Very local, state, national and the wider world, in everyday language, for people who haven’t got all day.
From a Council meeting that could decide who runs Kiama, to a budget fight reshaping Canberra and the Iran war still at the petrol pump, here’s the local-to-global wrap for 23 May 2026.
Betty from Blacktown and her brother Kevin from Kiama, making sense of the world’s chaos the only sensible way: over toast, a strong cuppa, and a good long natter on the phone. That’s what this Catch Up is for.
Very Local: a special Council meeting you’ll want to know about
Council has called an Extraordinary Meeting for 5pm this Wednesday 27 May, and there’s only one item on the list. That alone tells you it’s BIG. It’s Council’s formal response to the Minister’s proposed changes to the Performance Improvement Order, the “lift your game” notice that’s been hanging over Kiama. Here are the bits that caught my attention.
The big stick is now named out loud. The order spells out what happens if Council doesn’t lift. First a Financial Controller could be parachuted in to take the wheel on the money. And if that’s not enough, the Minister can suspend the Council entirely and install an administrator. In plain terms, our elected councillors could be sent home and an appointee put in charge. That’s the shadow behind every budget decision being made right now.
The good news, said out loud by the Minister. It’s not all stick. The Minister has handed Council an extra year to balance the books, now out to 2027-28, and openly acknowledged Council has made real progress. Better still, he’s pushed back on Council’s own deeper cuts, saying he’s worried about what slashing services would do to the community. So the bloke holding the order is actually arguing for gentler cuts, not harder ones. Worth remembering next time someone says Sydney is out to gut us.
Your bins are safe. The order flatly bans Council from outsourcing domestic waste services. The Minister reckons the small saving wouldn’t be worth the long-term loss to the community. Council half-agrees but is quibbling over the wording, asking that “waste management” be narrowed to “waste collection,” because it doesn’t run its own tip and needs to keep using outside contractors to cart rubbish away.
Jobs versus services, the $7 million question. This is the guts of it. Council has to close a $7 million gap between what it earns and what it spends. The order says do the gentler stuff first, the efficiency savings, before reaching for the big staff cuts. Here’s the eye-opener from Council’s own response. There were two options on the table. The bigger-saving option, $2.7 million, would mean axing community services, winding back tourism, and cutting library and Leisure Centre hours. The other saves less, $1.8 million, but hits staff numbers harder. Council is effectively saying it would rather restructure its own back office than gut the services residents actually use. That’s the choice to watch.
The accounting fight that sounds dull but isn’t. Council has lobbed back a sharp point. It says the Office of Local Government measures its performance in a way that even the NSW Auditor-General disagrees with. Council reckons that if you measured every council in the state the Auditor-General’s way, around 90 of them, roughly seven in ten across NSW, would be running at a loss. The unspoken message: don’t single Kiama out as uniquely hopeless when most of the state is in the same boat.
And yes, the parks again. Remember our holiday parks question? It’s here in black and white. The order tells Council to review its “strategic assets and revenue opportunities,” and Blue Haven Terralong gets its own special mention, with Council ordered to prepare a business case on whether to keep it, lease it, partner it out, or sell it, partly because of unresolved fire safety problems. So the asset shake-up isn’t a rumour. It’s a written instruction from the Minister.
The bottom line: this one meeting is the whole story in miniature. A small council under real pressure, an extra year of breathing room, a Minister who actually wants the cuts softened, and a quiet but crucial choice brewing between trimming the back office and trimming the services we use. It’s livestreamed on the Council website if you want to watch.
Across NSW (State)
A grim run on the roads this week, worth a mention if only because it’s the sort of thing that makes you drive a bit more carefully. Three people died in a two-car crash at Sans Souci in Sydney’s south early this morning, and there’ve been separate fatal crashes out near Warialda and Mudgee in the past few days. A sobering stretch.
On the brighter side, Vivid Sydney is now in full swing, lighting up the city every night until 13 June. If you or the family fancy a night out, the light walk and the drone shows are free, which counts for a lot just now. Rug up. It’s proper winter.
Across the Country (Federal)
The politics is getting willing. The big national story is the scrap over Jim Chalmers’ budget and its tax changes, and it’s reshaping the whole landscape. One Nation has surged in the first poll since the budget, and the Coalition, now split after the Nationals walked out earlier in the year, is promising to hand money back to workers by tying tax rates to inflation. The Opposition under Angus Taylor is also floating cutting welfare for non-citizens, which has stirred plenty of anger. The short version for the kitchen table: tax and cost of living are the whole ballgame now, and the minor parties are the ones cashing in.
The same money squeeze, everywhere. Notice the thread. The fight in Canberra over budgets and tax is the exact same fight playing out at our Council, just with more zeros. Everyone from the Treasurer to our Mayor is wrestling the same problem: not enough coming in, too much going out.
Around the World (International)
The Iran war grinds on, and it’s still about your petrol. The ceasefire in the US and Israel’s war with Iran is holding, just, but more than 400 people have been killed since it came into effect in mid-April. The latest twist: Iran’s Supreme Leader has reportedly ordered that the country’s enriched uranium not be sent abroad, which is the sort of thing that keeps everyone nervous. The Strait of Hormuz disruption is still rippling through global fuel prices, which is why petrol stays dear here at home.
Russia and China cosy up further. Vladimir Putin has been in Beijing meeting Xi Jinping, the two of them talking up closer ties, just a day after Donald Trump left the same city. Meanwhile the war in Ukraine drags on, with reports Russia’s economy is starting to wobble under the strain.
The bottom line
It all joins up, Betty. A war on the other side of the planet keeps petrol dear, which feeds the cost-of-living squeeze that’s shaking up politics in Canberra, which is the very same money fight our little Council is having on Wednesday night, just closer to home and with our library hours and bins on the line. Everyone’s wrestling the same beast. Not a bad lot to talk over with Kevin and a cuppa.
Sources: Kiama Municipal Council agenda, NSW Police, SBS, Yahoo News Australia, Al Jazeera, Sydney Morning Herald, and others.
A note on Betty and Kevin: Betty grew up in Kiama before life took her to Blacktown. Her brother Kevin still lives in their old home town. Keeping up with what’s happening down the coast is partly nostalgia for the place she came from, but mostly it’s how she and Kevin fill those long phone calls she looks forward to all week. That’s what this Catch Up is really for. Not just the news, but the conversations it keeps alive.