Tag: transparency matters

When Council reassurance isn’t the same as explanation

If you’ve ever read a Council document and thought, that doesn’t quite say what it’s pretending to say, you’re not imagining things.

This is what my experience working with my local council has taught me, first as a civics reporter and now as a citizen journalist. I have written this post to help people feel confident engaging, asking questions and standing up for their community.

Having been in the firing line myself, there are a few patterns you start to recognise.

First, process is not the same as truth. When councils say a matter has been reviewed or investigated, what that usually means is that procedures have been checked. It does not mean all relevant voices were heard, all facts were tested, or the full context was examined. A process can be followed perfectly and still leave the real questions untouched.

Second, reassurance is not the same as accountability. Communities are often told nothing is wrong, it’s only procedural, or there will be consultation later. Those statements may be technically accurate, but they don’t explain what decisions have already been made, what limits are already set, or how much influence the community will actually have. Reassurance can close a conversation without resolving it.

Third, councils work hard to control the narrative. Key decisions are wrapped in calming language, framed as minor steps, or buried in long reports and attachments. The important details sit in technical documents, footnotes, or papers released late, when attention has already moved on. By the time the implications are clear, momentum is well underway. Once you see this pattern, you start reading past the headlines and paying close attention to the words being used.

Why this matters to me

I didn’t learn how Council processes work by accident. I learned by living through one.

In my case, a court case was underway involving a development where the community stood to receive close to one million dollars in contributions under a Section 7.11 agreement that the developer had already entered into. While that case was still before the court, Council withdrew the 7.11 and shifted to a Section 7.12 contributions framework.

Because of that timing, the judge could only assess the development under the 7.12 system. The result was that the community lost around $970,000 in developer contributions.

When Council later reviewed the matter, what they examined was whether they were permitted to change from 7.11 to 7.12. What was not examined was when the change was made, how it intersected with an active court case, or the financial impact that timing had on the community.

That experience taught me a lasting lesson. Processes can be followed, reviews can be completed, and yet the outcome can still fall well short of what the community reasonably expected.

It’s why I pay close attention to how decisions are framed, when changes are made, and what questions are – and aren’t – being asked. I want other community groups to understand these dynamics early, so they can advocate with their eyes open and not mistake procedural compliance for genuine accountability.

Finally, this is why community advocacy matters. Formal processes happen behind closed doors. Advocacy keeps issues visible. It creates space for questions, brings in expertise, and helps people engage at the point when it still matters. When communities understand how these systems operate, they are far better equipped to stand up for themselves and for the places they care about.

Good governance depends on more than process. It relies on clarity, honesty and a community that feels confident enough to ask questions and expect real answers.

Once you’ve seen how the language works, you can’t unsee it. And that awareness makes all the difference.

#Kiama #LocalGovernment #CommunityVoice #PlanningTransparency #CivicEngagement #PublicInterest #GoodGovernance #CitizenJournalism #KiamaCommunity #Accountability

The Woodcraft Group showed leadership when Council did not

I have done more leadership and negotiation courses than I can count. They do not make me a good leader. They do not make me a good negotiator. What they do give me is the ability to recognise leadership when I see it, and to recognise when it is missing.

And looking at this Woodcraft Group mess, leadership has been missing from the very people who should have shown it.

Here is the truth.
There were phone calls.
There were meetings.
There were chances to resolve this early, quietly and respectfully.
None of it made a difference.
Those conversations ended up being a waste of time because the people in the room were not prepared to act.

Leadership is not complicated.
It is not a twenty page report or a confidential motion.
It is not silence dressed as process.

Leadership is the ability to say, I hear you.
It is the courage to face a mistake, even a small one.
It is the strength to stay open when closing ranks feels safer.
It is the discipline to choose honesty over convenience.

The Woodcraft Group did not receive leadership.
They received delays, contradictions and closed doors.

And yet the most powerful leadership in this story came from the people with the least influence.
The people who stayed calm.
The people who kept asking fair questions.
The people who followed their values when they had every reason to give up.

That is leadership.
That is integrity.
That is character.

Leadership is not a title.
It is a behaviour.
And in this case, the only real leadership came from the people who had no authority at all, only a belief in doing the right thing.

#Kiama #KiamaCouncil #Leadership #CommunityLeadership #Transparency #Accountability #LocalGovernment #Jamberoo #KiamaWoodcraftGroup #CommunityAdvocacy #CouncilCulture

Council thought they’d close the lid. But you can’t lock out a community that knows right from wrong

“Integrity is doing the right thing even when the process is stacked against you.”

It has been in the newspaper. It has been on TV. All of Kiama knows about it and, thanks to WIN News, most of Wollongong does too.

And still, somehow, this simple matter became secret squirrel business. Council pushed it behind a confidentiality motion and the community was shut out. What happened behind those closed doors that led every councillor to vote against giving the Kiama Woodcraft Group two and a half thousand dollars. It is a question that deserves an answer.

The Kiama Woodcraft Group never asked for a fight. They asked a simple question. What happened to their library module. A heavy, lockable box they were told would be kept safe during the Joyce Wheatley Centre refurbishment. They returned months later to find it gone. Read the background story here 

What followed is a study in how a straightforward problem becomes something much bigger.

They were given shifting explanations. First, that the box fell over and burst open. Later, that it was opened with keys at the Works Depot. Books were placed in a skip under a disposal order. Some were salvaged by a staff member who recognised their value and later returned them. Others turned up at a Lifeline book fair. The rest were lost.

Throughout this, the outdoor and maintenance staff who were involved have been honest about what happened. Leadership has not shown the same clarity. That contrast is at the core of this story.

When the Group tried to find out what had happened, communication slowed, then stopped. Emails went unanswered. Calls were not returned. Councillors said they could not discuss the matter because it had been declared confidential.

A councillor reportedly suggested the library may never have existed. That is the moment a small loss becomes something much larger.

The Group was later told no books were taken, despite the fact that several had been returned and identified by the Group’s own library markings. They were told there was no liability. They were told the matter was closed.

They persisted anyway. Not because they enjoy conflict, but because they know right from wrong and they were not prepared to be dismissed.

 “Council controlled the motion. The Woodcraft Group controlled their character.”

When an organisation struggles to admit small mistakes, everything becomes harder than it needs to be. Staff learn to defend decisions rather than discuss them. Questions that could be answered in a day get pushed into process. Confidentiality becomes a default shield, even when openness would resolve the issue instantly.

The community sees this. People know when they are being stonewalled. They know when a simple problem has been made complicated.

They know when they are being treated as the problem, rather than people seeking a fair response.

This case shows what happens when the balance of power leans too heavily to one side. When a major venue raises concerns, partnerships are formed to resolve the issue. When a volunteer group raises concerns, the doors close. You cannot miss the contrast.

It is enough to make any resident wonder whether the Kiama Woodcraft Group should hire the same professional negotiators or public relations support that Jamberoo Action Park used. The difference in response is striking.

At one point the suggestion was made that the Woodcraft Group had invented the entire story. As if a community group would spend months gathering evidence, obtaining legal guidance, retrieving returned books and speaking to media outlets for the sake of two and a half thousand dollars. The idea does not withstand a moment’s scrutiny.

When an elected representative accepts a story like that, it reveals a deeper issue. It shows how easily people adopt the most convenient version of events. It shows how uncomfortable it can be to challenge information presented from within the system. This is not personal. It is cultural.

I am not a lawyer or the police but I know people who are and this is what they told me

Fault Clarification

  • Police role: Police investigate whether a crime has occurred (e.g., theft, fraud, misappropriation). Their conclusion that council was not at fault means they found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing.
  • Council responsibility: Even if no crime was committed, councils can still be responsible in a governance or civil sense. For example, failing to manage property properly, poor communication, or not resolving issues with the previous council.
  • Key point: Police findings clear the council of criminal fault, but they don’t resolve questions of administrative responsibility or duty of care. Those are matters for the council itself, or potentially civil claims.

Insurance Responsibility

  • Community group insurance: Councils often require groups to insure their own property when stored in council facilities. That covers risks while the group has custody or use of the items.
  • Council custody: Once the council removed the property and stored it at their works depot, the risk shifted. At that point, the council had custody and control, so they assumed responsibility for safeguarding the goods.
  • Damage at depot: If damage occurred while the property was at the depot, it would generally fall under the council’s insurance or liability – not the group’s. The group’s insurance wouldn’t reasonably apply to items outside their possession.
  • Key point: Responsibility for insuring and protecting the goods transferred to the council once they took possession. Damage at their depot becomes a council issue.

Summary:

  • Fault: Police cleared the council of criminal fault, but governance responsibility remains a council matter.
  • Insurance: Once the council took the property into their depot, they assumed liability for any damage.

I think often about councillors who entered public life because they wanted transparency, fairness and a better way of doing things. Many ran on that promise. Many told me they wanted to lift the standard. Yet here we are. A simple matter spiralled into silence. People with good intentions have found themselves surrounded by the very habits they hoped to change.

The Kiama Woodcraft Group’s experience is not isolated. It is part of a broader pattern in which bureaucracy attempts to control the narrative and shut down dissenting voices instead of addressing the issue directly.

I know this pattern well. I raised concerns of my own in the past. I was assured the matter would be investigated. I provided every document and every detail. Council already held information confirming what had taken place. Yet when a councillor tried to raise fair questions, they were silenced. That was the day I realised what I was dealing with. I left a job I cared about because it became clear that truth was negotiable and silence was preferred.

I will not be silent now.

The Woodcraft Group has shown what accountability looks like from the ground up. They stayed calm. They stayed factual. They stayed polite. Their account has been consistent and supported by several sources. They kept going when the system hoped they would give up.

They were treated as if the real problem here was their persistence rather than the mistake that caused it all. Yet they kept going. And that, more than anything, is why this story matters.

Addendum

A councillor reportedly said to the Woodcraft Group, “You cannot even prove the books existed.”

For the sake of accuracy, here is what the Group can prove.

They have a full catalogue list maintained by their librarian, showing every book and magazine stored in the library module. They have long term members willing to sign statutory declarations confirming the library’s existence and contents. They have 45 books returned by a Council employee, all carrying the Group’s own library markings. They have another eight books retrieved from Lifeline, also marked as belonging to the Group. They have staff witnesses who saw the module opened, saw the books inside and saw what followed. And they have a valuation list that was shown to the CEO, who agreed it was fair and reasonable.

If the books never existed, none of this evidence would exist either.

The Woodcraft Group has provided everything a reasonable person would accept as proof.
The issue was never the evidence.
The issue was the willingness to acknowledge it.

#KiamaCouncil #CommunityAdvocacy #LocalGovernment #Transparency #Accountability #Kiama #Jamberoo #KiamaWoodcraftGroup #CouncilCulture #NSWLocalGov #CommunityVoices

Creative Accounting or Community Gaslighting?

This post is the part of a Follow the Money  series shining a light on Kiama Council’s ongoing failure to even interpret its own spreadsheets.

I’ve been digging into Kiama Council’s legal expenses and what I’ve found is confusing, frustrating, and frankly concerning.

Here are the comparisons that matter:

Council Population (approx.) 2023/24 Legal Costs Spend Per Resident
Kiama 23,400 $3,369,000 $144
Port Macquarie–Hastings 50,560 $250,000 $5
Shellharbour 76,200 $858,000 $11

Kiama, with the smallest population, spent by far the most on legal bills. At $144 per person, Kiama’s costs tower over Shellharbour ($11) and Port Macquarie–Hastings ($5).

A pattern of costly errors

This blowout is not an isolated issue. Council’s financial reporting on major risk areas keeps needing “fixes” after the fact:

If developer levies can be overcharged, and legal costs can be double-counted, what confidence can the public have in any top-line figure?

Meanwhile, “Other Legal Expenses” jumped from $204,000 in 2020/21 to $3.3 million in 2023/24 — a sixteen-fold increase in three years. In the same period, total legal expenses rose from $416,000 to $3.37 million.

Where Council points… and where the money actually goes

Council is very happy to outline where Land & Environment Court (LEC) costs are spent — case lists, updates, outcomes — and it is true that LEC matters account for around 53% of legal costs (excluding the Daoud Federal Court case).

But here’s the catch:

  • Probity/General legal advice soaks up another 37%.

  • When I asked for a breakdown of these “other” costs, the Public Officer refused to provide it.

This is the deflection at play.  Council points to the unavoidable LEC cases, but goes silent on the categories where the blowouts are happening.

Are LEC costs really unavoidable?

Council insists LEC costs are unavoidable. But the record shows many cases should never have reached court at all.

  • Yes, developers have a legal right to appeal to the LEC.

  • But how Council manages those appeals is absolutely within its control. If cases are lost because Council misapplied its own LEP or DCP, or if politically motivated decisions collapse under scrutiny, those costs are self-inflicted.

  • Time and again, matters defended at great expense have been lost or forced into costly conciliation — suggesting they should never have been taken to court.

LEC costs are not automatically unavoidable. Too often, they are the price we pay for poor governance.

Code of Conduct costs

On top of this, $69,080 was spent on Code of Conduct complaints in the past reporting year, even though:

  • 10 complaints were lodged,

  • only 2 reached investigation, and

  • 2 breaches were found (leading to councillor censure).

That is an extraordinary spend for very little outcome.

And the contradiction is glaring: the Mayor has claimed Codes of Conduct are being “weaponised” — yet he himself lodged the complaint that led to a censure later overturned in the Supreme Court, costing the community just over $200,000.

Why this matters

It all beggars belief.

Residents should not need to become forensic accountants to follow the money. When legal spend is this high — and when we keep seeing corrections across legal costs and developer contributions — the only responsible response is radical transparency.

So why isn’t it happening?

  • Why isn’t Kiama Council publishing legal spend by category, with clear totals, every quarter?

  • Why aren’t the Office of Local Government and the Audit, Risk & Improvement Committee (ARIC) demanding answers on the developer contribution overcharge, the double-counting of legal costs, and the “Other Legal” blow-outs?

  • Why is it left to community members to do the oversight work that should already exist?

The bottom line

Transparency in legal and developer-contribution accounting is not optional — it is a core measure of good governance. Until figures are itemised clearly, corrected promptly, independently reviewed, and made public without community pressure, trust in Kiama Council will continue to slip away.

Disclaimer

I am a community member, not a forensic accountant. This post reflects in-depth analysis of Kiama Council reports, combined with concerns raised by community members and councillors. It is a genuine attempt to understand and explain how and why Council’s legal expenses have escalated.

I look forward to Kiama Council’s response.

#KiamaCouncil #Accountability #Transparency #Governance #LegalCosts #CommunityVoice #LocalGovernment

Kiama Council Reads the Blog… and Sends a Warning Letter

After publishing my recent blog post about Kiama Council’s handling of community-raised concerns, the following is part of an email I received  from Council’s Public Officer. It relates to the inclusion of links to two Council emails. One from the Director of Infrastructure and Operations, the other from the Acting Manager of Engineering and Technical Services. Both responding to the Jamberoo Valley Ratepayers and Residents Association.

“The unauthorised publication of these emails constitutes a breach of copyright. Further, these emails were not addressed to you and Council has not authorised the publication of them on your blog. The original recipients of the emails, the Jamberoo Valley Ratepayers and Residents Association, have also been placed on notice.”

“Accordingly, you are requested to immediately remove the published emails in full from all public and private facing platforms and notify me once this has occurred. In addition, please confirm you will not publish, quote or otherwise distribute any Council email, or part thereof, without obtaining prior written consent. Failure to comply with this request may result in legal action.”

There are many things I could say in response. But let’s start with this:

These emails were sent in response to public concerns, to a community advocacy group, about public infrastructure.

They were shared with the community in good faith, as part of a transparent effort to keep residents informed about the issues affecting our community. It is standard practice for organisations like JVRRA to share “correspondence in and out” with their members. That includes responses from Council.

It is not private. It is not confidential. And it is not a breach of copyright.

What it is, frankly, is overreach and and a telling one.

Council’s objection appears to be more about controlling public narrative. And in that context, the threat of “legal action” reads like a small-town SLAPP  – a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation,  where the goal is not to win, but to silence.

This is what abuse of power looks like.
This is why unions matter.
Because to hold power to account, you need powerful supporters.
Not because you’re weak – but because they expect you to be alone.

And yes. As you would expect from any formal reply to a residents’ group, the names and contact information of the staff responding were included in their email signatures, the same contact details publicly available on the Kiama Council website.

Their inclusion does not render the correspondence confidential. If anything, it reinforces that these were professional communications, sent in an official capacity, on matters of public interest.

My response to Council is this:

Thank you for reading the blog. I hope it marks the beginning of more open, engaged, and respectful communication between Council and the communities it serves.

But I will not be removing the links.
I will not be retracting the quotes.
And I will not be intimidated into silence.

Because transparency is not the problem here.
The problem is a system that seems to find public scrutiny more threatening than poor process.

 The attempt to suppress, intimidate, or discredit those who ask legitimate questions is part of a broader pattern that needs to be called out. If a council is confident in its processes and decisions, it should welcome scrutiny, not fear it. I won’t be stepping back into silence, and I’m not alone. Every time one person speaks up, others find the courage to do the same. That’s how change begins.

📝 Footnote:

If you’re new here, welcome. What you’ve just read is not an isolated incident, it’s part of a broader pattern.

This Council has demonstrated time and again how far it is willing to go to silence dissent. From formal complaints against journalists, takedown demands, and Press Council,  ICAC and Code of Conduct referrals  to copyright threats and legal warnings over publicly shared emails, the message is clear: scrutiny is not welcome.

But here’s the thing. Communities don’t function when only the quiet voices are tolerated. Local democracy relies on people asking questions, challenging power, and expecting answers, not repercussions.

You don’t have to stand for Council to stand up. You don’t have to publish a blog to care about how decisions are made. And you don’t have to accept a culture of intimidation dressed up as process.

The deeper question isn’t how much pressure one person can withstand. It’s how much silence a community is willing to accept.

#LocalDemocracy #CivicCourage #CommunityAdvocacy #SLAPPResistance #PressFreedom #TransparencyMatters #CouncilAccountability #PublicInterestJournalism #DemocracyInAction #PowerOfMany