Council has adopted a policy that would allow those unvaccinated against COVID-19 to access council facilities and services or provide an "inclusive" alternative in the case of new restrictions around COVID-19.

This includes access to council buildings like the civic centre, customer contact front desk, art galleries, halls, libraries, waste facilities, sports facilities, swimming pools and outdoor community events.

Under the motion council agreed to mitigate any risk if necessary, if advised by a public health order at the time, with the wearing of face masks, use of hand sanitiser, testing and QR check-ins.

If that was not possible due to specific restrictions at the time, council agreed to make a "more accessible and inclusive way" for unvaccinated people to access council's facilities.

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The motion was put forward by Councillor Karen Wright who said people had posed the question to her during the council election period last year on whether she would advocate for equal access to council facilities for unvaccinated people.

"I said yes because I don't see how making buildings accessible is going to go against the law or cause any dramatic shift in the community, especially given the high vaccination rate in our community," she said.

"Many people are already on edge because they don't know what's going to happen if there's a shift in federal government, because for a lot of people in the community it may mean changes for them," said Cr Wright.

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"If you're looking at essential services, people could pop down and do their gardening shopping at Mitre 10, but couldn't buy shoes or shoes for their kids from a retail store [while mandates were in place last year].

"But if people are ratepayers and are paying rates for swimming pools and the library then surely they can have access to them, even if we create a takeaway option like many of the cafes and businesses did," she said.

During the meeting Cr Helen O'Neil spoke against the motion to raise some concerns she had.

"I'm very uncertain about this and I don't even know if I am for or against, I think we don't know what we have to face in the next couple of months and we don't know how this is going to go in terms of the virus or the flu.

"In the past we've put up with people around us dying with the flu for the sake of our own convenience and that's actually quite divisive and means basically that quite a lot of elderly people basically couldn't go anywhere during winter," she said.

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She posed the question to Cr Wright to address in her final statements about those members of the community unable to get vaccinated due to illness and were waiting until other people could get vaccinated to feel safer to access the community.

Cr Fitzpatrick spoke in favour of the motion and said he felt strongly the decision should be left up to the individual and that we should not "discriminate against anyone" based on their medical decisions.

"I think the basic principal in Australia is about freedom and we should be pro-choice, if you want to get vaccinated - like with the flu vaccine - and that's what should remain," he said.

Cr Wright said in her final statements in response to Cr O'Neil there were individuals who had medical reasons why they could not be vaccinated but were unable to access specialist providers in the area to gain an exemption months while the roadmap was still unfolding.

In the end the motion was carried, with all councillors voting in favour.

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