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What Will Trigger a Rational Amalgamation?
10 July 2004
The simple sign on the Bruce Highway's northbound lane, south of
the Caloundra turn off, has for years been welcoming people to the
Sunshine Coast, identified as the four Councils of Maroochy,
Caloundra, Noosa and Cooloola.
The latest State Government maps prepared for the Department of
Communities identifies the Sunshine Coast as the area from north of
Gympie to south of Caboolture.
Recently, both the Premier and the Deputy Premier have visited
the Coast and delivered a clear message that the Coast councils
need to amalgamate or continue to lose out on the acquisition of
funding because of the absence of unified regional advocacy.
For an increasing number of influential people the matter has
become serious. Their belief is that we are, through our
complacency and lack of leadership, compromising the quality of
life for Sunshine Coast residents into the future. As the tourism
industry expands, so the needs of residents are further
marginalised, disguising fundamental and endemic shortcomings in
the economic and cultural provisions that will provide the social
stability for a growing population, and the glue for community
health.
The State Government has said it won't trigger an amalgamation
and that the impetus must come from the Coast. The reason for this
seems to be that, although the Gold Coast amalgamation has been a
success, at the time it was a State Government electoral liability.
On this Coast that has long been conservative heartland, and is now
gradually shifting to Labor, there is probably little enthusiasm to
unsettle that foothold.
What, then, will trigger at least an initial rational debate on
the major issues? What may eventually influence public opinion? At
the moment, because of the absence of leadership and information,
majority opinion is understandably opposed to a change as the
benefits have not been made clear. And most people do not have the
time to pore over State Government and other documents which have
provided a compelling case for over a decade.
As it is not going to be the State that takes the lead, it is
equally obvious that local councillors are not going to take the
initiative to vote themselves out of office.
The Property Council, Chambers of Commerce, and other economic
organisatons are viewed with some suspicion by many residents as
developers do not have an unblemished record on matters of
profiteering and self interest.
State and Federal politicians seem in favour of an amalgamation
of some kind but they can hardly be expected to coordinate
community activism, beyond the occasional speech or media release
to provoke public debate. Equally, the Area Consultative Committee
might be seen to be too political, and an arm of government
administration, just like State Development.
In the meantime, we have diversionary or compromise strategies
to address what remain major regional issues, through SunROC, or
suggestions of Cooloola-Noosa, as well as Caloundra-Maroochy, and
even possibly a hinterland shire.
Diversions, divisions and discord abound on this issue and it is
both frustrating and upsetting for those of us who are concerned
about the future of the Coast to see the absence of information and
logic alongside the proliferation of defensiveness, prejudice, and
misinformation.
In the meantime, the cane lands, an internal communication
system of roads, buses, and monorails, as well as the airport,
water, bandwidth, power, pollution, culture, environmental
degradation, new urbanism, jobs, all get too little unified
attention. Residents are becoming the losers, but it is their
children and grandchildren that will really have to bear the
consequences of this neglect.
The University itself is continuing to work on these issues and
produce the information that will perhaps, with the help of
sympathetic media, be able to enhance the debate.
It would be very difficult for the University to ever lead the
debate because its work would be compromised and it would become a
'political football' which we have strenuously tried to avoid from
our earliest days.
The issue will not go away, but what will be the trigger for the
quantum leap forward that is so urgently needed?
Professor Paul Thomas is Vice-Chancellor of University of
the Sunshine Coast