We may not be the ‘City of Lights’ but we are increasingly becoming the ‘City of Signs’.  Everywhere you look these days there are signs warning us to ‘Lock it or Lose it’, Save Water’ ‘Turn right to Noosa, left to all other destinations’ along with the three Q 150 signs costing taxpayers $17,000, to remind us we are iconic. I guess as part of our ‘great big councils’ harmonisation process they feel we need more and more directions or instructions on how to live our lives.  Not only are there more signs but the signs are getting brighter and bigger.  The old colour scheme of green and off white set by previous Noosa Councils appears to be gradually disappearing along with services like kerbside rubbish collections and free tip vouchers, as pointed out by a concerned letter writer recently.  The only place you can find sanctuary from signage these days is in the Noosa National Park.

And how about this for effrontery? Last week the Maroochydore Journal ran an article about the Sunshine Coast Council embarking on the first of a series of trade missions to lure Melbourne investors to the region.  The article declared, “The mission will target clean technology and renewable energy sectors and will be led by council CEO John Knaggs, Lew Brennan and chair of Cleantech Industries Sunshine Coast, Bruce Napier.”

Quoting Craig Matheson, council’s economic development manager the Journal stated, “The timing of this mission is critical as the Coast will host the Clean Technology Conference on the 28th of October.  He went on to say “we are serious about encouraging business to set up or relocate to the region so we need to make sure we understand their needs and provide opportunities”.

What a joke!  This comes from the same group of people who couldn’t find  time to meet with the Noosa Landfill Gas Company (LGI) to hear how their already established business in Noosaville could install extraction, flaring and monitoring systems for the abatement of methane gas from Coast landfills then converting it to low cost energy at no cost to council. LGI wanted to make Noosa its base for global expansion employing locals and investing on the Sunshine Coast.

However, because the LGI team were not given the opportunity to meet with Knaggs, Matheson and Brennan to explain their processes an interstate organisation was awarded the contract.  How’s that for encouraging Clean Technology to set up or relocate to the Sunshine Coast?
But wait, there’s more!  The CEO of LGI, who has now relocated his business in Brisbane, briefed me on their experience in dealing with a functionally smart council in North Queensland as compared with the dysfunctional Sunshine Coast council.  He said, “All the councillors were in attendance when we made our presentation including the CEO and all the environmental people.  They listened intently, most took notes and asked very good questions.  The CEO then met with us for another hour to fully understand the carbon liability they face and the proposal we submitted to them.

This was a polar opposite experience to the one we had with the SCRC.  No wonder this North Qld Council’s economy is one of Australia’s fastest growing.”

Given the councils ‘balls up’ of other tendering processes impacting on Noosa I suppose the LGI experience is no surprise but simply another example of bureaucrats running this ‘great big council’. Believe me, when it comes to local government, ‘big ain’t beautiful’.

Bob Ansett