IF YOU’RE caught striking a golf ball in East Albury at Alexandra Park you will be penalised under a local government statute.
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Protest outside Albury’s abortion clinic and you would be punished via the same section of the Local Government Act if deputy mayor Amanda Cohn had her way.
That law is at the heart of the debate which exploded at Albury Council’s meeting on Monday night before a packed gallery.
Cr Cohn, believes based on legal advice sought by her colleague Greens MLC David Shoebridge, that a safe zone outlawing protests within 150-metres of the clinic should be established under section 632.
But six of the nine Albury councillors rejected her motion for a zone and instead a call for the city to seek specialist legal advice on the matter passed unanimously.
Even Cr John Stuchbery, who supported Cr Cohn’s original motion, raised concerns about the value of the Greens’ legal advice coming from a barrister, Jane Needham, who is not a constitutional law expert.
The council had been warned by its own law firm, Kell Moore, that it could have to spend up to $200,000 responding to a legal challenge to a protest ban.
Therefore it is sensible for the council to seek expert advice from those versed in constitutional law, particularly when the group behind the clinic vigils, the Helpers of God’s Precious Infants, has said it would contest the validity of an exclusion zone.
Understandably Cr Cohn and her supporters who gathered at Monday’s meeting in purple attire which was tied to the push to decriminalise abortion in NSW, are disappointed.
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Mayor Kevin Mack said he believed women attending the abortion clinic needed “unfettered access” but argued without proper legal advice section 632 was offering “false hope”.
“I want to provide a solution to this community that is actually founded on good legal advice,” he told Monday’s meeting.
“We are seeking the right advice to make sure that anything we do in this chamber is legal binding and resolves the issue.”
With the NSW parliament having rejected the safe zones, which have been adopted at abortion clinics in Victoria, Tasmania and the ACT, Albury Council has an opportunity to go out on a limb at a local government level.
But the problem may be it does not have the right clubs in its metaphorical golf bag and it may end up in a legal sand trap.