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A Region beset with contradictions
14 July 2007
In recent times any conception of the Sunshine Coast as a strong identifiable region seems to have gone backwards. The region is beset with contradictions and there is an absence of regional leadership to clarify or resolve these issues.
On all of the big issues of jobs, airport, public transport, housing and accommodation, environment, technology park, public infrastructure, key regional civic centre, and councils amalgamation there are divisions, and even a bitterness that defies the prospect of logical solutions and invites external political intervention and inappropriate compromises.
The latest issue seems to be the absence of sufficient affordable housing for first home buyers, in order to sustain population growth on the Coast. Almost in the same breath, a population cap is proposed to control the growth. People seem to see no contradiction and in the same meeting for example, applaud both proposals. A contradiction?
We complain about the lack of a good public transport system on the Coast, but the priority seems to be the Camcos link which could daily denude coast talent to work in Brisbane, with perhaps 70 percent or more of the travelers being coast-based. Do we accelerate us being a commuter suburb of Brisbane, rather than a region in our own right. A contradiction?
We want to provide more secure, career-based jobs as a priority but are we doing enough to attract entrepreneurs, new high-tech industries, major hotels, or are we powerless to influence a future that addresses problems of underemployment? Influence or inertia?
We express concern about preserving our environment, and yet oppose greater housing densities and higher buildings in urban centres. A contradiction?
A regional centre has been identified yet there are clear signs of competing with it, and certainly not complementing or linking with it.
We are starved of major pieces of infrastructure such as a cultural centre, with genuinely regional status, and seem more concerned with the small-scale and local. Should we not be advocating for regional as well as small scale facilities? Even a tiny town, albeit a marginal seat, like Maryborough has its Brolga Theatre that surpasses anything in this region of a quarter of a million people.
So many issues, so many contradictions; some internally generated, some imposed by successive governments frustrated by the Coast’s lack of unity and planning.
I really hope that at this critically important period in our history, that our political masters will not strike deals that compromise a regional future that I think most thinking residents really want: regional unity and purpose.
Professor Paul Thomas AM is Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Sunshine Coast.