Council was right to scorch town forums, but wrong to burn them to the ground.
It's up to residents, not bureaucrats, to rise from the ashes
by Cat Holloway
Three things everyone should know about Shoalhaven's new 'place-based' community consultation structure:
* The glaring omission - What these groups are actually for
* The main addition - Towns can now have two accredited groups
* The unsolvable problem - Also the key to a community's success
For decades, a handful of Shoalhaven's 'Community Consultative Bodies' (CCBs) have acted as load-bearing walls of grassroots democratic representation.
(Those committed and constructive groups may not like this editorial.)
But Shoalhaven has 50 towns and only 23 CCBs, from which just nine Community Led Plans have emerged.
That's not to say that CCB committees don't work hard - they do, with efforts that are often thankless and always time-consuming.
In my hometown of Callala, the Council-endorsed community association pushed to build paved walking pathways, shaded picnic tables, water drinking fountains and the all-important provision of dog poop bags around town - paid for from advertising in its monthly newsletter. It organises community events like a Christmas lunch and an Australia Day Breakfast, fundraising effectively for causes such as the RFS and supporting the local school.
But does it represent hopes and fears about development across our community?
No.
Most people in our town don't even know the community association exists, let alone raise a concern at a meeting or step up to help at a sausage sizzle.
Our CCB association could only hold a committee by breaking its own rules to appoint executive positions without any vote or notification that it was doing so.
In a town of well over 2000 residents, a dozen bums on seats at an association meeting is considered a good turnout - and that includes committee members and the invited ward Councillors. (Just one usually puts in that effort.)
But when Shoalhaven Council's CEO Andrew Constance and Mayor Patricia White moved a shock dismantling of the CCB system just before last Christmas, CCBs like ours leapt into action.
Council may have overreacted to a legal argument in Berry or unreasonable demands on staff from CCB leaders in other large towns. In doing so it undermined decades of community advocacy and volunteerism in smaller, less wealthy villages.
Over the last two months, an experienced and organised CCB collective pushed Council to reassess the vote to eliminate them.
From those discussions, a new community forum structure was published this week for every person in Shoalhaven to comment on by April 19.
Council may have pruned some deadwood, but there's a lot of manure to dig in before fresh sprouts appear. So, if you have complained about not being consulted on issues affecting your home and community, now is your chance to change that.
Maybe. If Council hasn't cut too close to the roots.
Purpose Lost in Bureaucracy
What used to be called a Community Consultative Body will now be called an Accredited Community Forum.
Previously a community group required a one-off 'endorsement' by Council. Now groups will need annual 'accreditation'.
Guidelines and a Purpose Statement have been replaced with a Policy and Operating Model.
The old CCB system was no Utopia, but it offered ratepayers an opportunity to influence their Council. The new ACF plan appears to be more about insulating Council with a dense layer of bureaucracy.
Out goes the old CCB purpose statement:
"The Shoalhaven is recognised as one of the most beautiful, yet sensitive, areas in the state. Consequently, Council and the community are faced with the challenging responsibility of accommodating an acceptable and sustainable level of growth, whilst protecting the inherent natural qualities of our area. This involves sound decision making.
Shoalhaven City Council is committed to inform, consult, involve, collaborate with, and empower residents. Shoalhaven City Council recognises the partnership role that resident groups and associations can play within our towns, suburbs and villages.
Through these guidelines, Shoalhaven City Council, and residents' groups endorsed to act as a Community Consultative Body (CCB), acknowledge that partnership is grounded in mutual respect and reciprocal obligation derived from common interest."
In comes the new ACF Purpose and Objectives:
"Provide a safe, consistent, and transparent framework for Council recognised community groups that support place-based engagement between Council and local communities.
• Ensure community input is representative and constructive.
• Enable accreditation and withdrawal process for groups and Council.
• Provide consistent controls, reporting, and independent complaints handling.
• Provides a safe working environment for elected officials and staff of Council who attend ACF meetings.
• Provides absolute clarity for the legal standing and obligation of ACFs under the NSW Association Incorporation Act."
In the previous guidelines, CCBs were not decision-makers, but they could have a seat at the table to protect environment and plan for growth, weighing in on land-use policy and re-zoning.
But the new ACF model is almost silent on what forums should actually do. Instead, it focuses on what they must be: incorporated, apolitical, and compliant.
The new policy reads as more interested in protecting Council from critics than engaging with constituents whose input has been downgraded to "advisory only"
"All advice is informal, non-binding, and carries no expectation of adoption or response beyond standard acknowledgement processes."
"ACFs act as a conduit between Council and communities on matters of local concern. ACFs are solely responsible for demonstrating compliance with mandatory standards
Why, given this sterilised tone, would people bother to volunteer to improve their community when their own Local Council considers them little more than a conduit for press releases and reports that are nowadays easily distributed and made accessible to entire communities via email lists and any number of social media groups with hundreds - or thousands - of active participants?
No wonder community groups increasingly knock on the doors of State and Federal MPs to stand up for their towns and neighbours.
A New Opportunity, or a Risky Pivot
A major change in the new policy is that Council may accept two Accredited Community Forums for towns with populations of more than 1000.
In the old "CCB" landscape, Council would only recognise one CCB per geographic area. So townspeople needed to sort out differences internally before approaching Council as a united front.
In the new "ACF" design, Council is essentially opening the doors to a wider diversity of people and positions. But might this risk dividing communities, and thus weakening them?
Having two ACFs per town means, for example, that both a local business chamber and a residents group can be formally recognised and included on the list of Council accredited organisations.
Twin ACFs also address the problem of a community forum captured by a dominant clique, leaving others silenced. By allowing a second forum, Council is providing a plan B for excluded residents and ensuring that no single group holds a monopoly on the community's opinion.
This is especially important to coastal towns like Callala, Culburra, Huskisson, Vincentia and Manyana, whose nature and character are under enormous pressure from powerful land speculators recognising the potential for unprecedented real estate profits.
Community advocacy in these places grew around environmental protection, sustainable development, heritage threats and overwhelmed infrastructure and those groups have engaged with vastly more residents than have the endorsed CCBs.
Callala Matters, as a small example only established and incorporated in 2023, has hosted several public meetings or events attracting 100 or more residents. It has an extensive website and an active social media presence on Facebook and Instagram with thousands of followers and some posts reaching tens of thousands of views, comments and shares.
Callala Matters has encouraged locals (and visitors - a major part of the town economy) to write thousands of letters and submissions to Council, State and Federal reps on a variety of development-related issues. It has presented several deputations at Shoalhaven Council meetings. It has formally met with regional MPs, corresponded with Federal and State Ministers for Planning and Environment and participated in Parliamentary enquiries and Land & Environment court challenges.
It plays the role that CCB guidelines state as 'characteristic' of an endorsed group.
"Has the capacity and capability to facilitate open discussion on, and communicate to Council, the collective views of the community contributing to and consultation on a range of matters including policy development, land re-zoning, subdivisions, development applications, and the works and services needs of the area."
"Commits to encourage the involvement of residents and ratepayers in Council’s decision-making process."
So, does Callala Matters represent its community better than the CCB does?
A survey of residents by our CCB highlighted over-development and nature protection as top concerns, but the community association still actively avoids examining development plans, let alone endorsing conservation efforts.
Even an overwhelming 97.4% opposition (in more than 1000 submissions to the State government) to clearing Callala's forest for a subdivision, did not convince the community association to represent, or even acknowledge, those people - or the endangered greater gliders and other threatened species that live here.
Callala Matters has tried, unsuccessfully, to collaborate with the Community Association to strengthen both groups. But some CCB committee members' anti-environmentalist sentiment and worries about attracting controversy is too great.
By remaining "impartial", Callala's CCB ignores a massive proportion of the population it is supposed to represent, and, in doing so, it protects both developers and government from the scrutiny of an engaged and invested community.
No Need to Take Sides
Which brings us to the unsolvable problem: how to separate people from politics.
The new ACF charter urges political neutrality:
"ACFs must remain strictly apolitical, with no political campaigning, endorsement, fundraising, or association with political parties or candidates in any aspect of their operations."
Although that's a valiant goal, it's impossible to enforce.
Every individual has some kind of agenda, whether it's increasing your profit, supporting a Mayor for whom you voted or protecting the beach and bush you walk on daily.
Rather than pretend to be politically neutral, ACF leaders should embrace the inevitability of personal bias and actively seek to include a diversity of opinions, reflecting the diversity of people in their community.
Too often, broadly held opinions that differ from the few in power are pushed out of the room or silenced in the name of 'meeting protocol'.
The new ACF model states as a mandatory standard to "encourage social, cultural and economic diversity in their membership".
Similarly, the old CCB guidelines state that an application to become a CCB "should address how the organisation will ensure a diversity of representation and its capacity to represent community concerns."
It shouldn't matter one little bit if the President is a business owner or a bird lover. CCBs (or ACFs) do not serve the interests or egos of the committee members; they are there to represent the place and its people.
And politics shouldn't have anywhere nearly the sway that science and facts deserve in decisions.
Whether you want your town to have a Community Led Strategic Plan, pickleball courts or dog poop bags, it takes many hands to do that work.
So find whichever community group best understands your needs and join up, turn up, speak up.
The future of our precious places depends on your active participation, not on clearing bureacratic hurdles for accreditation by a Council, or any other public institution, that treats your input as irritation.
(Note: Over several years, I have intermittently participated in and sat on the committees of Callala Bay' Community Association (CBCA), Callala Bay Progress Association (CBPA) and Callala Matters. I am no longer on any committee. My spouse, Rob Barrel, was previously on CBCA and CBPA committees and remains the President of Callala Matters.)