Dr Sarah Kaine was elected to the NSW Legislative Council in the 2023 State Election as a member of the Labor Party. With independent Gareth Ward winning the lower seat house for Kiama, Dr Kaine was appointed as Labor’s Duty MLC for Kiama, giving the party boots-on-the-ground in the LGA.

Dr Kaine’s interests have always lied in challenging inequality, particularly for women. She studied economics at university while she worked for the Australian Workers Union, where she developed her passion for achieving justice in the workplace for those disadvantaged or otherwise vulnerable workers. She completed her PHD in industrial relations, specifically looking into the aged care workforce, and was an associate professor at the University of Technology Sydney for a decade before deciding to run in the NSW state election.

Dr Kaine isn’t just Labor’s contact for Kiama - she has jurisdiction over a number of other electorates in South Sydney, and says she works closely with Katelin McInerney, who ran for Labor in the Lower House during the 2023 state election. Dr Kaine is also a member of a number of NSW Government committees, including the Modern Slavery Committee, Standing Committee on Social Issues, and the Public Accountability and Works Committee. 

“We’ve just started an inquiry into government procurement, particularly what social outcomes we might be wanting to pursue,” Dr Kaine told The Bugle. “So how do we get outcomes that are not just about the bottom line, but we’re thinking about value for money for NSW taxpayers, social value, and how we use those investments.” Businesses in the Kiama LGA will hopefully benefit from these discussions in future as Dr Kaine says the government is looking for better ways for local businesses and Indigenous-owned businesses to interact with the government during procurement.

The Bugle asked Dr Kaine what are the biggest issues facing Kiama residents, and it should be no surprise that the answer was affordable housing and the cost of living crisis, which is currently affecting Australians around the country, not just in the Kiama LGA. Dr Kaine says she knows the housing issue has played out differently in Kiama, however.

“With a bit of an ageing population across Kiama, we need a lot of workers to look after them,” Dr Kaine said. “It’s incredibly difficult for care workers in particular to be able to find affordable housing, it plays out differently in different parts of Kiama, but it’s hard getting people living near where they work.”

Asked what she can do to help tackle the housing issue, Dr Kaine knows there’s no quick-and-easy solution. “As much as I’d like to be able to single-handedly keep inflation under control, that’s above my paygrade, but I’d be very popular if I had the answer!”

“What I can do and what I’m doing is making sure that any initiatives that the government is rolling out, including energy rebates, I’d love to come down and speak more and provide advice and support for people to access those. 

“One of the things with rebate schemes is they can be quite good, but often people who need them most don’t access them. In other electorates, I’m hosting forums to assist people with the nitty gritty of how to make sure to get the help that’s already there. I’m very hopeful that in the near future, we can do things like that in Kiama as well.”

Dr Kaine is also acutely aware that Kiama has a representative in the NSW House of Representatives in Gareth Ward, and has no intention of stepping on anyone’s toes.

“I’m not the Lower House representative of course, it’s appropriate that there is a lower house representative who undertakes day-to-day representations on behalf of constituents, that’s entirely appropriate as it should be.

“What we try to do in this role is provide a further potential conduit for information both ways, directly into the government, which members of the Lower House in opposition don’t have, but also the other way around: information straight from the government to the residents of Kiama. So it’s not the same role, I don’t intend it to be the same role, it can’t be the same role and it shouldn’t be. It’s a supplementary opportunity for two-way communication between the people of Kiama and the government.”

The Bugle hopes to see more local representatives make their way down to Kiama from Macquarie Street to ask directly what they can do to make our lives on the South Coast even better than it already is.