Tag: Community Engagement

Are councils across New South Wales reclassifying community land by stealth?

Shoalhaven Council’s decision to reclassify land used by a homeless shelter, youth centre and disability services made me wonder whether this was an isolated decision. It is not. Across New South Wales, councils under financial pressure are reviewing the land they own, changing some properties from community land to operational land and creating the legal pathway for sale, redevelopment or longer commercial leases.

The language sounds administrative. Its effect can be substantial. Under the Local Government Act, council-owned land is generally classified as either community land or operational land. Community land has been set aside for public use. It can include parks, sporting grounds, natural areas and buildings used for community purposes. It must be managed under a plan of management and cannot simply be sold.

Operational land has far fewer restrictions. It can be leased commercially, redeveloped or sold. Reclassification does not automatically mean that a property will be sold, though it removes one of the major legal barriers preventing a sale.

That distinction became important in Shoalhaven this week. The council voted to proceed with the reclassification of several properties used by community organisations, including Safe Shelter Shoalhaven, Nowra Youth Centre, Noah’s Inclusion Services and Werninck Craft Cottage.

Safe Shelter Shoalhaven provides crisis accommodation for up to 12 people experiencing homelessness. The youth centre provides a place for young people. Noah’s Inclusion Services supports children with disabilities and their families. These are not vacant blocks tucked behind a council depot. People are using them.

The ABC reported that the organisations learned their properties were being considered only when the council report became public. The council’s chief executive apologised for the lack of consultation. Shoalhaven Council manages more than 3,100 parcels of land. About 1,700 are already classified as operational. Its property sales program includes isolated and underused land, land with strategic development potential and what it describes as underperforming community facilities. Council says community land must first be reclassified before it can be sold.

The question is not whether councils should ever sell land. Councils acquire properties for many reasons. Some become surplus. A small block may have no public access. A former depot may no longer be required. Selling genuinely unused land can release money for services or infrastructure the community values more.

The problem starts when council looks at a building and sees only the land beneath it. A homeless shelter occupies a valuable site. A youth centre brings in little income. A disability service fails the spreadsheet test. The market calls that underperformance. The people who rely on those places may call it the difference between being supported and being abandoned.

Central Coast Council offers one of the clearest examples of how financial crisis can turn public land into a source of emergency cash. After the council’s financial collapse in 2020, administrators began an extensive asset sales program. Properties were divided into those already classified as operational land and those requiring reclassification before sale.

Council reports openly stated that some community land would be reclassified and sold for no less than market value.

The council knew the process could take up to 18 months, with public exhibition and formal planning approvals along the way. This was not a debate about the future of public land. It was a plan to raise cash.

Kiama followed a different path with Blue Haven Bonaira. The land contained a modern aged-care and retirement complex completed in 2019. It had become community land by default because the council failed to classify it as operational within the required period after acquiring it.

The Blue Haven Bonaira case shows why every reclassification deserves to be judged on its own facts. This was not a neighbourhood hall or a sporting field. It was an aged-care facility built with substantial public investment that also included the heritage-listed Barroul House. The project later became central to Kiama Council’s financial crisis after the Auditor-General found construction costs had been underestimated by around $30 million. Council argued the land had become community land through an administrative oversight and that reclassification corrected its legal status. Community submissions took a different view, arguing that the public investment and heritage value strengthened the case for keeping the land protected. Whatever position people took, reclassification was the legal step that made the eventual sale possible.

Sutherland Shire Council offers another scenario. When it proposed reclassifying land at North Cronulla Surf Life Saving Club, community consultation led to a narrower approach. Only the part of the site containing commercial tenancies was reclassified, while the rest remained community land. Instead of treating the whole property as a single financial asset, the council separated the income-producing area from the part used for community purposes.

Sutherland Shire Council showed that reclassification does not have to be an all-or-nothing decision. After consultation, it reclassified only the commercial section of the North Cronulla Surf Life Saving Club site and kept the rest as community land. That is the broader lesson. Councils can separate the parts of a property that generate income from the parts that serve the public. Reclassification should not become a blunt instrument for turning an entire community asset into something easier to sell.

Shoalhaven’s decision is not just about one council or one group of community organisations. It raises a broader question about how councils plan for the future.

Kiama’s experience is a reminder of what can happen when long-term asset management falls behind. After selling Blue Haven Bonaira to deal with one financial crisis, the council is now facing more than $50 million in identified upgrades at its remaining aged-care facilities, including major fire safety works.

Every council faces ageing infrastructure and rising costs. Community assets will sometimes need to be sold. The question is whether those decisions are part of a long-term strategy or whether they are being made one property at a time as the next financial pressure arrives.

Communities deserve that conversation before their local hall, youth centre, homeless shelter or disability service appears on a list. Once it does, planning has already failed and the community is left fighting to save what council should have planned to protect.

This article is part of a series examining the decisions that shape our communities long before most people hear about them. I am following the stories behind local government decisions to better understand how public assets are managed, how communities are involved and what those decisions mean for future generations. See my first blog in the series here 

The question Shoalhaven has every NSW community asking

Shoalhaven Council has voted to reclassify a group of council properties from community land to operational land, opening the way for them to be sold. Some of those buildings are used by a homeless shelter, a youth centre and disability services. The organisations affected reportedly learned their buildings were on the list only when the council report became public. I have spent years arguing that governments should speak to the people affected before making decisions. So my first question was simple. How does that happen?

If a homeless shelter, a youth service or a disability organisation is using a council building every day, how do they not get a phone call saying, “We’re under enormous financial pressure and we’re looking at every option. We need to talk.”

Maybe there is an explanation. I want to hear it. Yes a number of Councils are under enormous financial pressure. They are expected to deliver more services, maintain more assets and somehow make the numbers add up. I don’t envy them.

What I do struggle with is a decision-making process that appears to leave the people most affected reading about their future in a council agenda. That isn’t how trust is built.

My community  has seen this in action. People in Kiama have already watched community land become operational land before it was sold. We know these decisions divide communities because we’ve lived through one ourselves.

That made me wonder whether Shoalhaven is an isolated case, or whether we’re seeing the beginning of a much bigger trend across New South Wales. That’s what I’m going to find out.

This is the first of three articles. The next one looks at other councils that have reclassified community land and asks whether a precedent is emerging.

The third asks the question sitting underneath all of this. Why are councils reaching this point in the first place?

This article is part of a series examining the decisions that shape our communities long before most people hear about them. I am following the stories behind local government decisions to better understand how public assets are managed, how communities are involved and what those decisions mean for future generations. See my second blog in the series here 

Governments created the trust crisis feeding far right politics

Governments have worn people down by asking for their views and ignoring what they hear.

Kiama Council’s draft engagement strategy shows how the pattern works. It uses the language of participation, then says the community will rarely be given influence because councillors make the final decisions.

That is democracy reduced to voting day.

In a true democracy councillors can make a community informed final decision after they have helped the community define the question, examine the evidence and develop the options. Instead, residents are too often invited in after the answer has already been decided..

I have watched this model play out in consultation after consultation. Residents read the documents, give up their time, write detailed submissions backed by evidence and explain how a proposal will affect their lives and their community.

Council thanks them for participating, then adopts a policy that looks almost exactly as it did before the process began.

All we were offered was an opportunity to comment on someone else’s answer.

We elect people to represent us. They set priorities, approve policies, question advice and vote on decisions. They also choose what kind of relationship they have with the community.

You cannot represent people unless you are prepared to have conversations with them.

A conversation begins early. Elected representatives explain the problem, share the evidence, listen to the people affected, test assumptions and ask questions. They explain the competing pressures, show what changed because people participated and give clear reasons for the decision they make.

When that relationship breaks down, the damage spreads beyond council chambers.

People who lose trust in those they elected become more willing to listen to someone promising to sweep the whole system aside.

Their hero on the white horse. Someone who says the institutions have failed, the usual rules are useless and only they have the strength or courage to act. They offer simple answers to complex problems, blame a clear enemy and ask people to trust the person rather than the process.

Calling voters ignorant is easier than admitting elected representatives stopped listening. Blaming social media is easier than examining years of predetermined decisions, staged consultation and carefully controlled public meetings.

People turn towards political extremes because they are desperate to feel represented by someone.

Elected representatives have helped create the conditions in which far right groups grow. They cannot dismiss that rise as a failure of intelligence or judgement among voters.

This is also where government loses one of its most useful sources of information. A trusted consultation process allows elected representatives to read the room, hear what people are experiencing, test whether a proposal will achieve its purpose and adjust before damage is done.

Kiama Council’s Draft Community Engagement Strategy 2026 to 2030 adopts the International Association for Public Participation spectrum. It lists co-design, working groups, deliberative forums, consensus conferences and citizens’ juries.

Then it says the empower level will rarely be used because councillors make the final decisions. What do you make of that?

The methods are listed. The strategy does not say when council will use them. Without clear triggers, councillors can continue accepting another survey, another exhibition and another invitation to comment on a proposal already framed by staff.

In my submission, I asked council to identify which decisions will involve collaboration, co-design or deliberative participation.

I asked council to begin those processes early enough for the community to help define the problem.

I asked council to publish the engagement level chosen for each major project and explain why, set clear triggers for citizens’ juries, deliberative forums, working groups and co-design, and report what changed because people participated.

Kiama also has access to expertise through Twyfords, based in this region. Vivien Twyford and her colleagues helped establish the Australasian chapter of the International Association for Public Participation and build the use of the IAP2 model in Australia.

Twyfords helps organisations and communities explore an issue together, understand competing pressures and define the dilemma before developing responses. That experience addresses the gap in the draft strategy.

Council has named the methods. Twyfords understands when to use them, how early the process should begin and how to design engagement that earns trust.

The organisation also knows Kiama, its history, relationships, tensions and different communities of place.

The draft uses the language around consultation while leaving the existing decision-making model intact.

Elected people created this trust crisis.

They can fix it by returning democracy to what it is meant to be, people governing together through representatives who listen, explain, involve and remain accountable for the decisions they make

Here comes Pollyanna

I’ve just had a big birthday. The kind with a zero in it. You move into a new decade whether you’re ready or not.

Walking into the restaurant, half a dozen people I wasn’t dining with wished me happy birthday. That’s a small town for you. I’m noisy in this community. I have opinions, I used to write for the paper, and everybody knows what I think. Every time we have an election, people are convinced I’m standing for council. Apparently I’m just what council needs.

This post challenges that idea. Our community doesn’t need me. One person can’t deliver what this community deserves, and neither can nine. It needs an engaged community working together, not keyboard warriors: informed people with the skills to make sure the bureaucrats are working for us.

Around my own table were Greens, Labor supporters, independents and friends who had stood for council themselves. Between us we had campaigned, letterboxed, handed out how-to-vote cards and argued for change across more elections than any of us cared to count. If anyone in this district believed in democracy, it was us.

For the record, I’ve never voted for a party in my life. I vote for the person. Over the years that has meant I have voted Liberal, National, Labor, Greens and independent.

The talk turned to council. A councillor had resigned, and the by-election to replace him will cost ratepayers about $200,000. Our council is broke. That’s $200,000 it doesn’t have. The question went around the table: what could one councillor achieve when the bureaucrats seem to have the rest under their thumb?

This is how bad it is. I know our councillors. That’s what my year at the paper gave me. They spend a lot of time on social media trying to work out what the community cares about. So they’re hearing the loud voices, and like most communities, we have plenty of loud voices who all want different things.

I said I’d love to see us try what a district in north-east Victoria did. Build the community first. Find out what people want. Learn to solve problems together, and worry about who to elect after that.

One of my oldest friends smiled and said, “Here comes Pollyanna.”

I know her well enough to understand what she meant by that. Her focus was looking after her friend. She knows what twenty years of heart and soul in agriculture, encouraging people to believe we’re all in this together and the win-win is there if we go after it, had cost my mental health. I had witnessed failure first hand, and neither of us wanted a repeat. That’s how much my friends care. So I listen. I came home and had a big think about whether she was right.

This post is the big think. It ends in an electorate nobody at my dinner mentioned.

In December 2012, a small group from north-east Victoria got eleven minutes with their federal member, Sophie Mirabella. The meeting ended when she told them, “The people of Indi aren’t interested in politics.”

Her district knew her by then. She had boycotted the Apology to the Stolen Generations. She had stood beside Tony Abbott in front of the “Ditch the Witch” signs. Neither time did she ask her community what they thought. They had a member who didn’t speak for them.

They went home and proved her wrong.

The push had started with two young people who grew up in the district and moved to Melbourne for work, because they believed there was nothing at home for them. They decided to do something about it. The generation who had stayed backed them: young people with the idea, older people with the networks and the skills. Between them they ran hundreds of kitchen table conversations, asking what people wanted for the region.

And they argued. Some of the group wanted a seat at the table in Canberra. Others wanted the focus on the community itself. It was the same argument we had at my birthday dinner. Then they did what makes this movement so smart. They agreed to disagree and kept working, until they were confident the community was engaged and that a tilt at the seat was what the community wanted.

Before the 2013 election they wrote down what success looked like: engaged community members turning a safe seat into a marginal one. Winning came last on their own list of aims.

They won anyway. They unseated a frontbencher. They kept meeting between elections. When Cathy McGowan retired, the community chose Helen Haines, and the seat has now been theirs across five elections.

Hardly anyone in New South Wales has heard of Indi, and I’ve come to think that is the strength of it. They did it for the district, not for the fame.

My friend is right. People are hard to organise. Indi is proof that hard and impossible are different words.

It also helped me work out what all the council talk is about. When my neighbours decide I’m standing, it’s the habit we’ve all fallen into: find one noisy person, hand them the problem, and wait. Indi swapped that habit for a better one: believe you can do it yourselves.

We’re already proud of where we live. Imagine being proud of what we build together. Our dry stone walls have stood for a hundred and fifty years. They’re under threat and the reason they’re still standing is our community made it clear it cares about them. What we love survives because we stand up for it. That is true of walls, and it’s true of towns.

The people who wrote Indi’s story down ask a question.

“Have you wondered who is hearing your voice, listening to your community?”

My answer is the power is in your hands, too

So Pollyanna has a question of her own. Why does organising ourselves sound less realistic than spending another $200,000 on another election?

Why councils confuse consultation with engagement

Community engagement vs community consultation are often treated as the same thing in local government, but they operate very differently in practice.

The difference shapes who holds power, when decisions crystallise, and why trust either grows or collapses.

Communities know the difference, even when councils pretend not to.

What community consultation actually does in practice

Community consultation usually begins after key decisions have already taken shape.

A proposal exists.

Timelines are set.

Constraints are fixed.

Institutions then ask for feedback within those boundaries. People respond through surveys, drop in sessions, or submissions. The process records participation. As a result, the project proceeds, sometimes with small adjustments.

Consultation can be genuine. Even so, it remains narrow by design. It collects opinion rather than shared understanding. Because of that, disagreement often gets framed as resistance. Frustration follows, on both sides.

Community consultation answers one question, what do people think about this?

What community engagement looks like in practice

Community engagement starts earlier and runs deeper.

Engagement involves listening before options are fixed. It brings people into defining the problem, not simply reacting to a solution. It recognises local knowledge and lived experience, including impacts that reports often miss.

Because engagement unfolds over time, it requires continuity and trust. At the same time, it demands that institutions accept discomfort. Engagement does not promise agreement. Instead, it builds legitimacy.

Community engagement answers a different question, how do we understand this together?

Why the two keep getting blurred

Institutions often default to consultation because it feels safer. It fits legal requirements, procurement cycles, and delivery schedules.

In contrast, engagement shifts control. It exposes assumptions. It slows momentum. It makes power visible.

So consultation gets relabelled as engagement, even when nothing structural changes.

What good engagement shows on the ground

Strong engagement appears in ordinary, practical ways.

Early conversations.

Clear explanation of limits.

Feedback that explains what changed and why.

Ongoing presence rather than one off events.

People may still disagree. However, they understand the process, the trade offs, and their place within it.

Consultation seeks permission. Engagement earns confidence.

Communities know the difference immediately.

Links

NSW Department of Planning guidance on community engagement

IAP2 Australasia Core Values for Public Participation

 

 

 

 

 

“We’ve Already Told You Once:” Kiama Council’s Bizarre Response to CCTV Questions”

You couldn’t make this up……

Last week we were talking about Council silence on the CCTV issue. This week, out comes a media release titled “CCTV in Kiama and Public Vandalism”  complete with a reminder that “we’ve already told you this once.”

Apparently, we’re all meant to have memorised the August business papers.

For those catching up, Council’s CCTV along Terralong Street has been broken since a storm. in 2024 It hasn’t been repaired, and they’re now seeking grant funding to replace it. Meanwhile, vandalism across the LGA has increased, including toilets, post boxes, and disability-access facilities, one repair alone costing $8,000.

So after a week of public chatter about missing cameras and mixed priorities, Council has spoken, by telling us off.

Maybe they’re right. Maybe we should have paid closer attention.
Or maybe, when the community has to raise an issue twice before it’s addressed, it says something about who’s actually listening.

#KiamaCouncil #CCTV #LocalGovernment #CommunityVoice #Accountability #PublicSafety #CivicEngagement #Transparency

Local democracy shouldn’t feel like defiance

Why did it have to come to this

That’s the question I keep circling back to.

 Why was it necessary to write a blog post in the first place?

Why did councillors feel they couldn’t speak freely?

Why was silence the safest option for so many, when the real damage was being done out in the open?

 If local democracy was working as it should, none of this would’ve been needed. There would have been transparency from the beginning. There would have been open dialogue between council and community. And there would have been clear lines between power and accountability—not blurred ones.

But the moment I stepped into a role that involved naming what I saw and asking questions about how power operates, it became clear what kind of culture I was stepping into.

I’m not brave. I’m persistent.

And I’m someone who understands the value of truth, even when it’s inconvenient.

 Anyone stepping into a civic reporting role, especially in a small town, should expect to be met with pushback. But what they shouldn’t expect is silence from those with the power to make things better.

I wrote because I believe in democratic process.

Because I believe a community has a right to know how decisions are made, who is making them, and whether the process is fair.

 This shouldn’t require courage. It should be normal.

It should be part of how our systems work.

Instead, we have a system where saying something out loud feels like an act of defiance.

 I spoke up because I care too much to pretend nothing is wrong.

 And here’s the thing: if someone is willing to put in the hours, do the reading, follow the trail of decisions and connect the dots – why would anyone think they’re going to give up now?

#Kiama #RegionalMedia #CivicVoice #CommunityAdvocacy #LocalDemocracy #IndependentJournalism #GrassrootsLeadership #DoDemocracyDifferently

It’s not about heroes, it’s about all of us

This is a series for anyone who’s ever asked, What’s really going on in local government or why does this feel so hard to follow?

Reading my blogs takes you behind the scenes of local government, community advocacy, and the stories that don’t always make it into the minutes. It’s a mix of personal reflection, plain-English explanations, and shared learning – all with one goal in mind: to help more people feel confident, connected, and capable of being part of the change.

Whether you’re on the front line or watching from the stands, you’re welcome here. We all have a part to play.

My aim has always been to give others the confidence to ask questions, challenge what doesn’t make sense, and speak up when something’s not right. Not everyone needs to write or speak publicly. Not everyone wants to. That’s fine.

This is more like a surf club or a fire brigade. Not everyone is on the front line, but everyone has a role. It might be helping with background research, sharing minutes from a meeting, keeping an eye on council papers, or simply encouraging someone else to keep going.

This kind of community work isn’t about heroes. It’s about habits. It’s about people doing what they can, where they are, with what they’ve got.

If you’ve been watching from the sidelines and wondering how to get more involved, maybe this is your moment. If you’ve got time, skills, insight or even just interest, I’d love to hear from you.

We can do this together, because it matters.

#ReadingTheBlogs #CivicsMadeSimple #WeAllHaveARole #LocalGovernmentMatters #CommunityVoices #Kiama #InformedTogether

We don’t need a hero. We need collaborative leadership.

Most of my recent writing has focused on the Kiama Council Section 7.11 development contributions issue “How Kiama lost $970,000 in developer contributions and no one explained why”

Today I’m stepping slightly to the side, not away, to show how that issue fits into a broader pattern. Because what’s happening with Section 7.11 is not an isolated event. It is a symptom of a deeper cultural problem in how Kiama Council handles complexity, conflict and community trust.

These moments of tension, whether it is development contributions or surf club leases, often follow the same script. And the script is familiar to anyone who has studied leadership dynamics or conflict psychology.

The Gerringong Surf Life Saving Club issue in the Kiama local government area has become a textbook example of the Karpman Drama Triangle. A well-intentioned community concern has been turned into a stage production. The roles are locked in. The hero has claimed their spotlight. The victim is entrenched. And the villains? They shift by the day.

The moment someone questions the process or raises a legitimate concern, they are quickly cast in that villain role. Not because they are wrong, but because they interrupt the script. We have seen this dynamic before. And we will keep seeing it if we do not name it for what it is.

This is not about surf clubs. This is about how we lead.

At the last Kiama Council meeting, Councillor Imogen Draisma supported Motion 20.1 relating to the Gerringong Surf Life Saving Club. It was an emotionally charged moment, and like many, she likely acted with good intent.

But the motion itself was deeply complex. It involved land classification, leasing laws, native title implications and long-term planning risks, issues that most people in the Kiama local government area have not been given the time or information to fully understand.

Now, that decision has resulted in her integrity being questioned in state parliament.

This is exactly what happens when we let the Drama Triangle run the show. Someone is cast as the hero. Someone becomes the victim. And someone else gets labelled the villain, often unfairly.

It stops being about good governance. It becomes performance.

And good people become collateral damage.

More and more, the front and centre issues in the Kiama local government area are being played out through this lens, public theatre that pulls us into binary roles and distracts us from the real work of governance. The Section 7.11 development contributions issue is another clear example. Rather than work through complexity, we are fed simplified narratives that cast people as saviours or saboteurs.

It is too easy to get caught in it. The Drama Triangle has a gravity of its own. One person steps in to save the day. Another is painted as the problem. The community becomes the audience, applauding the performance but not always understanding what is at stake backstage.

But it does not have to be this way.

What if we stepped outside the triangle?
What if we paused before playing out the roles handed to us?
What if we chose something different?

In the Kiama local government area, we have the opportunity to lead in a more collaborative way. To slow down. To listen. To ask better questions. And to remind ourselves that not every story needs a hero, a victim and a villain.

Sometimes it just needs a group of people willing to work together, with honesty and respect, to get to the heart of the matter.

Let’s try more of that.

#Kiama #KiamaCouncil #LocalGovernment #LeadershipMatters #CollaborativeLeadership #CommunityTrust #DramaTriangle #PublicEngagement #Section711 #GerringongSLSC