Greater Wellington — Council and committee meetings and workshops

Council and committee meetings

Council and committees meet approximately once every six weeks to receive reports from our staff, debate issues and decide on policy.

All meetings are open to the public (unless the meeting resolves to exclude the public) and you are welcome to attend. Public Council and committee meetings held at our Cuba Street, Te Aro, Wellington office are also live streamed and publicly available on YouTube.

View the Council and Committee calendar

If you wish to say something about any item on the agenda, you can do this at the meeting during Public Participation. Please refer below for more information about speaking at meetings.

Attending and speaking at meetings

Where are the meetings held?

Most Council and committee meetings are held at our Wellington office, 100 Cuba Street, Te Aro. Please check the meeting schedule to confirm the meeting location.

View up to date details for all our meetings, including meeting locations

Public Council and committee meetings held at our Wellington office are also live streamed and publicly available on YouTube.

View public Council and committee meetings

Request to speak at a meeting

To take part in public participation, or present a petition, you must submit your request to Democratic Services by midday on the working day before the day of the meeting.

All meetings, except for the inaugural Council meeting of each triennium and when Council or a committee is sitting as a hearing body, have time set aside for public participation. This is an opportunity for the public to bring matters of concern to the attention of Councillors and to comment on agenda items.

To speak at a Council, Civil Defence Emergency Management Group, or Wellington Regional Leadership Committee meeting, you must address an item listed on the meeting’s agenda. For all other meetings you can speak to an item on the agenda, or on a subject relevant to that committee.

When you apply please let us know:

Your name, and the name of your organisation (if you’re speaking on behalf of an organisation)
Which meeting you’d like to speak at
What you’d like to speak about (including the meeting agenda item, if relevant)
Whether to wish to speak to the meeting remotely (we will provide you with the MS Teams link for the meeting)
Whether you wish to include a presentation as part of your speaking time (see below)
Your contact details.

Please send your request to:

Democratic Services

Email: democratic.services@gw.govt.nz

Speaking at a meeting

Before the meeting

On the day of the meeting please arrive at least 10 minutes before the start of the meeting.

Please provide Democratic Services any presentations as a single electronic document (preferably in PowerPoint form) by midday on the working day before the day of the meeting. Please note that we are not able to accept external devices (such as USB). If you are speaking remotely and have a presentation, you will need to share your own screen to enable you to manage your presentation.

If you wish to table any supporting documents, please provide an electronic copy to Democratic Services. This will be circulated to members prior to the meeting.

During the meeting

Public participation is at the start of the meeting after some initial meeting procedures.

Individuals and persons speaking on behalf of organisations may speak for up to five minutes. A further five minutes is allocated to the Council and committee members to ask the speaker(s) questions.

After the meeting

Your name and the item you spoke to will be recorded in the minutes of the meeting, and for those meetings that are live streamed the recording will be publicly available on Greater Wellington's YouTube Channel.

The minutes also note which organisation you represented, if applicable. Anything distributed or tabled at the meeting will also become part of the public record.

Further information

Council and committee workshops

A workshop is an opportunity for councillors and appointees to committees to discuss, question, and seek detail on upcoming matters or policy issues, and provide initial ideas that may assist officers in developing their reports for consideration and decision. Generally, workshops are open to the public; on occasion, a workshop or part of a workshop may be closed to the public to deal with items where confidentiality needs to be maintained. The reason for an item being dealt with in a closed workshop session will be published in the workshop agenda.

It is important to note that:

workshops are not meetings under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987
No decisions are made at workshops
Nothing discussed at a workshop becomes Council policy unless and until a decision is made at a meeting.

Upcoming workshops can be found in our events calendar. Agendas for workshops will be published two working days before each workshop. Documents provided to members for open workshops will be published soon after the workshop.

Workshop calendar

The public can request the workshop information and documents under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987.

Make an official information request

Updated January 26, 2026 at 4:16 PM

Get in touch

Phone:: 04 384 5708
Email:: democratic.services@gw.govt.nz