My guiding principal in business was; ‘We’re in business to create a customer, and then satisfy the needs of that customer’.  To achieve this objective you have to get close to your customers and thoroughly understand what it is they want, and then work out a way to deliver the product or service they want and make a profit out of it.

Successful governments know they too must understand the needs of their constituents and govern accordingly.  In Queensland we have a government lead by a Premier who wanders around in a yellow vest and ‘hard hat’ repeating over and over the mantra, “I have been elected to make hard and unpopular decisions”. I know some businesses that arrogantly fed their customers a similar line, ‘here’s what we do, take it or leave it’.  It might work for awhile, but ultimately customers go elsewhere and the business disappears.

A topical example is Westpac Bank whose retail boss, Peter Hanlon said last week, “Banks had failed to adequately care for customers by morphing into an automated and faceless service that account holders were increasingly fed up with”.  He went on to say, “Closing branches had been a complete failure.  We have closed branches in places we should not have closed them.  This is an admission that we made a mistake....Over the past 20 years we’ve taken away the capability of bank managers to get involved in lending decisions, we’ve taken away their ability to hire their own people, we’ve even taken away their ability to sponsor their own bowls club.  Now bank managers decide who they hire, when they open and close, they decide where their sponsorship dollar goes and what to do with specific customer inquiries.  I want bank managers to again be respected members of their local community.  Australia is not a country of cookie-cutter towns and suburbs so why continue to have a cookie-cutter approach to banking”.  I say amen to Mr. Hanlon’s epiphany.

With the latest Galaxy poll revealing Anna Bligh’s approval rating has dropped to 30% she is rapidly becoming an endangered species and not far from becoming extinct. So maybe it’s time for her to admit her mistakes like Westpac and set about fixing the problem before it’s too late.  I’m sure Noosa would happily throw her a ‘lifeline’.  All she has to do is instruct her Local Government minister to redraw the boundaries and create a ‘Greater Noosa Shire’ with its own local council.  Her approval rating would certainly jump significantly not only in Noosa but throughout the state, as there is broad support for Noosa to remain as an international example of what a local community can accomplish without interference from head office, so to speak.   The Beattie/Bligh government, against the wishes of its electorate dispossessed Noosa of its right to self govern. Our vote has been devalued: we have been disenfranchised.  Our capacity to have a genuine say in our local future has been diluted.  That dilution will only get worse as the southern regions of the Sunshine Coast plan for more intense development.  Their rate of population growth will well exceed that of Noosa so the next electoral redistribution is likely to see us with one councillor on the Sunshine Coast Regional Council, not even the paltry two as we now have.

Forced council amalgamations have made the elected remote from their electors without providing any of the checks and balances which exist at senior levels of government in this country.

Local government is community government arising from a Community of Interest.  It is the level of government which most effects the environment in which we live and with which we are most engaged.  Its value comes from a local community having a vote which really matters.  So it’s appropriate the community knows personally who it is electing.

Regionalising local councils and reducing the number of elected representatives drastically reduces community influence on this critical level of government.

To those who say ‘get over it’ or ‘move on’ and ‘it will cost too much to go back’ we say you are advocating a model of local government which is fundamentally flawed.  A democracy is sustained through vigorous debate and agitation by its electorate at even the slightest attempt to remove or diminish people power. We, today’s generation are responsible for ensuring future generations enjoy the same levels of freedom as we have perhaps taken for granted for far too long. It is incumbent on all of us who love Noosa to fight for as long as it takes to recover our local voice.

As Thomas Jefferson, the author of America’s Declaration of Independence and 3rd President of the United States wrote, “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent”.

Finally, as if a punctuation mark for this month’s FON Report, the Local Government Association of Queensland’s Greg Hallam said last week ‘mayors of the 18 councils who have submitted claims totalling more than 100 million dollars to cover amalgamation costs are giving up hope the State Government will ever compensate them for these costs as promised’.
Don’t forget to support the Journal’s Clean Up Our River flotilla on Sunday the 21st of November.

Bob Ansett
Friends of Noosa