Tag: community trust

Are we being gaslit by our own Council?

Moving On Without Looking Back Isn’t Leadership. It’s Evasion.

There’s a growing call within Kiama Council to “move forward” on developer contributions, to focus on new frameworks, technical capabilities, and future improvements. That instinct is understandable. For newly elected councillors, the pressure to defend decisions they didn’t make must be exhausting. No one expects them to carry that weight alone.

But the issue here isn’t the future. It’s the refusal to face the past.

The latest Council report into Section 7.11 and 7.12 developer contributions presents itself as a review. It’s not. It’s an administrative summary, a carefully curated narrative that avoids the most troubling questions.

  • It does not explain why Council allowed legally required contribution plans to lapse without replacement.
  • It does not acknowledge the nearly $1 million in lost infrastructure funding from developments like Golden Valley. See previous blog post: How Kiama lost $970,000 in developer contributions and no one explained why
  • It does not explain why staff continued applying 7.11 levies after the plans had expired, resulting in $1.5 million in overcharges.
  • And it certainly does not address why this information was omitted from the CEO’s public statements earlier this year.

Instead, we are told that everything is under control. That staff have the skills to prepare new plans. That forward planning is happening “across all departments.”

But if no one inside Council can admit what went wrong, how can we trust that the same systems and staff will get it right this time?

While the report confirms the repeal of the 7.11 plans and notes that overcharges have been refunded, it still fails to address the most critical issues:

  • Why the required five-year review process was ignored

  • Why Council allowed the plans to lapse without any replacement

  • Why the Golden Valley development, with its $1 million 7.11 condition, is excluded entirely from the analysis

  • Why the CEO’s earlier response omitted this development

  • What steps are being taken to prevent this kind of governance failure from happening again

  • Why the review ignored key issues raised by councillors and the community, including those I raised in good faith

  • It also fails to acknowledge the damage caused when a CEO publicly undermines the credibility of an elected councillor, then commissions a review that examines only what suits the executive agenda. This was not a full or independent review. It was a tightly controlled exercise in reputation management, not truth-telling.

The people responsible for these failures should not be allowed to rewrite history with a few carefully worded lines in a report.

If Council is serious about moving forward with the community, it must first confront what went wrong, tell the truth, and start rebuilding trust from there.

BTW If you’ve ever read a council report and found yourself more confused than when you started, don’t worry, it’s not you. It’s working as intended.

#KiamaCouncil #AccountabilityMatters #DeveloperContributions #GoldenValley #PlanningFail #Governance #LocalGovernment #TransparencyNow #CommunityDeservesBetter #InfrastructureFunding

When leadership fails, culture tells the truth

As I’ve said before, you can do all the leadership training in the world. It doesn’t always make you a leader. But what it does do, importantly, is help you recognise the difference. It helps you identify real leaders when you see them. More importantly, it sharpens your ability to spot toxic cultures. It teaches you to recognise when someone has enough self-awareness to grow, and when someone doesn’t. And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

Leadership is hard. Public leadership is harder. But when harm is done, whether through action or silence, real leadership requires something more than defensiveness. It requires self-reflection.

If a CEO were to pause and look inward, here is what genuine self-awareness might sound like.

How did I get here?
I have spent my career navigating complicated political environments. I have seen corruption up close. I have worked in organisations where things went very wrong. I was not charged, but I was part of that system. I saw what unchecked power does. I know what it costs communities. I know what it costs people.

Did I bring that culture with me, even unknowingly?
Did I carry forward habits shaped by survival in a dysfunctional system? Did I seek control where I should have encouraged transparency? Have I mistaken compliance for leadership?

Have I confused being right with being in charge?
Leadership is not about managing perception. It is about creating space for accountability and trust. When people around me challenged decisions or asked difficult questions, did I see that as threat instead of engagement?

What role have I played in the harm others say they’ve experienced?
When people say they felt targeted, silenced, or undermined during my leadership, do I hear that as a personal attack or as something to sit with? Have I considered that harm does not require intention, that impact matters more than defence?

What am I afraid will happen if I admit I got it wrong?
Is it fear of looking weak? Fear of being held to account? Or is it fear of stepping into the unknown, into a space where control is replaced by vulnerability?

What would it look like to lead differently, now?
It would mean opening space for truth. It would mean commissioning an independent review. It would mean picking up the phone to those who were hurt and saying, “I want to understand.” It would mean listening, not defending. Owning, not spinning. Rebuilding, not retreating.

Because surviving a broken system is not the same as transforming one.

And if we do not break the cycle, we become it.

#LeadershipMatters #ToxicCulture #CouncilAccountability #TrueLeadership #CommunityWellbeing #EthicalGovernance #PublicTrust

Why I wouldn’t hire myself as CEO and why that matters

New here? Welcome.
This blog unpacks the inner workings of local democracy in the Kiama local government area. I am not a councillor or council staffer. I am a long-time community member, former civics writer for the local newspaper, and someone who has spent decades in leadership, founding a national charity, completing world-class leadership programs, and training hundreds of emerging changemakers.

What that experience gave me was not just confidence in my own skill set. It taught me something far more valuable. Great leadership is knowing what you bring to the table and then surrounding yourself with people who fill the gaps. It is building a team of “we” people, not “I” people. People who understand that progress is collaborative, that community outcomes are shared, and that leadership is not about being the smartest person in the room, but about listening to the smartest people in the room.

That is the standard we should expect from anyone who puts their hand up to lead.

This blog exists to ask hard questions, share hard truths, and shine a light where it is most needed.

Why I wouldn’t hire myself as CEO and why that matters

For 20 years, I led a charity that offered leadership training to hundreds of emerging voices across rural and regional Australia. I have completed extraordinary programs from the Melbourne Business School to global executive intensives and yet I still would not hire myself as the CEO of a major organisation.

Why? Because those courses taught me something uncomfortable and essential. Great leadership is not about confidence. It is about having the capacity to recognise the people who can deliver the outcomes our community deserves, and, most importantly, to identify the “I” people. The ones who have not done the work and do not understand what shared leadership truly means.

This matters because communities pay the price when leadership becomes about ego.

“I” people focus on self-preservation, not solutions. They stall progress, weaken trust, and erode the culture of shared responsibility. Real leadership ensures the right people are empowered, the community’s needs are prioritised, and decisions are guided by collaboration rather than personal ambition.

What I find deeply troubling is this. In all my observations of Kiama Municipal Council, I am not seeing anyone who has put themselves forward for any form of recognised leadership training. Not one. And we are expected to trust them to lead a one hundred million dollar organisation.

That is not brave. That is not capable. That is reckless.

So what should we look for in a 21st century leader, especially one applying to run a council?

Here is the skill set I believe should be non-negotiable.

  • Emotional intelligence and self-awareness

  • Systems thinking

  • Stakeholder engagement

  • Adaptive leadership

  • Transparency and accountability

  • Public value mindset

  • Commitment to lifelong learning

Let us stop accepting untrained leadership as good enough.

If you were hiring a surgeon, you would check their qualifications. If you were hiring a pilot, you would want to know they had done the flight hours. But with leadership, qualifications alone are not enough. The real test is capacity, the ability to bring people together, set a clear direction, and deliver outcomes with integrity.

Why should the CEO of a local government, responsible for planning, services, staff culture, finances, and infrastructure, be held to a lower standard? Communities need leaders who can demonstrate both the knowledge and the skill to lead, not simply hold a credential or a title. Anything less puts the community at risk.

It is time we asked for more. And it starts by asking one simple question.
Is the leadership we have what our community needs and deserves?

#LeadershipMatters #PublicLeadership #LocalGovernment #KiamaCouncil #CivicAccountability #CommunityFirst #EthicalLeadership