Proud Park is one of Cameron Walters’ greatest achievements, a place he loves to visit with Nala, his border collie. Having delivered Helensburgh's popular off-leash area is a source of some solace after the Liberal Party’s failure to lodge paperwork on time crushed his hopes of being re-elected to Wollongong City Council in the September 14 local government elections.

“Proud Park, in Helensburgh, wasn’t on the budget until 2021, which I was sitting in. It was my first budget for Ward 1,” Cameron said. “I put the upgrade on there. It was only meant to be a fence, but if you go there now, it’s a lot more than that.

“It ended up with shade, facilities – overall, it’s now a gem in Helensburgh. And it’s moments like that you obviously cherish.”

In fact, the dog park has become so popular that Cameron prefers to visit in the quiet times with Nala, who is named after Simba’s queen consort in Disney's The Lion King. “They say in politics, if you want a friend, get a dog,” he said, laughing.

A day after his councillor career was dealt a devastating blow, Cameron put his positive attitude down to the outpouring of community support.

“I didn’t expect so many people to call. I’ve had hundreds of phone calls over the last 24 hours. I’m going to spend probably a whole week getting back to them all.

“I’ve had former colleagues reach out. I’ve had ministers from the state government reach out. I’ve had people across the aisle and my own party reaching out.

“We thought it was a sick joke, to be honest,” he said of first hearing that the Liberal Party had missed the nominations deadline and about 140 Liberal candidates’ names would not appear on council election ballots around the state.

The deadline for nominations via the NSW Electoral Commission was at noon on Wednesday, August 14.

“I was in Canberra, but I made sure before I left I had everything done. I was actually trying to prepare and I uploaded things to the portal. We were ready to go … We tried to help, but in the end, best intentions unfortunately didn’t work."

Eight councils, including Wollongong, Camden and Shoalhaven, will not have any Liberal candidates on the ballots as a result of the party's administrative error. What exactly went wrong remains unclear but last night the party sacked state director Richard Shields.

“There’ll be a lot of apologies thrown around,” Cameron said.

“I’m lucky where I was a current councillor, but for some they would’ve prepared to be running long term … and that’s the hardest part is not even getting a shot.”

Wollongong’s would-be Liberal mayoral candidate John Dorahy – who had planned to run a ‘Back to Basics’ campaign looking at what a council can and should be doing for the city – will be forced to retire after 13 years as a city councillor. Ward 3 councillor Elisha Aitken is another incumbent affected.

Held on Thursday afternoon, the ballot draw for Wollongong’s local government area featured a list of just five mayoral hopefuls: Andrew Anthony (Independent); Suzanne de Vive (Independent); Jess Whittaker (Greens); Ryan Morris (Independent) and Tania Brown (Labor).

“There is no mechanism for appeal here,” Cameron said. “There is a hard deadline. The party knew about this. We obviously were quite aware and we had all our paperwork submitted to the party in a timely manner … we were basically ready to lodge one piece of paper that we needed signed by HQ. Unfortunately, that piece of paper hasn’t been uploaded and basically the nominations have not been submitted.”

Cameron said he had been worried and started calling head office early on Wednesday morning. “That had gone dark. There was no return calls or feedback at all. So unfortunately, in the end, basically the system we had faith and trusted in, that we were told to trust, had failed us.

“We only needed, probably, to be honest, an hour … I could probably have lodged them pretty quickly.”

Nothing like this has happened in the modern era of local politics, he said. “It’s very disappointing.

“It’s not sadness, it’s more anger that, you know – we were told to trust the system that has ultimately let us down. And not just let us down, let the community down, of fair representation and choice at the ballot box.

“You want everyone to participate in democracy, but when you turn up on election day and you’ve only got two parties to choose from, being Labor and the Greens, it’s not going to be a good choice for some who would’ve voted for us, as we were the second highest polling party last time.”

The result will be a setback for democracy, he believes.

“It’s going to make people, once again, not trust the system.”

Labor's Tania Brown and the Greens' Jess Whittaker are now set to battle it out for the city's top job. Three Independents are also running for Lord Mayor: Neighbourhood 5 convenor, Figtree resident Andrew Anthony, a Wollongong City Councillor from 2004 to 2008; Ryan Morris, an Austinmer dad who recently retired from the Defence Force; and Corrimal corporate coach Suzanne De Vive, who has self-published a book, Power Suburbs, on “innovative solutions for sustainable urban development that challenge conventional wind farm approaches”.

Cameron was 25 when first elected to council in 2017, representing Ward 3, where he grew up. He later moved to Helensburgh and has represented Ward 1 since 2021. He is well known for his regular attendance at community meetings, including Neighbourhood Forum 1, Thirroul Village Committee and NIRAG/NF3.

“Residents up here are extremely passionate and they definitely respect outcomes, and I really enjoyed the journey on being able to deliver some projects that have probably been stonewalled for years,” he said.

One example is the long-awaited Helensburgh Community Centre and Library. Cameron was among politicians who attended last week's media announcement revealing the new centre will be built next door to the current library on Walker Street, although building won't start until autumn 2027.

“For me, it’s not a political career," Cameron said. "Council’s always a community service.

“I’ll stay with the Liberal Party. It’s going to need some reform over time. We’re definitely going to have to learn from this.

“I know locally everyone’s rallying together to obviously rebuild and hopefully we’ll come back stronger.”

For now, he plans to continue serving the community.

“I’m going to continue serving right up to September 14. That’s all I can do.

"I love Helensburgh and I’m not going anywhere anytime soon, but I look forward to actually having a little bit of time back, after the election, and obviously get time to spend with my wife, who I only married back in February this year.

“So, looking forward to doing the things that I may have put on hold as well. Mondays are back…

"But, at the same time, I’ll still be out in the community. I’ll be still helping in places, but I’ll just be in a different capacity.”

Perhaps four years is not such a long time in politics.

Meet Wollongong's mayoral candidates

Tania Brown – Labor

Jess Whittaker – Greens

Andrew Anthony – Independent

Suzanne de Vive – Independent

Ryan Morris – Independent