No sooner had we declared that the forthcoming Council election would be about transparency and accountability (and that the community were seeking clarity as to which councillors would be running for re-election), than Councillors Kathy Rice and Jodie Keast announced their decision not to recontest at the election.  

As we reported, these Councillors have contributed a significant amount to our community over several years. Councillor Rice in particular, having been initially elected to Council back in 2012. Her tenure of twelve years is only bettered by Councillor Warren Steel (elected in 1996) and Mayor Neil Reilly (elected in 2008).

In what has traditionally been a male dominated Council, the current Council make up of four women and five men is the most gender balanced in the history of Kiama.  Losing Councillors Rice and Keast could be a genuine blow to balanced representation for our community.       

Councillors Rice and Keast are members of the Greens and that political party has yet to advise on candidates they have pre-selected for the upcoming election but we do hope that they consider the gender question in their deliberations. 

So, the times are changing and whilst The Bugle has nothing but admiration and respect for Councillors Rice and Keast, and wish them well, our View is that change can be a good thing.  

According to the 2021 census, the median age of our community is 48 years old – nine years older than the median age in NSW, and ten years older than the rest of the country. Whilst The Bugle is not one for being ageist, we would hazard a guess that 48 years is lower than the average age of our current Councillor crop.

Perhaps, like Councillors Draisma and Larkins, what we need is a further injection of youth, or at least, a point of difference. Approximately one-third of the population is aged between 18 and 50 and are vitally important to our community in terms of productivity, investment and supporting the community. These are the people that provide health services, serve us at our favourite retailers, are key workers and shape our town. 

A quick perusal of our current Council crop and their sources of income in the 2023 financial year shows that four out of the nine councillors had an income generating occupation. The Labor Councillors are working for State and Federal members of Parliament (looks like their advocacy against the Illawarra Offshore Wind Farm did not amount to much), and Councillors Rice and Keast work in education.

The point is, more than half of our representatives are not working and are seemingly doing quite okay on a meagre Council salary. That is great for them, and we do not disparage them for being in that position, but the question is – whilst they are our council representatives, do they actually represent who we are? 

Perhaps that is why all the advocacy and engagement that Council staff are trying to do ultimately reverberates back with the same old story, time after time. 

Take for instance, the outcomes of Council’s community and stakeholder survey on the “Growth and Housing Strategy”. Approximately 1% of the population engaged with the survey, and of those 300 or so residents, 40% of them were over the age of 60. 

Perhaps everyone was too busy with school drop offs, getting dinner on the table, or working to pay the mortgage. But we would have thought that over the six-week period when the survey was active, the community would have wanted to engage on something so important.

Or, perhaps, they thought that no matter what they say, it will be more of the same. Another process talking to the same people, saying the same thing, and getting the same results, time after time. 

Whilst we agree with a lot of what Councillor Renkema-Lang has said in the past, we cannot agree with her comments that ‘the sentiments and desire of the community have been well captured and expressed’. Certainly, the view of a certain part of the community has been well captured. But to say that a survey that approximately 80% of the adult population has not engaged with has delivered ‘good data’, is a stretch.

The Bugle congratulates Councillor Rice and Councillors Keast on their positive representation of our community and with their (and possibly other?) departures brings an opportunity for change.

The Bugle’s View is that the whole and entire community must actively engage, otherwise we will get more of the same, time after time.