{"id":572858,"date":"2026-03-29T21:33:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T21:33:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/572858\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T21:33:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T21:33:13","slug":"local-government-politicians-blurred-during-brisbane-city-council-meeting-livestream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/572858\/","title":{"rendered":"Local government politicians blurred during Brisbane City Council meeting livestream"},"content":{"rendered":"

Councillors at Australia’s largest local government were blurred during parts of a council meeting livestream, sparking a debate over conspiracies, technology, TikTok and clout-chasing.<\/p>\n

The Brisbane City Council meetings have been held in City Hall since 1928, but have more recently been fitted out with cameras that allow debates to be broadcast on social media.<\/p>\n

Under Queensland laws, councils are required to maintain either an audio or a visual record of the proceedings.<\/p>\n

In a recent meeting, Brisbane City Councillor Emily Kim raised concerns that she was blurred in the video recording.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

First-time Labor councillor Emily Kim raised concerns that she was blurred in the video recording of the council meeting. (ABC Radio Brisbane: Kenji Sato)<\/p>\n

The first-time Labor councillor had received text messages from residents telling her they could not see her during the meeting on March 3.<\/p>\n

It prompted her to ask the LNP council chair, who has been appointed to preside over the meetings, “are you blurring the image?”<\/p>\n

How launguage is deemed to be unparliamentary<\/a><\/p>\n

In Australian politics, words and phrases used in parliament that are seen as insulting, abusive, or a deliberate lie are determined to be “unparliamentary language”.<\/p>\n

The Council Chair, Sandy Landers, told Cr Kim she could see her “clearly”.<\/p>\n

“Sometimes when councillors stand up, they have to turn the camera to adjust to you and focus. Maybe that happened in a moment, but we can see it clearly,” she said.<\/p>\n

‘My face is well known’<\/p>\n

During the meeting, independent councillor Nicole Johnston also raised concerns that her face was being blurred.<\/p>\n

“If there is a problem with the recording, why is this meeting continuing?” she asked the chair.<\/p>\n

“What action are you going to take, given I’ve been in this place for a long time, my face is well known, I’ve not moved [seats]?”<\/p>\n

In response to the concerns, LNP councillor Andrew Wines told the chamber the idea of the chair going out of her way to blur the face of anyone made “no sense”.<\/p>\n

New cameras were installed in the chamber in early February, featuring automated tracking.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Independent councillor Nicole Johnston raised concerns about the cameras in the meeting.\u00a0 (Supplied)<\/p>\n

Cr Wines said it was “a lot more likely” that the new system was struggling “to capture particular speakers at particular times”.<\/p>\n

He said the idea that the chair had “directed the officers, or the officers have been engaged in a conspiracy to deny Councillor Kim an opportunity to do a TikTok video” also made “no sense”.<\/p>\n

“I appreciate that Councillor Kim is deeply devoted to her TikTok videos and that is the objective of this place, not to stand up for her residents but to get clout on social media,” Cr Wines, who has a TikTok account with less than 20 followers, said.<\/p>\n

He withdrew comments that Cr Kim had “paranoia” and was being “crazy”.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Some councillors were blurred during a Brisbane City Council meeting livestream. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

‘Watching my content’<\/p>\n

Cr Kim told the ABC she had an old TikTok account that had “barely” been updated, with her last video posted in May 2025.<\/p>\n

But she does regularly post videos from the council meetings on her Instagram.<\/p>\n

“Maybe they are watching my content then on Instagram if that’s what he meant,” the Calamvale Ward representative said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Brisbane City Councillor Emily Kim says the cameras are generally “quite reliable”.\u00a0 (Supplied)<\/p>\n

Cr Kim said it had become a “unnecessary debate”.<\/p>\n

“The LNP councillors were accusing me of paranoia and being crazy,” she said.<\/p>\n

Qld government department labelled ‘lazy’ for ‘ironic’ use of AI image<\/a><\/p>\n

Fisheries Queensland urged social media users not to trust AI for fishing rules through an AI-generated image.<\/p>\n

“All we wanted was just a fair and accurate screening of this meeting so that our residents can see it for themselves.”<\/p>\n

She said the cameras being out of focus hadn’t been an issue at the other meetings held this year, with the stream generally being “quite reliable”.<\/p>\n

A number of ‘anomalies’, report finds<\/p>\n

The council’s chief information officer, Stephen Loquet, investigated the technical issues from the livestream in March.<\/p>\n

In his report, tabled to the chamber the following week, it found “a number of routine audiovisual system anomalies occurred during the meeting”.<\/p>\n

That included focus adjustments affecting several councillors at different points during the meeting where in some cases the automated camera tracking system required manual override or recalibration to restore focus.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The report noted LNP councillor Adam Allan was out of focus at about the time this screenshot was taken. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

Mr Loquet said the “meeting operations team” had maintained a “contemporaneous log of technical issues”, including anomalies impacting audio, camera framing and focus.<\/p>\n

The log stated Cr Kim and Cr Johnston had been out of focus during parts of the meeting.<\/p>\n

It noted LNP Cr Adam Allan had also been out of focus during the meeting, though a recording shows his frame was not as badly affected as those of other councillors.<\/p>\n

Mr Loquet’s report concluded the technical issues did not warrant adjournment of the meeting and that the council’s “statutory obligations were met”.<\/p>\n

“The audio recording continued to function and met the local law,” the report said.<\/p>\n

\"Brisbane<\/p>\n

Brisbane City Council meetings have been held in City Hall since 1928. (Supplied: Queensland Government)<\/p>\n

Mr Loquet said the issues observed were “consistent with the behaviour of automated audiovisual systems operating in a live meeting environment”.<\/p>\n

He said it did not indicate any deliberate manipulation or interference.<\/p>\n

“We refute any allegations that staff or contractors have acted inappropriately in any way,” Mr Loquet said.<\/p>\n

The report concluded that the council would continue to monitor the performance of its chamber systems and work with its vendor to minimise technical disruptions.<\/p>\n

Fair use of technology<\/p>\n

Queensland University of Technology adjunct associate professor John Mickel said technology was changing and governments needed to keep up with it.<\/p>\n

“And make sure the use of that technology is fair to everybody,” the political analyst said.<\/p>\n

\"Former<\/p>\n

Former Labor MP John Mickel is now an adjunct associate professor at the Queensland University of Technology. (AAP: Glenn Hunt)<\/p>\n

The former Labor MP and speaker of state parliament, who left politics in 2011, said the technology “wasn’t that advanced” when he was a politician.<\/p>\n

“I can’t do TikTok, and I can’t tap dance,” he told the ABC.<\/p>\n

Mr Mickel said that, with the Brisbane City Council being a multi-party system, with representatives from the LNP, Labor, Greens and Independents, there needed to be a “coherent and cohesive set of rules for the televising of these things that is above reproach”.<\/p>\n

He encouraged the impacted councillors to seek a meeting with the council chair.<\/p>\n

The matter has been referred to the state’s Crime and Corruption Commission (CCC) by Cr Kim.<\/p>\n

A CCC spokesperson said it did not confirm or comment on any complaint or investigation, referrals to other agencies or matters before the court.<\/p>\n

The Lord Mayor’s office and Local Government Minister Ann Leahy were contacted for comment<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Councillors at Australia’s largest local government were blurred during parts of a council meeting livestream, sparking a debate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":572859,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,14005,281036,85163,135,281037,44,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-572858","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-brisbane-city-council","11":"tag-council-meeting","12":"tag-livestream","13":"tag-local-government","14":"tag-local-government-meeting","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}