declared lost.

S129263