There were many reasons why Noosans opposed amalgamation but none more than the desire to retain the very special qualities differentiating Noosa from all other beachside communities. We knew it would be difficult to hang on to these differences once local government was forcibly removed from us.

Inexorably this is happening with frightening swiftness. One example is the review of parking policy by the Regional Council, intent upon standardising parking laws across the coast, with parking meters high on their agenda.

Why, you may well ask? What’s wrong with having differing policies? The fact that Caloundra has over a 100 parking meters, is of little interest to Noosa. Let them have them. But not for Noosa, we don’t want them. We aren’t a large city, we are a friendly village, and wish to remain that way. The idea of homogenising the coast is precisely what we fought against in our “Save Noosa”, campaign. It’s typical of bureaucratic laziness endemic in public service and the reason why efficient big government is an ‘oxymoron’. Local government is at its most efficient representing constituency’s of up to 80,000 according to international research. Our council represents about 290,000 expected to rise to 340,000 by 2011 thus rapidly approaching the population of Tasmania. How frightening is that?

Another example of growing bureaucratic incompetence is the build up of rubbish along access roads to Noosa. What a wonderful way to greet visitors to this Biosphere Reserve. When contacted by the Noosa Journal, a council officer remarked “the situation is complicated as there is no firm agreement in place with Main Roads and rubbish collection has entered no man’s land”. This council has been in place for almost 6 months now, and there’s no excuse for not having an agreement with Main Roads. A Noosa council responsive to its residents would have had this very important matter dealt with instantly.

We are witnessing the gradual degradation of Noosa as it’s absorbed into he Sunshine Coast Regional Council. ‘Death by a thousand cuts’ is a familiar political tactic and history tells us, this council will morph into one obese bureaucracy, with decision making based on the ‘lowest common denominator’ factor.

For this and many other reasons the Friends of Noosa are delighted to hear the new LNP party has announced a policy aimed at facilitating the return of self government to those former shires wishing to once again enjoy this democratic right. We had a similar undertaking from the former leader of the Nationals, Geoff Seeney, so it’s comforting to know this issue remains at the forefront of the LNP’s policy platform. Thanks go to local member, Glen Elmes for championing this cause. Now all we need is a change of state government next year.

In preparation for this happening, we invited Don Cummins, the former mayor of Mansfield Victoria to share his experience and expertise with us on how he managed the de-merging of Mansfield from their forced amalgamation with the much larger Benalla shire. Don was the key driver in this extraordinary achievement, persistently working to restore local government to Benalla. It took 8 years and a change of state government to effect, but this little shire of only 8000 people ‘never gave up’ and thus succeeded against all odds.

During those 8 years, as part of a regional council, rates went up significantly, services declined, response time to community needs blew out and in general residents lost control of their own destiny. Sound familiar?

With his support, we are focusing our strategies and adopting some of his most successful tactics. The point he hammered home to us was, don’t accept the deprivation of democratic rights, no matter how long it may take, regain the right to self govern.

Interestingly, Port Douglas, launched its own de-merger campaign in late August. It was initiated in a meeting of over 500 rate payers who voted unanimously to de-amalgamate from the Cairns council. Fed-up with rate rises and declining services they resolved to set up an advisory board to work with the Cairns Council to bring about their separation. No doubt the LNP policy on de-merging will also resonate strongly with them.

Our September message to the Noosa community is ‘DON’T GIVE UP’ being part of this regional council is a short term aberration that will ultimately be overturned.

Bob Ansett