The Headland covers the Mid North Coast of New South Wales: Port Macquarie in the south and Coffs Harbour in the north, with Kempsey on the Macleay, the Nambucca Valley and Bellingen strung between them. Two cities, five shires, one coast, the whole record.
The Mid North Coast is roughly 229,000 people bound by one health district, one economic-development region, the Pacific Highway corridor and a shared, still-running flood recovery, and nobody reads the source documents end to end. We do. The Headland reads the five councils' business papers, the NSW Reconstruction Authority's May 2025 flood-recovery program pages, the hospital and bypass project updates, the university and marine-science research, the blueberry and banana crop data and the datasets, cycle after cycle, cites what it read, and writes the synthesis nobody else does. Every factual claim links to the primary source we actually read.
Coverage is under way. Below is our first story, and the seven beats we follow and what each one is for. The way we work is set out plainly on how this site works.
Coffs Harbour is the last major town on the Pacific Highway where the highway still runs through the middle of town. Work has now begun on the last bridge of the $2.27 billion, 14-kilometre bypass, the final piece of the decades-long highway upgrade. It opens to traffic in late 2026, taking up to 12,000 vehicles a day out of the CBD and cutting up to 12 minutes off the trip. What is being built, the numbers, and an honest read of the year ahead.
24 July 2026
More coverage
They came back on 26 August and passed 8 votes to nil, same mover and seconder, same four clauses word for word. The law required the councillors' names on a planning decision. It did not require a reason for the five-week wait.
2 October 2026
Health + the Local Health District
Health Infrastructure records the money, the scope and the design stage. It records no construction start and no completion date, eighteen months after the architect was appointed.
The average flight into or out of Coffs now carries 42 people. In 2018-19 it carried 69. Aircraft movements are up 3.3 per cent while passengers are down 36.9. Port Macquarie shows the same shape, and fell 16.3 per cent in one year.
Kempsey, Macksville and Urunga were three of the towns Australia's largest road project went around. What the programme says it delivered, why a town gets bypassed at all, and the piece the Coffs bypass is about to complete.
The council promises the agenda by close of business the Thursday before each meeting, and minutes within three business days. Every route on its website lands on one portal, whose year filter runs 2013 to 2025 with no 2026 in it. We checked four ways, including a control that proves the method works.
16 August 2026
Health + the Local Health District
Six district releases between 1 July and 4 August, added up. A prostate biopsy rig, a paediatric day chair, an oxygen device that keeps newborns in the region, and two auxiliary annual meetings. What the arithmetic earns is a question.
6 August 2026
Horticulture + Blueberries + Bananas
Recommendation 7 of the Modern Slavery Committee’s report, tabled 6 August, names this region and asks government to investigate allegations of systemic labour exploitation among berry pickers. Nothing is proven and no business is named.
18 August 2026
Horticulture + Blueberries + Bananas
The national crop is about 369,000 tonnes worth $719.4 million, and 94 per cent of it grows in Far North Queensland. What happened to the industry this region invented, and the crop that replaced it.
18 August 2026
Horticulture + Blueberries + Bananas
The newest industry figures put Australia's blueberry crop at $505.1 million and 27,540 tonnes, up 36% in a single year. New South Wales grows about 86% of it, centred on the Coffs Harbour region. The scale, the surge, the export pivot, and an honest read of what it means to anchor a national crop.
24 July 2026
Flood Recovery + the Reconstruction Authority
More than a year after the record May 2025 flood, the latest recovery marker is a $56.3 million package. Its shape is the story: nearly half is cleanup, the rest is riverbank repair and the slow human tail of mental health, legal help and community resilience. A read of what phase the recovery is in.
24 July 2026
Health + the Local Health District
Brendan Walsh becomes Board Chair of the Mid North Coast Local Health District. The district's own announcement records that the previous chair finished in late 2025 and the deputy served as interim chair through the first half of 2026, while the Coffs expansion was being completed.
28 July 2026
Health + the Local Health District
The $194 million Coffs Harbour hospital expansion is complete. The state's more recent move is not more clinical space but $5.5 million for health-worker housing, part of a $200.1 million program targeting more than 500 workers. A read of how the hard problem in regional health moved from the building to the workforce.
24 July 2026
Valla is the Nambucca Valley's designated place to put new housing, on land the council owns and has been readying since 2012. On 22 July it was due to set the first building-height limits and lot sizes and send them to the Minister for Planning. It deferred the item, unanimously, with no reason recorded. A read of how slowly regional housing land comes online.
24 July 2026
Community + the Visitor Economy + Arts
Modelled estimates put tourism at 14.0% of Coffs Harbour's economy, against 9.3% for NSW, and at 4,741 jobs, about 12% of local employment, roughly one in eight. Since 2019/20, just before COVID, tourism output is up more than $300 million. A read of how much a tourism town leans on visitors, and why that concentration is both a strength and an exposure.
24 July 2026
University + Marine Science + Economy
Southern Cross University's Coffs campus has more than 1,200 students and a $12 million Health Sciences Building fitted with a simulated four-bed hospital ward, programmable mannequins and motion-capture labs. For a region whose health problem is staffing, a campus that trains nurses, therapists and psychologists on the ground is part of the answer buildings and housing grants cannot supply. A read of what the campus is, and why it matters.
25 July 2026
Councils
What Port Macquarie-Hastings, Coffs Harbour, Kempsey, Nambucca Valley and Bellingen actually decided, and what it costs you, read from the business papers themselves.
Flood Recovery + the Reconstruction Authority
The region's once-in-a-generation running story: the recovery after the May 2025 flood, tracked on the NSW Reconstruction Authority's own program figures.
Health + the Local Health District
Is the health system delivering? One Local Health District, the base hospitals at Port Macquarie, Coffs Harbour and Kempsey, and the recent hospital works, on the documents.
The Coffs Bypass + Transport
The 2.2 billion dollar Coffs Harbour bypass, the region's largest active project, plus the Pacific Highway residuals and the two council airports, milestone by milestone.
Horticulture + Blueberries + Bananas
The industry that defines the coast: Coffs grows most of Australia's blueberries and the banana coast began here, covered from the co-op, peak-body and agency data.
University + Marine Science + Economy
The National Marine Science Centre and the region's university campuses, Regional Development Australia Mid North Coast and the visitor economy, read from the data.
Community + the Visitor Economy + Arts
The institutions, culture and country of the coast: local organisations, the arts and festivals across the five shires, and the visitor economy that carries the towns.