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If you have a flick through my “Have your say” section you will see that the supporters of the HER/VOICE “Noosa stand alone campaign” are challenging my decision to stand for the mayorality of the new SSC Council. Without question, I strongly defend their right to do so.

This campaign asks residents to support the premise that Noosa Shire can continue on with an unelected council with the community not voting in a council election and not paying rates until such time as the “VOICE” Organisation can win a court case in the High Court.

I considered this proposal along with many other issues when I was making my decision to stand or not stand for the SSC mayorality. I sought verbal legal advice on the VOICE proposal from several legal sources but have not found anyone who gives it any chance. This advice has all been from people who are either retired from or currently practicing in Local Govt or Constitutional Law. They all say that, regardless wether VOICE’s interpretation of the section of the Constitution they are refering to is correct or not, significant case law and precident would exclude a legal challenge to the Local Govt Reform act from bieng successful. Given the above advice I deciced our last “million to one chane” had no legs and if I wanted to be part of protecting what I have spent the last 25 years of my life to achieve, I would have to stand for the mayoralty of the new council.

For the record I list below my understanding and view of the Voice/Her proposal.

My understanding?
1 They believe that 3500 votes, including mine, collected out of a possible 35000 over a 2 month period constitutes a majority view currently held in this community.
2 They believe that majority was reinforced by the attendence of somewhere between 100 and 200 people at a public meeting to disscuss the issue. These numbers were their figures quoted in newspapers.
3 To achieve their aims they will require Noosa Council to continue unelected until such time as they can win the High Court challenge.
4 They reccomend that Noosa residents don’t vote in this current election regardless of who is standing for any of the positions including the 2 Noosa based Divisions.
5 They reccommend that ratepayers don’t pay their rates.
6 I beleive, at the public meeting, that they recommended that the unelected Noosa council use “promisary notes” to pay it’s staff and creditors until such time as VOICE wins the high court challenge and a new council can be elected in Noosa.
7 They will require a motion of the current Noosa Council supporting this premis and that a current Noosa councillor will present this motion at the next meeting of council.

My view
1 The 3500 votes, including mine, may well give them the right to challenge the amalgamation decision but it gives no promise of wether they will win or not. They will have rely on the previous Plebicite results to indicate the majority view. We were all told at that time that the plebicite had no power in law to force the State to do anything. The previous case law and precedents will also be virtually impossible for the High Court to put aside.
2 I have spoken to a number of people who attended the public meeting who didn’t support the actions proposed which they wer’nt aware of when they signed the petition initally.
3 In march 2004 the current mayor and councillors were elected for a 4 year term and I don’t believe they have any right under any law to represent the residents for a day longer than they were elected to do. To do so would remove the voters right under law to change who should represent them if they didn’t like the policies or outcomes of the current council at the end of the term. In my view any one who proports to be a member of a Noosa Council after March 15 is unelected and will have no right to represent anyone, make decisions on anyone’s behalf or use any public ratepayers funds for any perpose.
4 The right to vote was hard won by Australian men and women over 100 yrs ago and indeed is now compulsory under law. I won’t ask or recommend to anyone not to vote nor will I give support to any organisation who does. I believe it would be at least immoral if not illeagal to do so!
5 I believe it is also improper to reccommend to ratepayers not to pay their rates to either an unelected council or the duely elected one. At best this could see ratepayers in the future bieng charged intrest on unpaid rates or at worst, if ithe court case goes long term, putting their home at risk.
6 The unelected council would have no access to any existing Noosa shire council funds as, under the current law, they will all be controled by the new council as of the 16th March. That means that neither staff nor creditors of the unelected Noosa Council will get paid and their families will suffer until this court case is won. I suggest no one would be working for the unelected council within the week and businesses won’t extend credit to the councl without certainty.
7 A motion that now lies on the books as a notice of motion to the very last meeting of the Noosa Council that asks council to support this action. It proposed by a current Noosa councillor that has announced his nomination to be elected to the new Sunshine Coast Regional Council in March??

I have stated in previous statements on this website that I congtatulate both FON and HER for their efforts. The FON campaign has now wisely switched to de-amalgamation in the future and I wish them luck. The advice that I have recieved regarding the HER campaign and their request for people not to vote or pay rates leads me to believe it has no hope. The SSC regional Council will include the Noosa region on 15th of March and 99% of the thousands of Noosa residents I have spoken to in the last couple of months want me to stand for the mayoral position.

I am also getting great support from many other communities on the SSC because they want the sort of council and protection that Noosa residents have enjoyed for so long.

I’m sorry blog is so long but I do want my position clear for all residents to see.
BOB

What an interesting lunch I had yesterday. It was with the ex Mayor of Bogatar [hope thats how one spells it] in Columbia. He only had 3 years as Mayor and totally turned the city around by redesigning and building a whole new transport system in his city. Apparently, previous administrations had been planning to build this great big system of elevated motorways etc, etc to resolve the city’s transport problems. He stopped all that and built an intergrated transport system based mainly on buses and bikes for about 1/3rd of the cost which moves about twice the people in half the time and spent the money he saved on schools and hospitals. Fabulous stuff really.

He has been traveling the world as a consultant on public transport systems since and was in Brisbane on Friday. We have known about him for some time and when we heard he was in Bris we had some of our staff attend a breakfast to hear what he had to say. Fortunatly for us he had a spare day and we invited him up to the SSC to have a look at what we were doing in Noosa and to give us some advice on where to from here with public transport right across the coast.

He was very positive with what we were already doing and said we were still in a good position to build a transport system which will actually move more people than what we are currently considering and reduce the number of cars on the coast roads at the same time. Even though Bogatar is a city of 7 million people, the sorts of things that he did there could be modified to fit here without too much problem at all.

It was really inspiring to talk to some one who has actually done this type of thing and I hope to be able to get him back to talk through the transport issues on the coast when I am Mayor.

The pan seared Mooloolaba King Prawns and warm green mango, quecumber and peanut salad at Berardo’s on the Beach wasn’t bad either??????????

C U soon
BOB

This morning the Sunshine Coast’s local transition committee signed off on the long awaited Transition Action Plan. I want to record my thanks to all the members and staff for producing such a fine document in such a short time. The transitional CEO Mr John Knaggs and his staff team of  workers drawn from all three of the current councils have worked tirelessly to bring together all the threads to get the new council off to a good start as of the 17th March when it opens it’s doors for the first time under the new banner.  

 The bottom line for the person in the street is that they will still be able to interact with the new council in virtually the same way as they did with the old. Except for some changes in directors positions, the same people will in the same positions in the same buildings doing the same job as before. All four offices, Maroochydore, Nambour, Caloundra and Tewantin will be kept open and act as a service centre for that part of the region.

 Every address in the region will receive a brochure in the coming weeks to let everyone know what is happening.

I would also like to put on record my thanks to all the members of the committee. The Chairman Mayor Don Aldous, who is to retire from local politics next month, has certainly left a great legacy with the way he handeled the job. The Mayors , Deputy Mayors and Councillors involved all did their jobs well and with dignity. I would also like to pay special tribute to the Union reps on the committee for their hard work and good sprit through the process. As I stated today at the meeting I hope the spirit of co-operation displayed in the committee room is carried through into the new council.

I have had several people ask me where I got the quotes above from. They were origionally collected by futurist Peter Kenyon for a presentation he made to a conference I attended. I kept a copy of his speech notes and have been quoting from them.
Here is another couple.

“Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what the hell happened”???
[anon]

Here is a couple from alduts that “knew” what young people wanted in their time.

“We don’t like their sound. Groups of gituars are on their way out”

[Mike Smith from DECCA when he turned down the Beatles}

“The rest of the group is fine but the singer will have to go”
[Eric Easton when he was taking over as manager of the Rollong Stones. The singer was Mick Jagger]

Last one for now and I think it is a classic statment when we read comments from the armchair experts on this matter.

“Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them”
[James Baldwin]

Just for the record below is the vision statement from the National Youth Ploicy of India,

‘For your country-
If you plan for a year - sow a paddy
If you pland for a decade- plant trees
If you plan for a future-NURTURE YOUTH’

All food for thought really
Enjoy your day
BOB

I have been watching the issue of anti-social behaviour amoungst young people evolve in the media recently and I do support the principal that “if they do the crime they should do the time”. It is interesting though that we hear this statement “the young people of today —-” and try to present the picture that young people are so different now and “we wern’t like that”. My contention is that things havn’t changed all that much and the good kids still out weigh the bad kids by a country mile.

Teenagers will be teenagers, always have been and always will be. Those who do wrong by the law in any society should be punished and those who don’t, should be rewarded with opportunity. Even in the adult society there are good people and bad and I’m not sure the percentages are really any different than amoungst teenagers. I am told “teenager” comes from the Latin word “teona” which means “grief, strife and misery” so it seems even the Romans had some issues with young people as well.

I was lucky enough to hear the Western Australian futurist Mr Peter Kenyon speak at a conference many years ago on youth issues and below are a couple of quotes he used to put things into context.

“Our youth today now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority and disrespect for older people. Children now days are tyrants, they no longer rise when elders enter the room, they contradict their parents, they chatter before company, gobble their food and tyrannise their teachers. They have execrable manners, flout authority and have no respect for their elders. What kind of creatures will they be when they grow up”?
SOCRATES around 500 BC

What about this one.
“When I look at the younger generation, I dispair for the future of civilisation”
ARISTOTLE around 300 BC

There is one thing that does ghange though and that is the way we as adults see our own kids today. To put that in context I will let Mark Twain have the last say when he said-
” When I was a child of fourteen, my farther was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be tewenty one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years”

BOB

Well it’s been a fablous Aussie day weekend. Great weather and good times really do go hand in hand. We had a fablous morning on the river at Noosaville Saturday with 40 new Aussies now on the list and the awards announced. Really good to see such a big roll up for these events right across the coast.

The campaign team set up a table at Caloundra street markets Sunday morning and I arrived around 10:30 after spending the best part of the morning on the phone. What a great response we got from the stall holders and market goers. I was supposed to head off up to The Bunya Dreaming Festival at Maleny by 12 noon but couldn’t get away until about 1:30 in the afternoon after the markets had finished. I knew the markets were very popular but I was pleasently surprised at how far afield people came from to enjoy them. I spoke to people from all 3 shires on the coast and some from as far south as Pine Shire.

It was well after 2:30 before I got to Baroon Pocket Dam at Maleny but it was well worth the effort. It was a really great afternoon of celebration of indigenous culture for the coast and was really well attended. The organiser, Beverly Hand from Barung did a great job of getting the whole thing together and everyone had a great day. It was really good for me because I got to say hello to many friends in the indigenous community who I have got to know over the years through my involvment in indigenous issues as mayor of Noosa. I didn’t leave there until about 5:30 or 6pm.

Today was a quiet day having lunch in Bris with friends. Couldn’t believe the traffic going down though. We left Boreen Pt at 10 and didn’t arrive at The Gap until about 12:30. We ran into a bumper to bumper crawl about 10 K’s from the Caboolture turn off. It was back almost to Moby Vic’s when I came home about 5:30. Obviously a lot of Bris people decided to make the best of the good holiday weather on the SSC.
C U soon
BOB

Hi folks
There has been a bit of a furphy doing the rounds that I am only interested in Noosa long term and wont be interested in the rest of the coast. This seems to be based on the fact that I fought so hard for Noosa in the amalgamation debate. Below is a copy of a blog I placed on the Daily On Line last night.

When elected to the office of the mayor of Noosa in March 2004 for the third term, I, in a sense, signed a contract with the people of Noosa Shire to protect and enhance their environment and lifestyle to the best of my ability as I had done in the past.

Thats what they elected me to do, expected me to do and I believe is what I have done in all of the day to day matters of Noosa Council.

The amalgamation announcement came from way out of left field and was a battle I didn’t expect to have to fight, but fight it I did. Thats what I was elected to do and my “contract” called for me to do and I honoured that committment again and again until I believed the battle was well and truly lost.

I finally came to that belief after the plebicite when Premier Bligh quite clearly stated that regardless of the results of the plebicite, there will be no change to the Commissions report and the three councils on the Sunshine Coast will amalgamate!

I made the decision to stand for Mayor of the Sunshine Coast in the full knowledge that I would make the same committment to all the people on the Sunshine Coast.

If elected in March 2008, I will be required to read and sign the Oath of Office as the Mayor of the Sunshine Coast to represent all of the people of the Sunshine Coast. The Oath of Office is sworn under the law and I don’t take that lightly. That will be my contract with the people of all the Sunshine Coast and I will honour that contract to the letter.

The policies I have already released, and will continue to release, during this campaign are all written with a view to creating a solid foundation for the new Sunshine Coast Regional Council to be built on well into the future.

Since the formation of the Local Transition Committee I have committed myself to ensure a smooth transition for Noosa ratepayers into the new Regional Council as have Cr Aldous and Cr Natoli on behalf of their constituents.

Since that time I have not been involved in Friends of Noosa’s deliberations and nor will I be in the future. They agree with that but have chosen to continue their anti amalgamation campaign which they believe is their right in a democratic society.

My goal now is to ensure the Sunshine Coast develops into Australia’s first Sustainable Region as an example to all Australians.

BOB

Forgot to put a heading on yesterdays blog???

Lets call it AFFORDABLE HOUSING IDEA!!
Now it might make some sense

BOB

I think nub of the problem is no matter how cheaply we produce a house in the first place as soon as the first buyer puts the house on the market they can expect market price for it and rightfully so! When that happens there goes the affordability and we start again.

In my view the answer is to create a partnership between the council, State Govt and the development industry to develop a stock of affordable houses right across the coast using the methods that have been put forward by the housing industry people and others, BUT DONT SELL THEM.

The plan would then be for either a Govt housing commission or community housing company to lease them for 30 yrs at an agreed rate PA which would give whoever developed the properties a fair return on investment.

Given the investment is smaller than would be needed to build a house for the open market the actual lease fee, in dollar terms, would be less and the Commission or housing company could then rent them a cheaper weekly price.

This has a 2 fold effect. First it would put in the market, rental housing that the lower wage earners can afford on a long term basis while at the same time provide some real competition for other forms of rental properties on the coast.

Secondly it would allow couples who have a better long term earning capacity to have some relief from high rents while they saved a reasonable deposit for their own home in the future.

This a very simplistic outline of how the system could work but it really is looking at the problem from a different angle.

I have been promoting this idea for some time now but am having real difficulty getting any one interested to make a start. Am I on the right track??

What do you all think.??????
BOB