CVH Draft Community Engagement Policy is a Step Backwards
MEDIA RELEASE For immediate release: Monday, 27 July 2026
Draft Community Engagement Policy is a Step Backwards and Should Not Be Adopted As Drafted, Says Business Victor Harbor
VICTOR HARBOR, SA; Business Victor Harbor (BVH) has today lodged a formal submission stating plainly that the City of Victor Harbor's draft Community Engagement Policy is a step backwards, not forwards, from the policy it replaces, and has told Council it should not be adopted as drafted.
The draft policy, due to replace Council's 2022 Public Consultation Policy, narrows the commitment to “close the loop” with the community on how feedback shaped a decision, invokes “absolute discretion” three times where the current policy has no equivalent, softens the promise that submissions will be considered in decision-making, and drops the explicit naming of business owners from its definition of “community.” BVH's submission sets both policies out clause by clause and asks Council to do the same before adopting the draft.
This is not hypothetical for BVH. Twice in the past eight months, BVH lodged detailed written submissions with Council on matters directly affecting its members. Neither appeared in any public Council agenda. Council had this information. It was not put before the public, and it was not visibly acted on. Whatever the objective behind the new policy, BVH's submission argues that several of its drafting choices make an outcome like this easier to repeat, not harder to avoid. The cumulative effect, in BVH's words, is “a policy that makes it easier for Council to stop listening, not harder.”
“We lodged detailed, considered submissions on matters directly affecting our members and to this day, there's no public record either was ever weighed. That's not hypothetical for us. It happened. And in four specific ways, this draft policy makes it easier for that to happen again, not harder. We're not asking Council to abandon this reform. We're asking them not to adopt it as drafted, and to compare it, clause by clause, against the policy it's replacing.”
- Kirsten Pitman, President, Business Victor Harbor.
BVH's submission makes one priority recommendation: that Council formally recognise established representative bodies, such as BVH, and commit to notifying them directly whenever a relevant consultation opens. It is a mechanism already used by other Australian government bodies, at negligible cost. It also asks Council to treat this submission as a live test of the very policy it is adopting, by responding formally to each recommendation and reporting back (as its own draft policy promises) on how the community's feedback shaped the final decision.
This is an open submission. BVH is sharing it in full with its members and the wider Victor Harbor business community, and will share Council's response, if one is provided, the same way. Businesses and residents wishing to read the submission in full can do so via BVH's website.
ENDS
Media contact:
Kirsten Pitman, President, Business Victor Harbor
0409 696 550
president@businessvictorharbor.com.au
A copy of the full submission can viewed in the Advocacy Tab of the BVH Website & BVH App.