Community Advocacy and Governance Archives - Clover Hill Diaries

The secret is out, our Hidden Treasures are hidden no more

Every hour of every day, around 150,000 people across NSW are volunteering. If NSW volunteers were a company, they would be larger than the Commonwealth Bank. Right now, someone is driving a neighbour to chemotherapy, coaching a child, running a stall, checking on an older person, caring for an animal or setting up chairs in a hall.

On Thursday 23 July, the Kiama Pavilion filled with people determined to make that invisible work visible. The Inaugural Kiama Electorate Recognition Awards, hosted by the Member for Kiama, Katelin McInerney MP, celebrated the local women named on the NSW Government’s Hidden Treasures Honour Roll 2025, an initiative of the Rural Women’s Network that has honoured more than 1,300 women and girls volunteering across regional, rural and remote NSW since 2010.

“These are the women who show up week after week, year after year, and who rarely seek the limelight,” Ms McInerney said. “They would prefer we not make a fuss about them. With this event, we are totally ignoring that.”

The women honoured show that volunteering looks different in every pair of hands.

It looks like Ebony Wilson of Jamberoo, whose first steps into volunteering were inspired by cows, helping young people see a future in agriculture through the Young Dairy Network and speaking openly about resilience and mental health in farming.

It looks like Dr Christa Wood of Gerringong, who co-founded Dementia Inclusive Dancing so people living with dementia can experience movement, music, joy and company.

It looks like Annette Young of Kiama, with more than fifty years of service to the Kiama Show Society, tennis, Meals on Wheels, her church and community organisations. Fifty years of seeing what needs doing and doing it.

It looks like Kate Whitworth of Jamberoo and Maree Shepherd of Kiama Downs, creating places where people find their voice through music, from the Flame Tree Project’s opportunities for hundreds of young people to the confidence and friendship of Sing Australia.

It looks like Jenny Ferguson of Kiama, leading a dementia-inclusive choir where singing becomes memory, movement, laughter and the feeling of still being part of something.

It looks like Karen Renkema Lang of Kiama, creating room for local voices through environmental protection, civic participation and Kiama Community Radio.

It looks like Esther Keenan of Kiama Downs, building a longer table. Through The Everyday Table, people find affordable pantry items, a shared meal and a place where everyone is welcome.

It looks like Rosemary Aldred of Kangaroo Valley, raising guide and therapy dogs and then helping other puppy-raisers do the same.

It looks like Sabrina Kelly of Kiama, creating a social club where neurodivergent teenagers feel accepted and understood, while leading a P&C and fundraising for the surf club.

It looks like Jessy Wiggins of Shoalhaven Heads, giving week after week to Girl Guides since 2013 so young girls can make friends, learn skills and test their courage.

And it looks like Nicole O’Brien of Kiama, running the sports club barbecue before heading off to champion local farmers, producers and small businesses at the next market.

Musical Director Antoinette Raynal, herself recognised as a Hidden Treasure in 2024, led the Katandra Women’s A Cappella Choir in a beautiful performance. Katandra brings women together through music, friendship and shared purpose, while also supporting local women’s initiatives through the proceeds of its performances.

The ceremony paid special tribute to the late Lorraine Ettingshausen, recognised posthumously.

Lorraine helped establish the Voluntary Home Nursing Service and gave decades to Camp Quality, supporting children with cancer and their families from the charity’s local beginnings until her retirement. She organised camps, trained volunteers, sat beside frightened parents and stayed with families as children were dying. She gave fifty-six eulogies, fifty of them for children. When poor health forced her retirement, three hundred people came to say goodbye. A year later she became a Volunteer in Policing and served another ten years.

Her granddaughter said it best: “She didn’t just fill her own life. She filled ours.”

The event also marked the first presentation of the Electorate Community Service Award, presented to the Sunday Community Group, founded by a group of Foxground-based women, in recognition of their dedication to supporting those doing it tough in our own community.

“Establishing this award means we now have a permanent way to say thank you to the groups, not just the individuals, who hold our community together,” Ms McInerney said.

People join to give. Along the way, they receive things they never expected: skills they never set out to learn, mentors, friendships and places where they belong. Every one of the women honoured has made her community stronger, warmer and more able to care for its own.

Think about the women and girls in your own community groups who give their time, energy and care without seeking recognition. Nominate one of them for the next Hidden Treasures Honour Roll at hiddentreasures.awardsplatform.com. Nominations close 31 December. The form takes ten minutes. The hardest part is choosing just one name.

Did you expect more courage from Labor?

I did not vote Labor, but I had hopes for them.

Clear-eyed hopes. By their second term, Labor knew exactly what government demands. They knew the difference between a promise made in opposition and a decision made with power in their hands.

I still hoped they might mean it when they talked about ending the culture of secrecy and doing politics differently.

The Coalition earned the loss in 2022. Labor had since earned a second term. That gave them more than a mandate. It gave them a test of character.

Like every voter who is not rusted on, I was waiting for Labor to show me they had the courage to do the right thing when it cost them something.

Last week, the gambling advertising bill went into parliament.

And there was the answer.

The reforms offer a partial ban. Three ads an hour on daytime and evening television. A block during live sport between 6 am and 8.30 pm. Some limits on radio during the school run. Racing carved out. A start date of 1 January 2027, more than a thousand days after the government received the report that told it what needed to happen.

A report Labor commissioned.

You win some, you lose more, chaired by the late Peta Murphy, one of their own, made 31 recommendations and called clearly for a total ban, phased in over three years.

The government’s own advice says partial bans fail. They had the evidence in their hands. They had the case for full reform written for them. They had the moral argument laid out in plain sight.

And they chose the smaller path.

Anthony Albanese then defended the bill by saying it exceeds the Murphy recommendations.

It does nothing of the sort.

A government proud of its decision does not need a cover story.

The cover story is the admission.

Labor knows exactly how this looks. They know the gap between the evidence and the bill. They know the gap between the promise and the decision. They know the gap between what children and families need, and what the gambling industry can live with.

And they went ahead.

This is calculation dressed up as principle.

It would almost be easier if this were a simple grubby deal, a cheque here and a favour there. This is deeper than that. The dependency is built into the system.

The football codes run on gambling money. Commercial television runs on gambling advertising. A real ban would tear a hole in professional sport and free-to-air media at the same time.

Those are two rooms a government wants on side before an election.

That is the power this bill exposes. The easy reform, the popular reform, the evidence-backed reform, is the reform they stepped around because too many powerful interests had arranged themselves around the harm.

My disappointment sends me nowhere near One Nation. Anger that only wants to break things has no appeal to me. I have no interest in the politics of the wrecking ball.

But it will make me think very carefully about who gets my vote at the federal election.

The disappointment is larger than one bill.

Labor promised to be something different. They promised to be the party that had learned from the secrecy, arrogance and cynicism of the last government. They promised a different standard.

What this bill says to me is that the different standard applies when the cost is low.

Almost nothing worth doing comes without cost.

That is why this is more than a policy failure. It is a character question.

Character is revealed when the evidence is clear, when the harm is obvious, when the powerful rooms push back, and when a government has to decide whether it means what it said.

On gambling advertising, Labor has answered.

And yes other countries have had the courage

Italy banned gambling advertising outright in 2019. Belgium followed in 2023. Lithuania has gone further again. They have shown us what Labor could have/should have done.

The three ads an hour Labor is presenting as reform is the same number Lithuania allows only as a temporary step on the way to a full ban.

Lithuania also set aside four million euros to help broadcasters absorb the lost revenue.

None of those countries faced a softer lobby than ours. The sport and media money in Europe is bigger, not smaller.

They legislated anyway. Other countries had already shown the way. The evidence was there. The reform was available.

What was missing here was the will to act.

The Paddock That Grew Nothing

On why “save our farmland” is the wrong fight for the right reason.

Wollongong Railway Station, 1900.

Take a good look at that old photo of the railway station. Timber and tin, a scatter of weatherboard cottages, and open paddock rolling away in every direction. Now go and stand where the photographer stood. There isn’t a vacant block for miles. Every one of those paddocks filled in, one approval at a time, and nobody felt the loss on the day it happened. That’s how it always goes. The green doesn’t vanish in a single bad decision. It goes in slices, each one too small to argue about, until one day you look up and the hills have a rash.

The same station, 1920. Twenty years on

And it didn’t stop in 1920. Local residents Lesley East and Annette Young and their now husbands still remember driving into Wollongong in the early 1960s to see Psycho at the Regent Theatre on Keira Street, then a grand Art Deco picture palace only a few years old. They parked in a paddock right near the cinema. A paddock, in the middle of town. Today Wollongong is a city of more than 200,000 people, the Regent has been a church since 2005, Crown Street is a pedestrian mall, and the idea of an open field to leave your car in near the main street sounds like a tall tale. But that’s the whole point. Every one of those paddocks was “just one block” once.

Nobody stood in it the day it was lost.

So I have a lot of sympathy for the worry behind Graham Pike’s comment on one of my Catch-Up posts. He was referring to a development application on Minnamurra Lane, Jamberoo, a house and a farm shed on a vacant block, the one Cr Lawton sensibly sent off for a second look and independent legal advice at the May Council meeting. Here’s part of what he said:

“We might not be using the vacant lands or the land in question for food production right now. but most of these lands have been used for farming within the past century or less and, most importantly, we’ll need them for food production again as the human population, even in our area, increases uncontrollably and unsustainably and the resulting suburbanisation sprawls across and fragments this same agricultural/food producing land. The zoning of the land as RU1 or RU2 is a human construct and immaterial. It is still land that we have used and will in future need to use, if any is left uncovered by concrete and asphalt, for food production.” Graham Pike, Jamberoo

I’ve turned that over for days, because there’s a lot in it I agree with. The slow creep of houses and sheds across those hills is real. I’ve watched it happen. And his bigger worry, that we keep paving over the very ground we’ll need to feed ourselves one day, is a serious one.

In a later note, Graham went further and put his finger on what he sees as the root of it all: too many people. Human overpopulation, driving an economy that chews through the natural world. It’s a heartfelt view and plenty of thoughtful people share it.

That’s too big for me to sort out. What I’d say is simpler: whatever any of us thinks about how many people there ought to be, they’re already here. They were born, they need a roof, and saying “there are too many of them” doesn’t put one over a single head. So my mind goes to the thing we can actually do something about, which isn’t the number of people, but where they’re going to live.

The thing is, all that green didn’t go in one big decision anyone could point to. It went in slices, a block here, a shed there, each one too small to worry over on the day. Nobody ever stood up and voted to lose it. It just happened while we weren’t looking.

So maybe the better thing isn’t to fight every single house, but to decide on purpose where the houses should go, instead of letting them turn up one at a time until the hills are full again and we’re left wondering how.

And there’s a part of these “save our farmland” conversations that almost never gets said out loud. Farming is a business. For most farmers, the land isn’t only where they work. It’s the biggest thing they own, the nest egg meant to see them through old age after a lifetime of hard years and thin margins.

So when we say a paddock must stay green forever, I think we should stop and hear what we’re really asking. We’re asking that farmer, and only that farmer, to lock away the worth of their own land so the rest of us can enjoy the view on the drive past. A person in town can sell their house for whatever it’ll fetch. The farmer gets told their paddock is a community treasure and they ought to keep it green for a fraction of what it’s worth. I’m not sure that’s protecting farming. It feels more like asking one family to foot the bill for everyone else’s nice outlook.

I’ve stood on that side of the fence. I dairy farmed for decades, and I know what it is to look at a paddock and see both a lifetime’s work and the only retirement you’ve got. So I find myself asking the question that doesn’t get asked much: is that fair?

And it’s a slippery word, fair. Everyone in this thinks they’re on its side. The people in town feel it’s only fair the hills stay green, they get the view and lose nothing. The farmer feels it’s only fair they get to realise the worth of the land they’ve worked their whole life, the same as anyone else can with what they own. Both are sincere. Both are “fair.” They just can’t both have their way.

And it tends to be the farmer’s fairness that gets left out, because the farmer’s usually not in the room when the rest of us decide their paddock is too precious to touch.

So where does that leave me? Not where you might think. I’m not saying build everywhere. And I’m not saying the green hills don’t count, they’re a good part of why people love this place, and why the visitors come. The slow spread of sheds and houses across those ridgelines is real, and worth watching very closely.

But if we want our farmers to keep the hills green for the rest of us, the least we can do is be honest that we’re asking them to give something up, and decent enough to talk about who carries that cost rather than pretending it’s free.

Lock the gate on a farmer’s land and we haven’t saved farming. We’ve decided their retirement is a fair price for our view.

Good on Cr Lawton for asking for a proper look before anyone signs anything. That’s the kind of careful, eyes-open thinking this deserves, on this block and the next one. The conversation I’d like us to have isn’t “green or houses.” It’s “if we want the green, who pays for it, and is that fair on them?”

I don’t have a tidy answer. I’m not sure there is one. But I think we owe the farmers at least the courtesy of asking.

A note on the photos: I came across these two images on Facebook, where they were dated 1900 and 1920 and identified as Wollongong Railway Station. I haven’t been able to independently verify the dates or the photographer, so if anyone can confirm the details or knows the original source, I’d love to hear from you, please get in touch.

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.

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)

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.
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.
What you want changed or protected. Are you asking for something to be added? Removed? Better resourced? More transparent in its reporting? Be specific.
Why it counts. One or two sentences. This is your voice. Use everyday language.
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.

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

UPDATE – a great deal has happened since I wrote this post. A week can make a big diference to the political landcape. Get the lowdown here

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.

We live in a world where petrol prices have become our moral compass

There is something bleakly revealing that the NYTimes tell us pollsters are wondering whether petrol at more than US$4 a gallon will finally dent Donald Trump’s support. In the United States, the national average has just moved above that mark for the first time since 2022, driven by war with Iran and the disruption of oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz. Reuters reported the shift this week.

Think about what that says.

A president can help drag the world into another ruinous conflict. Thousands can die. Billions can be burned. The White House can be treated like a developer’s vanity project. Washington’s cultural and historic institutions can be pushed around as if they are items on a personal mood board. Yet the thing that may finally make the rusted on pause is the cost of filling the car.

This is hedonism. It is a form of citizenship so narrowed by self interest that mass suffering, public waste and institutional vandalism barely register until the pain arrives at the petrol bowser.

This week a federal judge halted Trump’s $400 million White House ballroom project, finding he lacked authority to push ahead without congressional approval. The project had already involved demolition of the East Wing and formed part of a broader push to remake Washington landmarks, including the Kennedy Center.

So this is the picture. A leader can preside over war abroad and grandiosity at home, and for many supporters the real test still comes down to whether the weekly drive costs a bit more.

In any rational world pollsters would focus on food prices. Food hits every household, whether they drive or not. But petrol has always had unusual political power because people see it in giant numbers on roadside signs. It is immediate, public and emotional. Pollsters know that. Politicians know that. It becomes shorthand for pain, even when far greater harms are unfolding in plain sight.

What if we put the weekly cost of bread, milk, fruit, school lunches and basic groceries on billboards the way we do petrol, and people might start talking about cost of living in a way that reflects actual life.

It would expose the absurdity, wouldn’t it.

So yes, there is something in that.

Petrol has political power partly because it is turned into public theatre. Food, even though it is more fundamental, stays tucked inside receipts, shopping trolleys and household stress.

If petrol prices are what finally cracks the rusted on, it will not be because they have reflected deeply on leadership, democracy or human suffering. It will be because the consequences have at last reached their own windscreen.