Council
14 May, 2026
Time running out to lodge a submission on major Wingecarribee Shire Council documents
Wingecarribee residents have little time to digest more than 500 pages of council documents and to comment on some significant changes – if they haven’t done so already.
Wingecarribee residents have little time to digest more than 500 pages of council documents and to comment on some significant changes – if they haven’t done so already.
Public submissions on council’s Draft Operational Plan and Budget 2026/27, Draft Long Term Financial Plan 2026-2036, Draft Assessment Plan 2026-2036 and Draft Fees and Charges 2026/27 will close at 4.30pm on Friday, May 15.
You will need more than a cup of coffee and a bag of marshmallows to navigate yourself through a suite of documents that can only be described as sluggish at best.
But here’s some of the key points for those people who can’t it make it past the first few pages.
Council is hoping to obtain a Special Rate Variation (SRV) to increase rates by 11.9 per cent in 2027/28, followed by another 11.9 per cent in 2028/29 and 7.35 per cent in 2029/30.
The rate increases will be used, in part, to repay the interest on some major loan borrowings.
Council is also proposing a 15 per cent increase in water charges in 2026/27, another 15 per cent increase in 2027/28 and another 15 per cent increase in 2028/29.
Forget the cost-of- living crisis because there will also be a 26 per cent increase in water consumption charges in 2026/27, another 26 per cent increase in 2027/28 and another 15 per cent increase in 2028/29.
Then comes the sewerage slug: the sewerage access charge will increase by 8.5 per cent consecutively for three years from 2026/27 – as will the sewerage volumetric charge and the trade waste charge.
If you switch from the draft LTFP to council’s Draft Fees and Charges 2026/27 you will also see there are some other whacks on the way with increases in everything from pool entry fees and sporting ground hire to outdoor dining licences and the registration of backflow prevention devices.
The list seems to go on forever and will impact everyone in the community in one way or another.
So is the information readily accessible?
Not necessarily says the founder of the Southern Highlands Community Forum, Dr Raymond Khoury.
He told the Forum’s inaugural meeting last Tuesday night that the draft documents were not on council’s www.wingecarribee.nsw.gov.au website but on its community engagement platform, www.participatewingecarribee.wsc.nsw.gov.au
People then need to find the items on public exhibition, find the box that says ‘Draft Operational Plan & Budget 26/27, LTFP & Asset Management’ and then click the ‘Learn more’ arrow.
Then it’s just a case of ‘joining the conversation’ and you can make a submission – unless of course you lose your copy, in which case you need to start all over again.
Dr Khoury advised people to write their copy elsewhere first and then to ‘copy and paste’ it into the submission form.
He also encouraged people to stick to the basics: focus on the ‘who’ (I am), the ‘what’ (I think) and ‘why’ (I think it).
This week Dr Khoury was encouraging local residents to spare two or three minutes to make a submission.
“This is very important,” he said.
“Unless our voices are heard, council will assume that residents are in agreement with what they are doing.
“Even if it is one sentence long, it will make a major contribution to the overall picture.”
Local resident Edna Carmichel also raised concerns about communication with the broader community and about the length of time provided to lodge a submission given the volume of material ratepayers needed to wade through.
Her own request for an extension was rejected and a council spokesperson ‘respectfully rejected’ the suggestion the documents had been in any way “hidden, buried or made inaccessible to the community”.
Council’s Director, Corporate Strategy and Resourcing, Shelley Jones, said “significant efforts” had been made to ensure the information was publicly available and understandable.
Those efforts, she said, had included:
- - a dedicated financial sustainability section on council’s website;
- A Participate Wingecarribee exhibition page containing all draft documents and supporting information;
- A series of mayor-led podcast discussions;
- Animated explainers and FAQs;
- A detailed public presentation from council’s independent financial sustainability consultant at council’s April meeting;
- On-going media and social media communications directing the community to the material.
She said the volume and content of submissions already received by council demonstrated that community members had been able to “locate and engage with” the relevant information.
Mrs Carmichel speaking with Graeme Day on 2ST described council’s response as ‘unreasonable’ and said it wouldn’t pass a pub test.
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