Kiama has been operating under a Performance Improvement Order, the state's formal supervision instrument for a council in trouble, since November 2022, through what Mayor Cameron McDonald describes as one of the most difficult periods in our history. It is the sharpest ongoing governance story in the region: a council of about 23,000 residents working its way back from a financial position difficult enough that the state stepped in. The variation accepted at an extraordinary meeting on 27 May, proposed by Minister for Local Government Ron Hoenig, resets the terms of that supervision.

What the varied order actually requires

From the council's own account of the decision, the new order requires Kiama to:

  • adopt a financially sustainable budget pathway by specified dates, incorporating the one-year extension, with the budget to be balanced by the end of the 2027-28 financial year, a year later than previously required;
  • sequence budget repair measures before higher-impact staffing, asset-sale and outsourcing measures are considered;
  • prepare a strategic business case for Blue Haven Terralong Village;
  • review strategic assets and revenue opportunities;
  • strengthen its reporting to the Office of Local Government;
  • not outsource its domestic waste management service; and
  • complete additional governance and financial management actions within specified timeframes.

Read as a package, the deal is easy to misdescribe as simply "more time". It is more time in exchange for less discretion. The sequencing requirement is the interesting condition: it obliges the council to exhaust ordinary budget repair before it reaches for the bigger levers of staff cuts, asset sales or outsourcing, and the waste-collection ban takes one of those levers off the table entirely.

What the mayor and CEO said

Mayor Cameron McDonald and CEO Jane Stroud met Minister Hoenig at NSW Parliament House before the decision. The Minister demonstrated a detailed understanding of the progress Council has made over the past four years during one of the most difficult periods in our history and the challenges that remain, Cr McDonald said. On services: We are now able to look at options for many of the services our community values, including youth services, tourism services, our libraries, the Visitor Information Centre and Kiama Leisure Centre... But it doesn't mean all the difficult decisions before Council have suddenly vanished. The council said Ms Stroud would write to the minister confirming it would work to the new terms.

Where the saga goes from here

The immediate milestones are already on the calendar. The draft 2026-27 budget, Delivery Program and Operational Plan, fees and charges and revenue policy finished exhibition in May, and the final versions went to an extraordinary meeting on 30 June for adoption. The next ordinary meeting is 21 July, with the agenda published on the council's meetings page. The documents worth watching over the coming year, on the council's own list of obligations: the budget pathway itself, the strengthened reporting to the Office of Local Government, and the Blue Haven Terralong business case, which will be the first formal, public examination of what the council's most contested asset should become.

We will follow each of those on the documents as they land.