Tag: Public Trust

Dolly did it and other modern defences


When I was growing up one of Mary-Anne Fahey’s characters in The Comedy Company was a mischievous three-year-old named Jophesine.

Whenever she was accused of doing something wrong, Jophesine had her defence ready.

“I didn’t do it. Dolly did it.”

It was funny because she was three. Less amusing is the realisation that absolving ourselves of responsibility now appears to be a key driver of everyday life.

We have developed more sophisticated language than Jophesine, of course. We blame the system, the market, the government, the previous government, consumer demand, inadequate funding, misleading advertising, our parents or the person who failed to stop us.

Dolly has acquired an impressive number of job titles.

A recent opinion article in The New York Times tells the story of Bryce Martinez, who was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and fatty liver disease at 16.

Martinez had developed obesity early in childhood. He grew up eating much of what the American food system made affordable and convenient. Sugary cereals, school lunches of pizza and burgers, ready-made meals, juice pouches, chips and ice cream were part of his everyday diet.

At 18, he sued 11 major food manufacturers. He argued that their ultra-processed products had been engineered to encourage overconsumption, marketed to children and had caused his illnesses.

The case was dismissed because the judge found insufficient evidence connecting particular products with Martinez’s illnesses. His lawyers intend to appeal, and similar cases are being brought against food companies across the United States.

The article argues that litigation may succeed where governments have failed. It compares these cases with the decades of legal action against tobacco companies that eventually exposed what the industry knew about addiction, cancer and marketing to children.

It is a powerful comparison. Food manufacturers have enormous resources and an extraordinary understanding of flavour, brain chemistry, advertising and consumer behaviour. If companies have deliberately designed products to override appetite signals and then marketed those products to children, they should be held accountable.

Martinez had very limited agency. He did not buy the groceries, formulate the products, design the school menu, write the advertising or regulate food additives. His parents worked full-time and relied on food that was affordable, available and quick to prepare.

Food companies, schools and governments therefore hold a greater share of responsibility, especially where products were deliberately engineered and marketed to encourage overconsumption.

Greater responsibility, however, is not exclusive responsibility.

The article presents responsibility as though it must belong either to the individual or to the food companies. Once it is transferred entirely to the company, everyone else in the chain can quietly leave the room.

The child can blame the parents. The parents can blame the manufacturer. The manufacturer can blame consumer demand. Retailers can blame price pressures. Schools can blame their budgets. Governments can blame insufficient evidence.

Then we can all go home satisfied that Dolly did it.

Type 2 diabetes also resists a single explanation. Diet and physical activity can contribute significantly, but so can genetics, age, ethnicity, family history and social and economic circumstances. Finding one contributor does not remove every other person or institution from the picture.

Agriculture has its own version of the Jophesine defence.

Farmers regularly tell governments and the community, “You can trust us to do the right thing.”

Then governments introduce laws covering firearms, land clearing, animal welfare, chemical use or environmental protection, and agriculture argues that the entire sector is being punished for the behaviour of a minority.

Sometimes that criticism is justified. Poorly designed regulation can burden responsible farmers without addressing the behaviour that prompted it.

But agriculture also has to confront the question beneath the regulation. What happens when enough people fail to exercise the responsibility they say should be left with them? At what point does legislation become the consequence of our collective failure to govern ourselves?

We cannot ask to be trusted and then insist that every failure belongs to somebody else.

The same question reaches well beyond food and farming. We can hold corporations accountable without pretending consumers have no agency. We can recognise the constraints facing parents without treating every decision as inevitable. We can regulate harmful behaviour without assuming legislation removes our responsibility to make better choices.

Responsibility is not a parcel passed along the chain until it reaches the person with the deepest pockets. Several people and institutions can hold it at the same time, in different proportions according to their power, knowledge and choices.

Perhaps the real test is not, “Who can I blame?”

It is, “Given the power and choices I had, what part of this belonged to me?”

 

When democracy means more than Council making the decisions

In a previous post I wrote about  the difference between community consultation and community engagement. They are not the same thing, no matter how often the words get swapped around.

Community consultation and community engagement are not the same thing, no matter how often the words get swapped around.

Kiama Council has adopted the IAP2 Public Participation Spectrum as its model for community engagement. It is a useful spectrum because it makes one thing very clear. How much say are you actually giving people?

IAP2 level What Council does What it means for the community
Inform Provides information We will tell you what is happening
Consult Asks for feedback We will ask what you think
Involve Works with the community as options develop We will work through it with you
Collaborate Partners with the community in developing solutions We will develop the answer together
Empower Places the final decision with the community You make the decision

IAP2 is about the role the community gets to play before a decision is made, and who decides what that role will be.

IAP2 is not a campaign to abolish elected representatives and hand every Council decision to a show of hands in Hindmarsh Park. It is about the role the community gets to play before a decision is made, and who decides what that role will be.

Kiama Council says it has adopted the IAP2 Public Participation Spectrum. Well, sort of. It has adopted a Kiama Council version of it, particularly at the pointy end. How much say are you actually prepared to give people?

Council explains its approach to Empower in its own community engagement document. In effect, you elected us, so we’ll handle the democracy from here.

Kiama Council is currently recruiting a new Manager Communications, Engagement & Customer Service. I am looking forward to seeing who gets the job.

I am not interested in whether they can run a survey, organise a drop-in session or put something on Your Say Kiama. Those are tools. I want to know what they think community engagement is.

Do they see IAP2 as a way to tell residents what Council is doing and collect feedback, or as a framework for giving the community a genuine role in defining problems, developing options and influencing decisions?

The community deserves to know who gets invited in, when they get invited in, what they can change and what Council promises to do with what it hears.

The appointment will tell us plenty. Good community engagement starts with deciding how much say you are prepared to give the community.

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

Agriculture talks about the burden of regulation. Fewer talk about the licence it already holds: public trust.

FI have a rule about agricultural stories on LinkedIn. I keep scrolling, unless Karin Stark wrote them.

Last week I broke it.

The post asked why any young person would choose agriculture when farming often feels like a fight with government.

That caught my eye, because the young farmers I know are still choosing it. Succession. Land prices. The money it takes to get started. Those are the barriers in my part of the world. Agriculture here is also attracting young women from urban areas, women who have chosen farming with their eyes open.

Then came the line that sent me in a different direction.

No other industry or profession has to put up with this.

Plenty of industries do. We all live with forms of social control every day. We have licences to drive. Permits to renovate. Working with Children Checks to volunteer at the school canteen. Certificates to serve alcohol. Council approvals for sheds. Dogs are registered and microchipped. A council ranger can fine you for walking one in the wrong place or leaving its mess behind.

Most of us renew permissions all the time.

Farming is different.

A person can buy land tomorrow and call themselves a farmer. Farmers work inside rules, inspections and regulations, but the occupation itself has very little formal licensing. No registration board. No annual renewal. No professional body that can take the title away.

As a dairy farmer, I was licensed under food safety laws. That licence covers what I produce rather than me. Farmers who use restricted chemicals need accreditation. Water has rules. Chemicals have rules. Food safety has rules.

Farmers did the training. We learned the rules. Then we went further. We brought in accredited specialists, precision technology and contractors who could put the right product in the right place. This morning, a contractor’s drone was working in the paddocks outside my front window. This is modern farming too. Training. Skill. Technology. Rules taken seriously.

When a clear standard is set, farmers usually meet it. Often they go past it.

The licence still sits mostly on the product, the chemical, the water or the process. The person doing the farming carries something else. Public trust.

The public trusts us to manage land, draw water, run animals and produce food. That trust has no renewal date. It has no form to fill in. It has no annual fee.

It can feel like freedom, until public trust shifts. Anyone who watched the live export debate knows how quickly that can happen.

Before I came back to farming, I was a community pharmacist. Pharmacists renew their registration every year. They have to show they are fit to practise and prove their professional development hours. The annual renewal can be annoying, and it also keeps the profession’s standing current.

Pharmacists also pay a serious annual levy to the Pharmacy Guild. In all my years behind the counter, I rarely heard pharmacists complain about it. They could see what it bought.

The Guild has delivered five-year Community Pharmacy Agreements under governments of both colours. It has kept location rules in place in a way few small business sectors have managed. Its method is simple. A pharmacist in every electorate. A relationship with the local MP. Clear requests. Pressure used carefully.

The noise stays in reserve. That is why the threat of it counts.

A strong lobby lets its members get on with their business while skilled people handle the influencing.

I want that for farmers.

Twenty-five years ago I came back to farming, and land clearing was the argument of the day. Peak bodies answered aerial mapping with press releases. Too often, they still reach for the same tools. Press release. Rebuttal. Rally. Submission.

Those tools have their place. They are not a strategy on their own.

Influence is a skill. It can be learned. And the research is consistent: people trust people. They are wary of institutions. A farmer telling their own story will always be more convincing than a spokesperson reading a statement.

Through Action4Agriculture we spent years training young people in agriculture as their own spokespeople. We brought in experts from around the world to teach it. The skills are available. Agriculture has invested in many things before investing in its people.

Members can see activity more easily than they can see influence. A rally looks like action. Quiet influence is harder to put in a newsletter. The risk is that organisations start proving they are busy, rather than showing what has changed.

The lobbies that win in this country often make less noise. The Pharmacy Guild. The clubs. The mining industry. The property lobby. People may have strong views about whether those groups serve the public interest. They know how influence works. They know who to talk to and when to move. They know when a public campaign helps and when it harms.

Agriculture starts with something many of those industries will never have. People still have genuine affection for farmers.

Farmers are trusted in rural electorates. They have the stories. They understand the land. They can explain what is at stake better than anyone sitting in an office far from the paddock.

The decision-makers are knowable. MPs, advisers, departments, councils, agencies, journalists and community leaders can be reached when the industry is disciplined about who speaks, what is being asked for, and why it matters.

Too often, peak bodies stand between farmers and decision-makers, speaking over both.

Influence is a skill. It can be learned. I spent years running a national program that taught young people in agriculture how influence is built. We brought in experts from around the world to teach it. The skills are available. Agriculture has invested in many things before investing properly in that.

Every farmer I raise this with points to the same problem. Fragmentation. Cotton, dairy, grain, livestock, irrigators, dryland farmers, each with its own body, board, chair and table.

Farmers have seen this before. Dairy deregulation. Processor mergers. Banks leaving town. Bigger and fewer has often meant further away and less accountable. That concern comes from experience.

Perhaps the starting point is making better use of the structures agriculture already has.

The National Farmers’ Federation exists. State farming bodies exist. Commodity bodies exist. The challenge is getting them to speak with one clear voice when it counts.

Three state farming bodies recently found that voice on water. That points to what is possible.

Joining forces one issue at a time can win a round. The harder task is turning that discipline into a habit, so agriculture is heard before the fight begins, rather than once everyone has retreated to their own corner.

I do not have the full answer.

Agriculture has trusted people in every electorate, stories people care about, and a public that still wants to believe farmers are part of the solution. The question is whether our representative bodies are prepared to use all that with more discipline.

Other industries deal with scrutiny, rules, licences, audits and governments that test their patience. So does every individual. We renew proof all the time.

Agriculture has been given something rarer. A licence built on public trust.

That is the one we renew in how we farm, how we speak, and how well we use the trust we still have.

When leadership mistakes discipline for strength

The Liberal National Coalition is back where it started, fractured, performative, and unable to hold itself together when pressure arrives.

Eight months after the post election split and awkward reconciliation, the Coalition is again unravelling, this time in full public view. The immediate trigger is procedural, Nationals frontbenchers quitting the shadow ministry after Sussan Ley insisted three Nationals resign for crossing the floor on the government’s hate crime bill. The response from National’s Leader David Littleproud was escalation, not resolution.

As Michelle Grattan observed, Ley was boxed into a no win position. Shadow cabinet solidarity is not optional theatre, it is the basic mechanism that allows an opposition to function. Ignoring the breach would have weakened the role itself. Enforcing it exposed how little authority the structure now carries.

This is the leadership failure. Not the rule enforcement, but the absence of relational authority that makes rules workable.

True leadership shows itself before a crisis, not during the press conference that follows. It builds shared expectations early, it names boundaries clearly, and it invests in trust so that discipline is not mistaken for punishment when it arrives. When that work is missing, every corrective action looks like aggression and every disagreement turns into a test of dominance.

What we are seeing is a coalition that treats leadership as positional rather than relational. Titles exist, but consent does not. Authority is asserted rather than carried. The result is a constant cycle of brinkmanship where internal players use public exits to gain leverage, knowing the system lacks the cohesion to hold.

The timing makes this worse. With the government under pressure following the Bondi attacks, the opposition had an opportunity to demonstrate resolve, seriousness, and focus. Instead, attention swung inward. The message to the public is confusion, not authority.

The pressure on the Nationals leader is just as telling. David Littleproud abstained rather than lead, then framed the decision as procedural while insisting the Coalition relationship remained intact.

It is the language of someone managing fallout, not setting direction. When a leader cannot carry their party with them on a defining vote, and cannot clearly own the consequence of that choice, authority drains away.

The public sees a leader under constant internal pressure, responding to events rather than shaping them. In moments like this, leadership is revealed not by statements about unity, but by whether anyone is still prepared to follow.

We have explored this in previous posts . Leadership that relies on control rather than legitimacy collapses under stress.

Organisations that confuse unity with silence find themselves brittle when disagreement appears. And when leaders inherit broken structures without repairing how power is exercised inside them, every decision becomes combustible.

The Coalition’s problem is not ideology or personality. It is structural. Until leadership is understood as something built with others rather than imposed on them, these crises will keep repeating. Different actors, same script.

Leadership is not tested by loyalty in easy moments. It is revealed by how disagreement is held without the whole structure tearing itself apart.

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

 

 

 

 

 

Akuna St Development. When progress pushes people out of town

Image Illawarra Mercury 

When the Akuna Street developments go ahead, Kiama’s main car park, the one locals and shoppers rely on, will effectively vanish. In its place will come a major construction site that could choke the town centre for years.

Parking gone. Roads blocked. Dust, noise, and heavy vehicles moving through streets never built for this level of traffic.

It is hard to imagine anyone choosing to shop in Kiama under those conditions when there are easier, quieter, and more accessible options just up or down the highway. I already avoid the CBD unless I absolutely have to, and I know I am not the only one.

Kiama Council had a duty to plan for this before selling off our main parking area. They could have created alternative parking, staged the development, or at the very least communicated a clear plan to manage the disruption. None of this has happened yet.

For years, the car park served locals, shop owners, and visitors alike. It was more than a slab of asphalt, it was what made the heart of Kiama accessible. Selling it without a real plan for what comes next feels like a decision made with eyes firmly on developers, not on residents.

We were told the Akuna Street sale would help Council fix its financial mess. It was sold as the big solution, the quick cash injection that would ease the debt burden and set the books straight.

But nearly 20 percent of the 28 million dollar sale price has already disappeared in legal settlements and court costs before a single wall has gone up. That is not revitalisation, that is reaction.

This is what short term thinking looks like.
It is selling off an asset before you have a plan for what replaces it.
It is banking on one deal to fix years of mismanagement.
It is hoping that a private development will save a public balance sheet.
And it is assuming that the community will carry the cost quietly, in lost parking, lost access, and lost trust.

If Council had thought long term, it would have staged this project, planned alternative parking, and protected the town’s economic heartbeat during construction. Instead, we face years of disruption for a payoff that might never reach the people who actually live here.

This development is also  a prime example of what happens when the  leadership culture is fixated on the PIO and financial manoeuvring above all else, instead of focusing on what really matters to residents, liveability, services, and sensible planning.

Progress is not about shiny buildings or quick financial fixes. It is about protecting the fabric of a town while it grows, making sure people can still live, work, and shop here without feeling pushed out.

Right now, Kiama’s future is being built on lost parking spaces, lost patience, and almost one fifth of the sale price already gone in litigation. The question is no longer whether this project will revitalise Kiama, but whether Kiama can survive the cost of Council’s short term thinking.

You cannot build a thriving town on empty streets.

Thanks to everyone who has shared questions and comments on this issue. I have added extra detail as I received more information to help answer those and keep the community in the loop.

Read my follow up blog Kiama Is Sleepwalking Into a CBD Meltdown. Here’s How We Could Stop It.

Read previous blog posts here and here

#KiamaCouncil #AkunaStreet #KiamaPlanning #CommunityFirst #PublicTrust #LocalBusiness #RatepayerRights #ParkingCrisis #ShortTermThinking #TownCentre #CivicAccountability #Kiama

Are the CCTV Cameras Working? What Hindmarsh Park Reveals About Council Promises.

When a local parent shared their experience at Hindmarsh Park on our Community Facebook page, it inspired me to take a closer look at Kiama Council’s CCTV policy and what it says about how public spaces are meant to be protected.

The parent had gone there to celebrate their daughter’s fifth birthday, only to find both public barbecues in a shocking state. One was coated in melted plastic. The other gave off a strong smell of sewage when turned on. They ended up abandoning the facilities and using a portable BBQ from home.

Their post asked the obvious question:

“Are Council doing daily inspections of these facilities or leaving a multimillion-dollar new park to deteriorate?”

It’s a fair question, especially when Council’s policies promise proactive monitoring and deterrence through CCTV.

Kiama Council’s CCTV Policy outlines a clear set of objectives: to promote community safety and crime prevention, protect residents, visitors, and Council assets, deter vandalism and antisocial behaviour, and provide footage to NSW Police when required.

The accompanying Street Surveillance Code of Practice commits to annual audits, clear signage, and transparency about where and how cameras operate. These are good principles on paper, but they depend entirely on follow-through.

❓If CCTV is installed near Hindmarsh Park or the surrounding main street, was it operating when the vandalism occurred?

❓Has Council reviewed any footage?

❓Are inspections of new facilities being carried out daily, as they should be?

❓If the cameras weren’t working, or if the footage wasn’t checked, it raises deeper questions about accountability and maintenance, not only of the park but of the systems meant to protect it.

Hindmarsh Park is one of Kiama’s newest public investments, designed as a safe, family-friendly space. Incidents like this undermine public confidence and point to a gap between what Council says it does and what residents experience on the ground.

It’s time for Council to confirm whether the CCTV systems are operational, whether inspections are happening as promised, and how it plans to prevent future incidents. Policies don’t protect public spaces; people and accountability do.


#KiamaCouncil #HindmarshPark #CommunitySafety #CCTV #PublicAccountability #CloverHillDiaries