Albury Council decides dates to display the pride flag in its chamber

After declining youth councillors' request for a permanent display, it will be put up for the two meetings that happen in June - which is Pride Month.

Deputy mayor Amanda Cohn did push for councillors to commit to future years.

"Having asked us for a permanent display, let's not dis-empower them any more than they already have been by limiting their request to literally just a one-off," she said.

Councillor John Stuchbery agreed it was "a major fault" in the recommendation pertaining only to 2021.

"The second (problem) was that, it strikes me as churlish to put the flag up for the meeting and then hurriedly take it down again after the meeting," he said.

"Leave the flag up for the month."

Council staff clarified to Cr Graham Docksey that the flag would be draped "on the table in the centre of the chamber".

Cr Henk van de Ven similarly took issue to the proposed location, with staff taking on notice his request to seek a motion that occurred during a council term in which Stuart Baker was mayor.

"We had an incident in council where people brought in some flags and displayed it here in the chamber to make a point about a particular item the council was discussing," he said.

"I thought at that stage that we had made a decision subsequent to that, that no items were to be displayed on this particular part of the council chambers

"I don't have a problem it going on the wall ... but definitely not on the table."

Cr Cohn said debate over where it would be displayed "distracted" from the real issue.

"I can see space on the walls for about 10 flags, so I really don't think that we should pretend that that's the problem here," she said.

"There's also been conflation with any other community group in town, and I think it's really important to be clear that the people that have asked us to do this are our youth council.

"We agreed at the previous motion to display it temporarily; we also agreed that council would determine when that is.

"I think it's actually a really pathetic response to our youth council, they've taken the trouble to make a submission on a flag protocol ... they've asked us to display pride flag permanently.

"And we're saying we're going to put it up and down quickly on two days ever as a one-off, and then not do it again.

"I wouldn't be surprised if it puts them off engaging with us in future."

Cr Cohn's motion to extend the tenure of the recommendation to future years was lost, and the original motion to display it on June 15 and 28 of this year was adopted.

Mayor Kevin Mack had supported Cr Cohn's position, which he believed was shared by the majority of the community.

IN OTHER NEWS:

"I support this motion on the basis that we are only providing lip service to this particular issue by just providing it for two meetings a month," he said.

"There was some discussion about permanent display all year round, which might add a lot of councils in this country currently do."