Should Kiama Council Be the Developer?

Blue Haven Bonaira – Image source Archipro

Should Kiama Council build its own developments on its catalyst sites? The lessons of Blue Haven Bonaira and Blue Haven Terralong suggest not.

Yesterday I wrote about Kiama’s catalyst sites and what we could build if we got smart about the land council already owns. A thoughtful commenter, Graham, responded with a different idea. Don’t sell anything, don’t partner with developers, don’t do public/private anything. Instead, have council build the buildings itself, retain ownership of the land and the buildings, and lease the spaces out for long-term recurring income.

It’s a position you hear often in community conversations about council assets. Keep everything. Build it ourselves. Lease it forever. The ratepayers win.

In principle, Graham is right. Retaining ownership and capturing long-term rental income is, on paper, the best possible return for ratepayers over a thirty or fifty year horizon. No developer profit margin. No one else taking a slice. Pure value for the community.

The problem is that we already know how that story ends in Kiama, because we lived it.

Blue Haven Bonaira

The last time Kiama Council decided to be its own developer at scale, we built Blue Haven Bonaira. The cost blew out badly. By the time the dust settled, council had taken on debt it couldn’t service from the operating income of the facility itself. That debt is one of the reasons we are now under a Performance Improvement Order. Council eventually sold Bonaira to a Perth-based aged care operator in April 2025, well below what was needed to recoup the build cost.

This isn’t ancient history. It happened in this council, within memory, with consequences the community is still paying for.

Blue Haven Terralong

The Minister’s recent media release on the proposed PIO variation named Blue Haven Terralong by name. See my blog here. The Minister noted that council has advised “major investment is required at Blue Haven Terralong to address maintenance and fire safety compliance issues.”

The number behind that sentence is significant. The facility needs $51.2 million in maintenance and capital works over the next ten years just to bring it from a poor condition rating up to an average one.

That is what happens when a council owns a building it can’t afford to maintain. The asset deteriorates. Compliance becomes a problem. The people who live there, in this case vulnerable older residents, end up housed in something the institution cannot keep up.

Council didn’t fail to maintain Blue Haven Terralong because anyone wanted that outcome. It failed because councils, structurally, are not set up to be long-term property owners and operators of complex assets. That’s not a Kiama problem. It’s a council problem.

Why councils struggle as developers in 2026

The construction sector today is a difficult place for any inexperienced client to stand, and councils are inexperienced clients by definition.

Builders quote a price to win the job. Then, mid-project, they can come back with variation claims and escalation costs that can add millions to the original contract price. This happens because of scope change, events like Covid/Middle-East conflict or even legislative changes in the application of the construction code during the delivery period. Sometimes they threaten to walk if the new numbers aren’t accepted. A commercial developer with a portfolio of projects absorbs that risk across multiple buildings and has the commercial muscle, the legal team, and the market relationships to push back hard.

A council doing one building has none of that. They have one project, one contract, one builder, and limited internal expertise when the variation claim lands. The outcome is predictable, and the public record across NSW is full of examples. Government projects routinely come in well over budget when the client doesn’t have the in-house capability to manage construction risk professionally.

Delivering complex buildings in 2026 is a specialist business. Councils are in the business of running communities, and that’s a full job in itself.

What this means for the catalyst sites

I’m not arguing against ratepayer ownership of long-term value. That’s exactly the right goal. Graham is right about the goal.

The question is the mechanism. How do we capture that value without putting council in the position of carrying development risk, construction risk, leasing risk, and maintenance risk on assets it doesn’t have the capability to manage?

The answer is somewhere in the middle of “sell everything” and “council does everything.” It probably looks like this.

Council retains ownership of the land. The land is the asset that appreciates, and the asset that gives council long-term leverage. Council does not need to sell it.

The buildings are delivered by a partner with the expertise, the balance sheet, and the risk management to actually deliver them on budget and on time. That partner could be a private developer, a not-for-profit community housing provider like Housing Trust, a state government delivery agency, or some combination. The point is that whoever holds the delivery risk should be someone equipped to manage it.

Council captures long-term revenue through the structure of the deal. A ground lease pays rent over 49 or 99 years. A development partnership shares revenue. An arrangement with a community housing provider can include a council ownership share of completed units that produces rental income forever. None of these models require council to be the builder or take all of the development risk.

Manning Street, where it ultimately makes sense to realise capital, can be brought to market at full development potential to fund the parts of the precinct that need council capital.

This is the conversation Graham’s question opens up. He’s right that ratepayer value shouldn’t be handed to developers. The interesting question is how to protect that value while also protecting council from risks it isn’t equipped to carry. There’s a third path between selling everything and council doing it all itself, and that’s probably where the real answer lives.

The lesson worth learning

The hardest thing about Blue Haven Bonaira and Blue Haven Terralong is that they were built with good intentions. Nobody set out to put council under a PIO or to leave vulnerable residents in a facility that needs $51 million in repairs. The people who made those decisions believed, like Graham does now, that council ownership and operation was the right answer.

The lesson isn’t that they were wrong about the goal. The lesson is that the model doesn’t work in 21st century construction conditions, and pretending otherwise just produces more Blue Haven Bonairas.

The current Finance and Major Projects Committee has, I hope, learned that lesson. The right path for the catalyst sites is one that captures long-term value for ratepayers without exposing council to risks it can’t manage. That’s not a compromise position. It’s the only sustainable one.

Thanks Graham for raising the question. The answer is imperative and it deserves the serious conversation you’ve started.

The Kiama We Could Build

 

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what kind of town we want Kiama to be in ten years.

The one where our kids can afford to live near us. Where the first responders we count on, the ambos, the police, the SES volunteers, can actually afford to live in the town they’re serving. Where the cafe owner in town can keep her staff because they have somewhere to sleep within twenty minutes of work. Where we still have a working leisure centre, a functioning council, and a community that hasn’t been quietly hollowed out by holiday lets and weekenders.

That town is possible. But it isn’t going to build itself, and it isn’t going to come from cutting another service or raising another fee.

It’s going to come from being smart about what we already own.

Most of us don’t think about it much, but Kiama Council owns some genuinely valuable land. Three pieces in particular keep coming up in my head when I try to imagine what’s possible.

There’s Havilah Place, where the old nursing home was demolished. It sits empty now, right next to our 42 year old leisure centre, in a part of town that already functions as a community hub.

There’s the leisure centre itself, which everyone agrees needs replacing. Council’s own advisory committee has already said as much, and has recommended building something bigger and better in its place: not just a pool and a gym, but a proper community facility with services, retail, maybe even council offices.

And there’s the Council Chambers on Manning Street. Two minutes from the ocean. In the middle of town. Possibly the single most valuable piece of land Council owns. But we can’t sell it while we still work from it.

Look at those three things side by side and a question almost asks itself. What if they aren’t three separate problems but three parts of one solution?

Imagine this. We build a new civic and community precinct on the Havilah Place and leisure centre site. Modern, well designed, locally appropriate. A new leisure centre at the heart of it. Council offices on an upper floor. A cafe at street level. Underground parking that makes the whole quarry function properly for the first time. Apartments above, a meaningful share of them set aside as affordable housing for the workers Kiama needs but currently can’t house.

Then, once Council has somewhere to operate from, we bring the Manning Street site to market at its full potential and use that capital to help fund the precinct that made it possible.

A precinct like that doesn’t need to be ugly or out of scale. It doesn’t need to look like every other coastal redevelopment from the last twenty years. Done well, it could be the thing visitors actually come to see. Done badly, it could be a disaster. The difference is in who designs it, who delivers it, and who Council partners with.

The best argument for getting the affordable housing piece right is sitting half an hour up the road in Wollongong. The Housing Trust opened a development on Crown Street in 2024 called Northsea. Fifty four homes in one building: some social housing, some affordable rentals, some private apartments. The principle behind it, the thing that makes it work, is that no door looks any different from any other.

You cannot tell, walking past, who lives where or how. A door is a door. A neighbour is a neighbour.

That’s what good mixed tenure housing looks like when it’s done by people who know what they’re doing. Several Kiama councillors have already been through Northsea. The reports back, by all accounts, were positive.

If we got a precinct like that built here, in partnership with an experienced Community Housing Provider, two things happen at once. We start meaningfully addressing our housing crisis, and we unlock state and federal funding streams that are not available to a normal council asset sale. The money is there. It just follows the right delivery model.

Kiama Council is still under a Performance Improvement Order. The deadline for a balanced budget has been extended to 2027/28, but the underlying problem hasn’t gone away. Costs keep rising. The fee debates over the holiday parks this past month show how politically painful the alternative looks: trying to plug a structural revenue gap by squeezing residents and ratepayers a little harder every year.

There is a better way out of this. Council already knows it, in fact. The Finance and Major Projects Committee is already looking at the catalyst sites. The question is how ambitious we’re willing to be about what we do with them.

If we sell the land raw, we get a one off cash injection, and a developer captures most of the long term value. If we instead establish planning certainty for these sites first, whether through rezoning or a site specific plan or a concept approval, then partner properly, that value flows back to Kiama ratepayers. The principle is well established in public asset divestment around the country. The closer Council gets a site to a deliverable approval, the more of its value Council captures rather than handing it to the next buyer.

This what smart councils do with land like this.

The honest version of this is that Kiama has a narrow window. State and federal policy is currently more supportive of mixed tenure housing delivery than it has been in twenty years. We hold the land. We have a council under genuine financial pressure that needs sustainable revenue. We have a working model just up the road. We have councillors who have seen it and understood it.

Windows like this don’t stay open forever. In five years the funding programs will have shifted, the political climate will have moved on, and the catalyst sites will either have been sold off in pieces for short term cash, or we will have done something genuinely transformative with them.

I know which version of Kiama I want to live in.

The draft Council budget is on public exhibition until 24 May. If you have a view on how Council uses its strategic assets, this is the moment to say so. Submissions can be made through Council’s website. Even a short submission helps, because what councillors hear from the community shapes what they feel able to consider. Here is a step by step guide

You can also speak to your councillors directly. They are accessible, and most of them genuinely want to hear from residents who are thinking constructively about the future of the town.

Kiama has been given a difficult hand to play. But we are not without options. We own real things, in real places, at exactly the moment when doing something visionary with them is most possible.

Let’s not waste it.

Kiama Council had the playbook. Five councillors voted not to use it. The union did it anyway.

Council voted not to ask the Minister. The union asked anyway. Nobody thanked Cr Cains.

New to this issue?

This post is part of a series covering Kiama Council’s budget, the holiday parks proposal and the Performance Improvement Order. If you want the background before diving into the detail, the earlier posts are here:

  1. Council is counting on you not reading this – submission guide
  2. Ron Hoenig just put Kiama Council on notice. Here is what I said and why you should too.

  3. Kiama Council wants submissions on a dead budget.

Start there. Then come back here.

This is my reading of the public record. Happy to be corrected.

On 21 April 2026, Cr Mike Cains moved a motion that Kiama Council write to the Minister for Local Government asking three specific questions about the budget, including whether the cuts proposed in the draft budget were actually necessary.

Council voted 5 -3 to say no.

For: Brown, Cains, Tatrai

Against: Larkins, Lawton, Matters, McDonald, Warren absent from the vote Draisma

Three weeks later, the Minister answered the questions anyway. The cuts are no longer necessary. The community got an extension. Council didn’t ask for it. The union did.

And the community is still being asked to submit on the cuts-driven draft budget by Saturday 24 May.

Here’s what happened.

Cr Cains’ motion asked the Minister three things:

(a) Whether a failure by KMC to project a balanced budget in the 2026/2027 financial year would trigger the appointment of an administrator;

(b) Whether short-term deficit budgeting, if presented alongside a long-term financial sustainability strategy, is considered acceptable; and

(c) The extent to which KMC is expected to balance immediate fiscal constraints against maintaining essential services, community infrastructure, and economic activity.

The Minister has now answered all three. No, an administrator is not being appointed. Yes, staged deficit budgeting with a long-term strategy is the path. Yes, the impact on services matters and the deadline can move to accommodate it.

The questions Cains wanted Council to ask have all now been answered. Council just didn’t ask them.

Council had been through this exact process two years earlier.

At the same 21 April meeting, two letters from Minister Hoenig were tabled in front of councillors.

A letter dated 30 January 2024 – Hoenig’s Notice of Intention to Vary the existing PIO, sent to CEO Jane Stroud, giving Council 28 days to make submissions.

A letter dated 23 May 2024  Hoenig’s variation of the PIO, issued after Council had formally engaged and made its submission.

The 2024 correspondence is the exact playbook for getting a PIO variation. Council had it on the table on the night Cains moved his motion. Five councillors voted not to use it.

The union didn’t wait.

On 9 April 2026, the Illawarra Mercury reported the United Services Union had emailed its members confirming it was actively pursuing a meeting with the Minister to seek an extension. The email said:

“An extension will avoid the need for immediate cuts, since the losses can be drawn out which means the need to cut positions and services is less immediate.”

That’s two weeks before Cains moved his motion. The union had already identified the path. It was already walking it.

Council sent the cuts out for exhibition anyway.

At the same 21 April meeting where the Cains motion was lost, Council unanimously endorsed the cuts-driven draft budget for public exhibition.

The same meeting also noted, in a separate resolution about the Reflections unsolicited proposal for the holiday parks, that any proceeds “will be incorporated into the draft budget, resulting in the potential elimination of the budget deficit.”

So at the meeting where Council voted not to ask the Minister, Council also acknowledged the cuts might not even be necessary.

And then sent the cuts-driven budget out for public exhibition five days later.

14 May 2026.

3:25 PM  Kiama MP Katelin McInerney issues a statement thanking the United Services Union, staff, community members and her petitioners.

4:26 PM  Minister Hoenig announces the proposed PIO variation.

Late afternoon,  Council “welcomes the extension.” The CEO thanks the United Services Union “for its strong collaboration and partnership in making the PIO request to Minister Hoenig.” The Mayor thanks the Minister for meeting with him at Parliament House.

Nobody thanked Cr Cains.

One more thing worth noting.

The minister also required council to strengthen its financial reporting to the Office of Local Government. Four years into a Performance Improvement Order. The community is entitled to ask what that means for the accuracy of the budget documents currently on exhibition.

What the record shows.

A councillor formally proposed the path. Council voted it down 5–3. The union pursued the same path externally. Our MP Katelin McInerney campaigned. The community wrote directly to the Minister. The extension came through. Council welcomed it.

The CEO publicly thanked the union that lobbied around her own draft budget.

The Mayor publicly thanked the Minister for the outcome he had voted three weeks earlier not to ask for.

The community is still being asked to submit on that now dead draft budget by Saturday 24 May.

The submission period should be extended. Full stop.

This is all your submission needs to say. Copy it. Send it.

“Given the Minister for Local Government proposed a variation to the Performance Improvement Order on 14 May 2026 extending the budget deadline by twelve months, I ask Council to pause the exhibition period, revise the draft budget to reflect the new timeline, and give the community adequate time to respond.”

Add your name and address. Send it to yoursay.kiama.nsw.gov.au and council@kiama.nsw.gov.au and councillors@kiama.nsw.gov.au  before 24 May.

Step by step submission guide here

A note from me. I’m a community member trying my very best to make sense of this bombardment of information and what it means for our town and our families. If I’ve got something wrong, tell me and I’ll fix it. If I’ve got something right, send your submission before 24 May.

Kiama Council wants submissions on a dead budget

A timeline of the farce. More time for the process, less time for the public.

The federal budget had a good run on the front page. Then Kiama Council kept asking the community to make submissions on a draft budget the CEO had already confirmed was obsolete, and stole the show. You can’t write this stuff. Except they did. In two media releases on the same day. Then again on social media. And again. And again.

This is my understanding of the timeline from the public record. Happy to be corrected.

  • 7 May  Mayor McDonald and CEO Stroud annouce they met Minister Hoenig at Parliament House. Mayor says he is “confident of a positive outcome” on the PIO.
  • 13 May  Council posts on social media that “budgets are officially having a moment” and asks the community to submit on the draft budget by 24 May
  • 14 May  Council publishes first media release of the day. It announces an Extraordinary Meeting on 30 June and mentions a “potential” ministerial extension to the PIO. The reason given for the delay: staff need more time to read community submissions.
  • 14 May, 3:25 PM  Member for Kiama Katelin McInerney issues a statement welcoming the extension and acknowledging the United Services Union, staff and community members who advocated against the proposed budget cuts.
  • 14 May Council publishes its second media release of the day, welcoming the PIO  extension. The CEO confirms the services proposed for cutting in the draft budget will now be retained. This is very interesting and I will give it some more thought. Council CEOs do not, as a rule, publicly thank the union that has been campaigning against their own draft budget. That is not standard practice
  • 14 May, 4:26 PM The Minister’s office issues a media release proposing the extension.
  • 24 May Submissions still close. On a budget the CEO has confirmed needs to change.
  • 30 June  Extraordinary Meeting. Staff get the extra time. The community does not.

Read that again.

The CEO has given herself and council staff extra time to read submissions. She has not given the community extra time to write them on a budget that now reflects the actual situation.

The draft budget on exhibition was built around a deadline that moved on 14 May. The services it proposed cutting are no longer being cut. Council is still asking you to submit on it before 24 May.

The submission period should be extended. Full stop.

This is all your submission needs to say. Copy it. Send it.

Given the Minister for Local Government proposed a variation to the Performance Improvement Order on 14 May 2026 extending the budget deadline by twelve months, I ask Council to pause the exhibition period, revise the draft budget to reflect the new timeline, and give the community adequate time to respond.

Add your name and address. Send it to yoursay.kiama.nsw.gov.au and council@kiama.nsw.gov.au and councillors@kiama.nsw.gov.au

before 24 May.

Want to say more? Step by step submission guide here

Media releases referenced: Minister for Local Government Ron Hoenig, 14 May 2026, 4:26 PM. Kiama Municipal Council, “Kiama Council to hold Extraordinary Meeting for Budget,” 14 May 2026. Kiama Municipal Council, “Kiama Council welcomes Performance Improvement Order extension,” 14 May 2026.

A note from me. I am a community member, not a council spokesperson and not a journalist on a deadline. I am doing my very best to make sense of this bombardment of information and what it means for our town and our families. If I have got something wrong, tell me and I will fix it. If I have got something right, send your submission before 24 May.

Ron Hoenig just put Kiama Council on notice

The Hon. Ron Hoenig MP, Minister for Local Government has given Kiama Council more time to fix its budget. That means there is no longer any reason to rush decisions about the holiday parks, Blue Haven Terralong, or waste collection. The community has until 24 May to make a submission, and this post explains what to ask for and why it matters.

Today the Minister for Local Government Ron Hoenig sent out a media release proposing changes to Kiama Council’s Performance Improvement Order. His office made sure it reached the community directly.

Here is what it says and why every person in Kiama should read it carefully.

First, the good news

The minister is giving council an extra twelve months to balance the budget. The new deadline is 2027-28 instead of 2026-27.

That sounds dry. Here is what it actually means.

The reason council was moving so fast on the Reflections holiday parks deal, from a Friday proposal to a secret Tuesday night vote, was budget pressure. Get a deal done, fix the deficit, move on.

That pressure has just been reduced by twelve months.

And the extended deadline means council will not have to cut libraries, youth services, the Leisure Centre, the Visitor Information Centre or the Pilot’s Cottage Museum. That matters to a lot of Kiama families and it is genuinely good news worth acknowledging.

So the community can now reasonably ask why council would keep rushing a decision about its most valuable community assets when the minister has just said there is time to do this properly.

Blue Haven Terralong

The minister is requiring council to get an independent business case done for Blue Haven Terralong. Not a council business case. An independent one.

Why is this distinction important? Because Blue Haven Terralong needs $51.2 million in maintenance and capital works over the next ten years just to get from a poor condition rating to an average one. There are fire safety compliance issues. The people who live there are some of Kiama’s most vulnerable residents. It is their home.

Council already sold Blue Haven Bonaira, its aged care home, to a Perth based operator last year. The community needs to watch carefully what the independent business case recommends for Terralong and whether residents get a genuine say before anything changes.

It is also worth knowing that the draft Operational Plan currently on public exhibition opens its Retirement Village Operations section with the phrase “pending market sounding.” That language sits in a document about a service for vulnerable residents, and it is a fair question to ask what market sounding has been done, with whom, and on what terms.

An independent report recommending a sale or transfer to a private operator is not the same as the community agreeing that is the right outcome. One is a document. The other is a decision. Do not let anyone confuse them.

The waste services question and why this stands out

This is the part of the media release that deserves the most attention and has received the least.

The minister is explicitly requiring council to keep domestic waste services in house.

In November last year council’s CEO issued a public statement saying council was not outsourcing domestic waste services and that anyone suggesting otherwise was wrong.

Then the minister put the prohibition in writing as a formal condition.

Those two things do not sit comfortably together. And here is what makes the gap harder to explain away.

Council’s own draft Operational Plan for 2026-27, the document currently on public exhibition and inviting your submissions, contains the following deliverables:

2.3.2.4.1 – Undertake planning work and design for merged depot at Minnamurra

2.3.2.4.2 – Prepare for regional/testing market for waste collection services. Undertake testing and document results

4.1.3.2.1 – Specifications for waste collection trucks reviewed and ready for tender, including improved telematics and data capture technology

Testing the market is the language councils use when they are sounding out external providers. It is the step that comes before a tender. Reviewing truck specifications ready for tender is the step after that.

These are not hypothetical. They are scheduled deliverables in a draft plan dated 30 April 2026, published by council, sitting on the council website right now.

The minister’s prohibition is not addressing something theoretical. It is addressing something council had written down.

The community deserves a straight answer about how the CEO’s November statement and the deliverables in the draft Operational Plan are meant to be reconciled. One of them needs to be revised. The community is entitled to know which one.

The holiday parks. What the media releases have not told you.

The minister’s proposed variation includes one line about the parks. It says the extra time will allow council to investigate opportunities for the long term management of its tourist parks which could improve its budget position over time.

Notice the words. Investigate. Over time. Not rush. Not this year. Not before 24 May.

It is also worth noting that the draft Operational Plan contains a deliverable under holiday parks for “new management contracts developed for upcoming year and Management Model review as per the Service Review to be progressed.” That is council scheduling new management contracts for the parks within the financial year covered by this plan. The minister has just said investigate over time. Those two timelines do not match.

Here is the context most people in Kiama do not have.

Four of the five holiday parks are on Crown land. Under the Crown Lands Management Act 2016 the state government can remove council as manager of those parks for no reason and pay council nothing in compensation. That is not a worst case scenario. That is what the law actually says.

This means the Reflections proposal is not a straightforward commercial negotiation between two equal parties. It is a council that knows it could lose the parks anyway sitting across the table from a government owned corporation. That changes everything about how you assess the deal.

Here is the part that should make every ratepayer sit up.

If the four Crown land parks go to Reflections, the revenue from those parks goes to Crown Lands, not to Kiama Council. The only financial benefit to council is that it no longer has to pay to run them. That is a cost saving, not a revenue generator. It is a very different thing from what the mayor has been saying about eliminating the deficit and generating revenue.

Council’s own published financial statements show exactly how much the parks earn each year. Those figures are in the Special Purpose Statements. The community should be asking council to explain, using those actual numbers, how handing the parks to a government owned corporation improves the budget when council stops receiving the income.

And then there is Kendalls Beach.

Kendalls Beach is the only park not on Crown land. Council owns it outright. It is the only park where council keeps all the money regardless of what happens. The community deserves to know what is being proposed specifically for Kendalls. Because if Kendalls is being bundled into a deal with the Crown land parks, council is giving away the one asset in the group it actually has full commercial control over.

The Snowy Valleys precedent. Read this carefully.

There is a precedent worth knowing about and every Kiama ratepayer should read it carefully.

Snowy Valleys Council ran a similar EOI process for its caravan parks. Reflections put in an offer. The council’s own assessment panel looked at all the offers on the table and found Reflections’ offer was below market rate compared with what other operators had submitted. The panel recommended council reject it. Council followed its panel’s advice and said no.

Then the Minister removed Snowy Valleys Council as Crown Land Manager of the parks. Not because council had done anything wrong. Because the Minister can. The law says so. Reflections was appointed in council’s place.

The council said no. The minister overrode them anyway.

That is the legal reality sitting behind every conversation Kiama Council is having with Reflections right now. A voluntary deal that is the alternative to an involuntary one is not genuinely voluntary.

The bigger picture

The PIO extension gives council time and it gives the minister political cover. If council rushes the holiday parks deal anyway that is council’s call to make and council’s consequences to wear. The minister has put the careful path on the record.

The community’s job is to make sure council takes it.

Update: Council has now responded

Council welcomed the minister’s proposed variation today and the mayor confirmed he met Minister Hoenig directly at Parliament House last week before this announcement was made.

But the CEO’s response raises a question that needs a plain language answer before 24 May.

She says the holiday parks deal is the mechanism for clearing the deficit. Her words: our ability to clear the projected deficit is certain, provided we can get through the tender process with a successful outcome.

If that is true, the community deserves to understand exactly how the deal clears the deficit when revenue from the four Crown land parks would flow to Crown Lands rather than to Kiama Council under the Crown Lands Management Act.

The numbers are in the published financial statements. The community is entitled to a straight answer before the submission window closes on 24 May.

The CEO also thanked the United Services Union for lobbying the minister directly to include the requirement that waste services stay in house. The union that represents waste workers felt it necessary to go to the minister themselves to get that protection in writing. If outsourcing was genuinely never being considered, why did the union need to do that?

And one more thing. Premier Chris Minns and his ministers are coming to Kiama next Tuesday for a Community Cabinet at The Pavilion. That is a direct opportunity for the community to ask the questions that have not yet been answered about the holiday parks, Blue Haven Terralong and waste services.

Be there. Bring your questions.

What the community should be asking right now

Before any decision is made on the holiday parks, council should answer these questions publicly.

Using the actual figures from the published financial statements, how does handing the Crown land parks to Reflections improve the budget when the revenue stops coming to council?

What is being offered specifically for Kendalls Beach and why?

Were there any discussions between Reflections, Crown Lands or the NSW Government and council before the unsolicited proposal arrived on 17 April? The mayor has confirmed he met the minister at Parliament House last week. Were the holiday parks part of that conversation?

Will there be a dedicated community engagement process on the Crown land parks before any lease is signed, separate from the current budget submission window which closes 24 May?

How are the waste collection market testing and tender preparation deliverables in the draft Operational Plan to be reconciled with the CEO’s November statement that domestic waste outsourcing was not being considered?

What does the independent business case process for Blue Haven Terralong look like, what does pending market sounding in the draft Operational Plan refer to, and how will residents and the broader community have a genuine say before any decision about its future is made?

The bottom line

The minister has done several things today that are genuinely in this community’s interest. He has required an independent assessment of Blue Haven Terralong. He has explicitly stopped council from outsourcing waste services. He has slowed down the holiday parks process and named it as something to investigate properly rather than urgently.

He has also, without quite saying so, raised a serious question about the gap between what community members were told about waste services in November and what is written down in council’s own draft Operational Plan today.

The community now has more time and more information than it did yesterday. The question is whether council will use both honestly.

The information exists. The honest conversation about what it means has not happened yet.

A step by step guide to making a submission on the current budget and Delivery Program before 24 May is here 

Want to go deeper?

Kiama Council released its next meeting agenda today. All 1000 pages of it. A community member has analysed the key sections relevant to the holiday parks, the budget and Blue Haven Terralong. Read their analysis here

And if you want the devil in the detail:

Crown Lands Management Act 2016: https://legislation.nsw.gov.au/view/html/inforce/current/act-2016-058

Kiama Council Annual Financial Statements (Special Purpose Statements are in Part 2): https://www.kiama.nsw.gov.au/Council/Community-Reports/Annual-Reports-and-Financial-Statements

NSW Office of Local Government Performance Improvement Orders: https://www.olg.nsw.gov.au/councils/performance-improvement-orders/

Kiama Council – Two big plans. One deadline. Not enough time.

This morning I sent a formal submission on the Draft Employment Lands Strategy and yesterday on the Draft Delivery Program and Operational Plan 2026 to 27 to Kiama Municipal Council. Both close for public comment on 24 May 2026.

The Draft Delivery Program and Operational Plan 2026 to 27  went to Joe Gaudiosi, Director Corporate and Commercial and Kimberley Norton, Head of Implementation, and every single councillor.

The Draft Employment Lands Strategy submission went to the Director of Strategies and Communities, the Manager of Planning and Development, the Strategic Planning Coordinator, and every single councillor.

Here is what I said and why it is important to you.

On the Delivery Program

The Draft Delivery Program and Operational Plan is a new document. The community has had no prior opportunity to respond to it. It directly controls how every rate dollar gets spent this year, including the annual budget, revenue policy, rates, fees and charges.

I asked council to extend the submission period by a minimum of four weeks so residents can engage with it properly, independently of the Employment Lands Strategy. Two documents, one deadline, is not genuine consultation. It is a timetable designed to exhaust you.

On the Employment Lands Strategy

The community already submitted on this document in round one. Eighty-five people. The plan changed. The word UPDATED on the council website is proof that submissions work. Here is what they said

Three issues from round one were noted by council and left unresolved. I raised all three.

Businesses are leaving Kiama. Round one submissions from business owners said directly that the lack of suitable industrial land is forcing them to relocate to other LGAs. Council noted it and made no change. I asked council to include a clear business retention commitment in the final strategy, including how they will measure whether businesses are staying, growing, or being forced out.

The Shoalhaven Street rezoning creates a new problem on the Minnamurra River. The proposed rezoning of the Shoalhaven Street precinct removes existing industrial land from Kiama. To offset that loss, council is proposing to rezone the Minnamurra Waste Depot to General Industrial. The Minnamurra Waste Depot sits on the banks of the Minnamurra River. Rezoning land in that location to General Industrial raises serious environmental questions the engagement report does not address. I asked council to confirm in writing exactly how no net loss of industrial land will be achieved, including the site, the zoning pathway, the environmental assessment, the timing, and the replacement capacity. Proposing to solve one planning problem by creating another on the banks of the Minnamurra River is a question the community deserves a direct answer to.

63.2% of Kiama residents travel outside the LGA for work. The NSW Department of Planning told council the strategy should make a stronger case for change on this. I asked council to include measurable targets and a review timeline for improving that figure, rather than treating the loss of local jobs as something that just happens.

What the plans actually say

Before you submit, it helps to know what you are dealing with.

The Draft Delivery Program and Operational Plan 2026 to 27 is the document that decides how your rates get spent this year. Think of it as council’s budget and to-do list rolled into one. An independent review found that a lot of the promises in it are written in a way that makes them impossible to check. How do you know if council did what it said it would? Often you can’t. Several items also depend on money council hasn’t got yet. And while it talks about getting finances back on track, there is nothing in it that shows how Kiama stays financially healthy for the long haul. One good year doesn’t fix years of problems.

A step by step guide to making your own submission, including a template and the questions worth asking, is here

Read my submission here.

The Draft Employment Lands Strategy is the document that decides where the jobs go, where businesses can set up, and what gets built where for the next 20 years. If you run a business in Kiama, want to work closer to home, care about what happens at Bombo Quarry, or live near the Minnamurra River, this document affects you. Read it here

Both close 24 May.

A submission on its own is a paper trail. Many submissions on the same issues are a pattern council cannot dismiss.

Have your say here: yoursay.kiama.nsw.gov.au

Why I am sharing this

I am not a lawyer or a planner. I am someone who lives here and got fed up. If I can do this, so can you. Pick one thing that affects your street, your kids, your business or your back pocket and write it down. Five minutes. 24 May. That’s it.

 

 

Kiama locals have a chance to make Council listen, use it

The Kiama Municipal Council  Draft Delivery Program and Operational Plan 2026 to 27 is open for submissions. Here’s why this one needs your voice and how five minutes of your time can make it harder for our council to pretend nobody cared.

You have until 24 May 2026 to be on record. After that, you handed your say to someone else.

Every four years, a newly elected council makes promises to the community. The Delivery Program is where those promises get written down, funded and turned into actual actions. The Operational Plan is the year by year version, spelling out exactly what gets done, when, and what it costs.

This is not a planning document for planners. This is the document that decides whether the footpath outside your house gets fixed, whether the community program your kids rely on keeps running, whether council is actually spending your rates on what it said it would.

The NSW Office of Local Government sets out what a Delivery Program must contain. It must demonstrate commitment to the community. It must show how services will be prioritised and measured. It must address ongoing improvements to efficiency, financial management and governance. It must identify services council will review during its term.

This draft falls short of those requirements. This is a question of whether the document meets the standard it is legally required to meet.

“If your accountant handed you a budget this vague, you would find a new accountant. Kiama deserves better than this.”

This is your moment. Your name belongs on this. Get in the room

Maybe you’ve submitted before. Maybe you’ve spoken at meetings, written letters, shown up. And maybe it felt like your words went nowhere.

Submissions that name specific items, in your own words, from real residents, create a paper trail that cannot be buried. They go on the public record. They get read aloud at meetings. They become evidence.

And if you’ve never done it before and don’t know where to start, that’s exactly why this post exists. We’ll walk you through it, step by step. It’s simpler than you think.

Look at the draft sitting on the council website right now. See that word: UPDATED.

That happened because people spoke up, council listened, and the plan changed. This is exactly how it is supposed to work. And it worked here, in Kiama, because residents chose to show up.

So when you submit this time, you are adding your name to something that is already moving. You are part of a community that has already proved it can shift things.

And there is a second reason, just as important. Every submission goes on the public record. If any decision in this plan is later challenged, reviewed, or examined by the Office of Local Government, by a journalist, or by a future council, your submission is proof that the community was paying attention. That the people of Kiama saw this, understood it, and said something about it.

That record belongs to all of us. Make sure your name is in it.

Check  yoursay.kiama.nsw.gov.au for confirmed dates as these can shift.

What to write

You don’t need to be a planner, a lawyer, or a political scientist. You need to be a resident who has noticed something.

Here’s a simple submission template (adapt freely)

  1. Who you are. Your name and suburb. If you want to remain anonymous to the public but not council, say so. You can request your name be withheld from published submissions.
  2.  What you’re responding to. Name the specific item, project, or section of the plan you’re commenting on. Vague submissions are easier to dismiss.
  3.  What you want changed or protected. Are you asking for something to be added? Removed? Better resourced? More transparent in its reporting? Be specific.
  4.  Why it counts. One or two sentences. This is your voice. Use everyday language. 
  5.  What you’d like council to do. End with a clear ask. “I ask council to…” is a sentence that’s hard to ignore in a formal process.

Things worth asking about

When council says it will improve community wellbeing, how will anyone know if that actually happened? What does success look like in a way a normal person can check?

When a commitment in this plan is not delivered, what happens? Who is responsible and what does the community get told about it?

When plans change mid year, how do residents find out? Is there a phone call, a letter, a post on Facebook? Or does it just get dropped without a word?

The plan talks about financial recovery. But is this council on track for long term financial sustainability, or just a one year result that looks good on paper? A single year back in the black is not a strategy. The community deserves to know the difference.

What does the executive leadership of this council cost, and how is that performance measured and reported to residents?

Is the community engagement in this plan genuine, or is it a checklist? What changes when the community says something council does not want to hear?

If those questions don’t have clear answers in the plan, that’s your submission.

The plan doesn’t just describe what council will do. It describes what council thinks the community will accept.

Should this plan go back to the drawing board?

Yes. And you are allowed to say so.

The NSW Office of Local Government sets out what a Delivery Program must contain. It must demonstrate commitment to the community. It must show how services will be prioritised and measured. It must address ongoing improvements to efficiency, financial management and governance. It must identify services council will review during its term. This draft falls short of those requirements.

Councillors have the power to send this back for a rewrite before it is adopted. This is exactly what the process exists for. If you believe this plan is not good enough, tell council this. Tell your councillors this. Use these words:

“I ask council to defer adoption of this plan and rewrite it to meet the requirements set out by the NSW Office of Local Government.”

More voices, harder to ignore

Individual submissions are powerful. Collective submissions are formidable. Both count.

If you have neighbours, friends, or a local group who share your concerns, coordinate. Not to copy each other (unique submissions carry more weight), to ensure the same theme appears multiple times from multiple people. That volume is hard to dismiss as a fringe view.

Share this post. Print it. Leave it where people will see it.  The consultation period is short. The plan is long. But you don’t need to read all of it. You just need to find the part that affects your street, your family, your community, and say something about it.

That’s democracy. And it works best when people actually use it.

How to submit

1. Visit yoursay.kiama.nsw.gov.auand find the Draft Delivery Program 2026 to 27 listing.
2. Download the draft plan. You don’t need to read all of it. Use the search function to find topics relevant to you.
3. Submit via the online form, or by email to council@kiama.nsw.gov.au AND councillors@kiama.nsw.gov.au.
4. Keep a copy of your submission so you can to refer to it later.
Your name on the record is harder to ignore than your opinion on Facebook

The $1 Million Plane, the $500K Donations, and the Three Words That Admit Everything

“Everybody Does It” is an admission, not an argument. And it tells you everything you need to know about whose interests our political system is actually serving.

When supporters of any political party reach for “everybody does it,” they have already made the most important admission in the argument. The system is working for powerful interests, and ordinary Australians are footing the bill in ways most people simply do not realise.

Consider the Fuel Tax Credits Scheme, which refunds mining companies for the diesel excise paid on their operations. In the 2024-25 financial year the scheme is projected to cost Australian taxpayers $10.2 billion, with $4.8 billion of that going directly to the mining industry. At roughly $10 billion per year, the scheme costs more than Australia spends on foreign aid and more than several major defence programs. Rinehart is also thought to be a major backer of the Institute of Public Affairs, the influential think tank that has called for the abolition of the minimum wage

This is what “footing the bill” actually looks like. Public money flowing to the most profitable industry in the country, workers denied the wages they have earned, and the political donations that help keep those arrangements in place. The connection between who donates and who benefits is a straight line.

The question voters should be asking it: do you want to be part of fixing it, or part of entrenching it?

This is a question about the kind of democracy we want, and whether we are willing to hold it to the same standards we apply everywhere else in life. We expect better from our children. We expect better in our workplaces. We expect better in a court of law. The moment “everybody does it” becomes acceptable in politics, we have handed the keys of public life to whoever has the deepest pockets and the least shame.

Nobody gives very large sums of money to a political party out of the goodness of their heart. That is common sense about how human relationships work.

Consider the difference between donating to a sporting group and donating to a political party. A donation to a netball association or a swimming club buys goodwill, perhaps a naming right on a scoreboard. A donation to a political party buys access to people who hold direct power over the donor’s business interests. Regulations. Approvals. Environmental protections. Workplace laws. The recipient of a political donation holds power that a sporting body simply does not.

AEC disclosures show that Hancock Prospecting channelled $500,000 in donations to the Coalition, with the then Opposition Leader also hosted at fundraisers where guests paid $14,000 a head, an amount kept deliberately just below the threshold requiring public disclosure. The relationship with One Nation runs just as deep. A company within the Rinehart empire gifted a $1 million plane to One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, and two executives from within the same Hancock empire separately donated $500,000 each to the party. This is a systemic pattern across multiple parties, and the people saying “everybody does it” are proving exactly that point.

When multiple parties are funded by the same powerful interests, the policy direction is already decided before you get to vote. Your ballot should mean something. It does not, when the people on both sides of the ballot paper answer to the same donors.

Australia passed electoral reform legislation, and new donation caps come into effect in January 2027. HOWEVER donors can still spread contributions across multiple state and federal branches of a party to reduce disclosure obligations, and peak industry bodies, including those representing the mining sector, can donate up to four times the standard gift cap. Reform and resolution are two very different things.

So how do we normalise doing the right thing?

This is the question at the heart of everything, and the one that gets pushed aside whenever politicians would rather argue with each other than answer to you.

Every norm we take for granted today was once considered idealistic. Equal voting rights. The end of child labour. Transparency in public life. Each became normal because enough people decided it should be, and then voted accordingly.

Morality in public life is a choice. It does not arrive on its own. Political integrity is what a functioning democracy looks like, and it is precisely what Climate 200 supported independents have built their platform around. The proposition is straightforward: your elected representative should answer to you, the voter, rather than to whoever funded their campaign.

That is the standard we should expect from everybody in public life. Voting for independents committed to that standard is the most direct way to say so.

“Everybody does it” is an admission that the system is broken. So let’s fix it. Read this article, share it with everybody you know, and when you get to the ballot box remember who answered to you and who answered to their donors.

What Sri Lanka Taught Me and Why I am Done with My Passport Privilege

I spent years avoiding developing countries like Sri Lanka. I knew I would fixate on the unfairness of life in developing countries. The first few days were confronting to the point where I had to take a break. There wasn’t just rubbish along the roadside, there was rubbish everywhere, piles of it, plastic caught in drains, spread across open ground, sitting in places people walk through every day, and the water was filthy, green and stagnant. I found it hard to look at and harder to accept that people live with it. I found it hard to reconcile we are providing aid and I couldn’t see the impact.

I visited the traditional tour offering of temples and ruins, but I didn’t linger. As a child, I stayed for hours. This time, I looked elsewhere. When I stand in front of iconic sites, I am looking for a specific photo, not a history lesson. I listen to the dates and names, but I forget them immediately. History books offer a static version of the past that lacks heart They lacked lived experience no matter how good our guide was and he was exceptional, I walked through the ancient cities because they were on the itinerary, but the stones remained silent.

My photographs record what is left. When I look through the lens at a ruin, I think about the people who originally cut the stone and shifted the earth. I wonder what they would think of these remains. I find myself wishing I could have a conversation with the people who actually lived there over the centuries. I want to know how they navigated their world, not just the names of the kings who ruled them. Since I can’t talk to the dead, I look for the modern version of their story in the people I meet today, staff in the hotels and the families in the villages. I want to see how they are navigating their world right now.

This is the source of my frustration. I didn’t go there to see iconic sites. They are important because they exist, but that is all they are, landmarks on a map. I have zero interest in ticking off a list.

I travelled with a group of twenty Australians. They were well-read, and our conversations kept circling back to the mess of global politics, the threat of war with Iran, Netanyahu’s next move, and what Trump’s latest act of disruption meant for the rest of us.

These are not distant headlines when you are travelling through a country like Sri Lanka. Decisions made by powerful men in wealthy nations and heavily armed states do not stay inside their own borders. They travel through fuel prices, food prices, trade, sanctions, aid, tourism, debt and fear.

We spent time connecting the dots between how people vote in countries like the United States, the leaders they put in power, and why a family somewhere else suddenly pays more for groceries, petrol or the bus to school. Power first, people after, is not an abstract idea. In countries with less room to move, it arrives quickly at the kitchen table.

Our guide Ash broke down how it actually works in his country. Fuel is available but it is rationed The government makes sure tour buses keep moving because tourism feeds the economy. Meanwhile, a local parent can’t get to work, a teacher misses their class, and a nurse can’t make their shift. You see how quickly a community starts to implode struggle when other countries make decisions that impact well beyond war zones. See my blogs  see my blogs on my conversations with Ash here, here  and here

When you see the impact first hand it makes the global imbalance feel very real. Wealthy countries set the rules to keep their power, and everyone else just has to find a way to survive.

We’re part of that system. The people we put in office make decisions that travel a lot further than our own borders. When we choose leaders who only care about their own leverage, “power first, people second” becomes the standard. It shows up here in what a family can afford or whether they can even get from A to B. Once you see a system strain like this, you realize that everyday dignity is much more fragile than we think.

The parts of the itinerary that resonated most strongly with me were the safaris. We visited national parks and saw animals living in their natural habitats. We drove through the park, watching closely, becoming spotters ourselves.

An animal would emerge from the scrub, tolerate our presence for a moment, then disappear again. It felt unpredictable, immediate and alive. It also gave us the chance to see native animals we do not have in Australia, in the landscape where they belong.

I remembered the Botanical Gardens for their curated beauty. I have a garden at home where I plant things and hope for the best. In Kandy, I saw those same plants thriving in ideal conditions. It was a welcome relief from the reality of the streets

I am a stickler for well laid out design. When I arrive at a hotel, I notice the bathroom, the desk, the lighting and the power points. I want to see whether someone has thought about the person using the room.

At Jetwing in Kandy, that instinct led me somewhere else.

In several of the other hotels, I noticed the public facing teams appeared to be mostly men. Women were present, yet often in roles that felt more decorative than central, appearing from time to time as the smiling face of hospitality rather than as people visibly running the place.

Jetwing felt different. I saw what appeared to be a more equal mix of men and women across the team, and women seemed to be part of the working life of the hotel rather than added to the edges of it. I wanted to understand whether this was accidental or deliberate, so I asked Ash, our guide and the constant thread through the trip, why this hotel seemed to offer young Sri Lankans, including young women, a stronger pathway into a tourism career.

Ash helped me get an interview with the General Manager. He told me they target young people in schools. They introduce the, to women in upper management. They work on the principle “You can be what you can see”.

Ash was the strongest link in the itinerary.  His stories provided the context I sought. He offered real insight into the economy and the focus on education, giving young people the opportunity to have careers that provide a genuine liveable wage and opportunities beyond traditional life. But even with Ash, I realized I was still inside a closed loop. I had his professional narrative and the intellectual debates on the bus, but I was missing the unfiltered local voice and the younger members of his team Dino and Lucky helped provide this. See blog post here 

I am a listener, not a collector. I want to understand systems and power, yet the tour is built for people who want to tick off a list. I want to talk to the engine room, yet I was shown the museum. Sri Lanka reminded me I’m not a typical tourist, and that leaves me between a rock and a hard place. When my friends ask where I will go next, I honestly do not know. I am home now, and I see my own world differently. I remember the insight, not the landmarks. Going there showed me how decisions made far away arrive in people’s lives, in the price of food, the cost of fuel, and the dignity of an ordinary day.

The leaders we choose decide more than our own future

Back home after three weeks in Sri Lanka. I saw what fuel shortages look like without passport privilege.

The petrol stations aren’t empty. There is fuel.
It goes first to tourism, because tourism brings money into the country.

Families miss out. No transport. No income. No school. No healthcare.

Teachers can’t reach their classrooms.
Parents who sacrifice everything for their children’s education watch that chance slip because a bus can’t run.

Nurses can’t get to clinics. Medicines don’t arrive.

Drivers, farmers, shopkeepers are left waiting while the system they serve no longer functions.

And still, people stretch every rupee. They put their children first.

Then you come home to abundance.

Where one person throws away food, another is searching for it.
Where one person chases wealth, another is trying to stay healthy.

And above all of it, the imbalance is obvious.

Countries with everything still want more.
More influence. More control.

Those who already hold power set the rules.
Those without it are told to accept them.

And we’re part of this.
The way we vote carries.
If we vote for me, me, me, we get leaders who think the same.
Power first. People after.
And people far from us live with the consequences.

After seeing what happens when something as basic as fuel is taken away, you understand how quickly everything can fall apart, and how much dignity depends on the basics.

Drop the good guys and bad guys for a second.
You know who decides who gets in the club and who doesn’t.

The countries with nuclear weapons set the rules.
They still have theirs.
Others are told they can’t have them.

If your country was being told no, would that seem fair to you?