I have focused my analysis of the upcoming Queensland council elections on the City of Brisbane for a number of reasons. It is the most populous council in Australia, but it also has elections that are strongly partisan, with Labor, the LNP and the Greens running in every ward and holding all but one ward.
There is also a number of neighbouring councils that surround Brisbane that all have a lot of things in common. These six councils are all very populous: they include four of the next eight most populous councils in the country after Brisbane, and every council in the area ranks in the top fifty in the country by population. They also have directly-elected mayors and (with one exception) use single-member electorates for their council.
The main difference between Brisbane and its neighbours, and the only reason I haven’t written profiles of those other councils, is the lack of organised parties in these local councils. It’s not just that Labor and LNP don’t participate, but you don’t see organised tickets of affiliated candidates running head-to-head across these councils.
And this has had consequences, which I will explore in this post. In Moreton Bay in particular, the bad voting system combined with the lack of parties is depriving much of the council of a choice this March, with four out of twelve council seats as well as the mayoralty being uncontested. This is not a random event – it’s the result of the current system, and something you don’t see elsewhere. In this blog post I’ll look at the history of this problem, what causes it, and how to fix it.
There are six councils in this ring that surround Brisbane: Gold Coast, Redland, Logan, Ipswich, Moreton Bay and Sunshine Coast. I don’t include Somerset as it has a much smaller population even though it theoretically borders Brisbane. Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast do not technically border Brisbane but otherwise fit with this group.
This first chart shows the number of elections in each council that were uncontested since 2008. 2008 is a good place to start this history, since a number of these councils were created and first elected in 2008, and another experienced a boundary change at this time. The only boundary change during this period was the deamalgamation of Noosa from Sunshine Coast in 2014, which reduced the size of Sunshine Coast from twelve councillors to ten at the 2016 election.
Moreton Bay has six uncontested elections out of eleven in 2024: five out of twelve council divisions (the word used for a ward or electorate for Queensland councils outside of Brisbane) along with the mayoralty. Four out of twelve divisions are also uncontested in Logan.
Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast also each have one uncontested division in 2024, and Redland has two – the first uncontested elections in Redland in the period of analysis.
There was another peak in 2012, when Ipswich and Logan each experienced five uncontested elections, including the mayoralty of Logan.
Ipswich has not had any uncontested elections since they changed their electoral system in 2020, reducing the size of the council from ten to eight, and replacing the ten single-member divisions with eight two-member divisions using a terrible bloc vote system.
The first problem with these councils is the existence of single-member divisions. I have been very critical of the use of single-member wards (for example in Victoria). They geographically segregate voters and limit their choice when it comes to candidates. By creating “safe seats” you devalue a person’s vote, and produce artificial majorities for groups without majority support.
In councils in particular, where the community is more likely to be homogenous or at least of a similar make-up in each ward, you can see one side win a super-majority of a council despite not winning such a big share of the vote – although that last point shouldn’t apply to enormous councils like Moreton Bay, with a population of 476,000 people as of 2021.
The big problem in a place like Moreton Bay is the lack of parties combined with that single-member system. When you have organised parties, as you see in Brisbane, each party has an interest in presenting candidates in most or all wards, thus giving voters a choice. Most of the time a seat perceived as “safe” is indeed safe, but sometimes there are surprises.
Parties also play a valuable role in shaping the debate. An alternative party has an interest in identifying mistakes and policy failures by those in power, and to challenge them for their position. They identify issues that may mobilise voters and solidify voters around positions. Yes, parties largely perform these activities for their own self-interest, but it still has a public good. When parties don’t exist, you see situations like Moreton Bay, where a mayor will take office simply because he was the only person to nominate.
This next chart shows the number of candidates for mayor in each of these councils. It shows how councils like Redland and Ipswich have often had very small mayoral fields, and Logan and Moreton Bay have managed to. have uncontested elections, while Brisbane and the Gold Coast always have a healthy field of candidates.
So what is the answer? Firstly, I would do away with single-member divisions. Each division should elect at least three members, ideally five members.
Secondly, these councils don’t have enough councillors, considering their population. The most populous councils in New South Wales tend to have fifteen councillors, yet Moreton Bay is much more populous than the City of Blacktown, and only has thirteen councillors. The Gold Coast should have at least twenty councillors, and even Redland council should have fifteen seats on its council.
The replacement of single-member divisions with multi-member proportional divisions should immediately encourage more people to throw their hat in the ring and eliminate uncontested wards. Uncontested elections in New South Wales pretty much only take place in single-member or dual-member wards.
The use of a proportional system would likely encourage the formation of alliances and tickets which would give greater transparency to voters about who a candidate will likely ally with, or their policy agenda on council. This is a good thing, and would improve Queensland local democracy. A larger council size would also likely lead to more parties and tickets to contest these elections and win seats.
These councils usually fly under the radar but are large bodies and should receive more attention. They deserve a better electoral system which encourages real competition and clarifies the significance of a person’s vote.
That’s about it for now on this topic, but for my next post I will be delving into another issue relating to single-member wards – Victoria’s final adoption of single-member wards for all of metro Melbourne in the lead-up to the October council elections.
The other thing about these Queensland councils is that being a councillor is a full time elected position, not some part time gig like in NSW, with councillors earning six figure salaries.
https://www.statedevelopment.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0026/86219/local-government-remuneration-commission-report-2023.pdf
Whitsunday Regional Council is in much the same boat – with only 2 of the six divisions and the mayoralty contested. I don’t think proportional divisions would fix it at all.
The real problem, talking to both prospective candidates and those Councillors stepping down, is that the State government has progressively wound down the ability of Councillors to actually do anything while increasing the penalties.
Not that long ago if Councillors had a resident complain about long grass they could talk to the manager of the environment team, find out what the plans and timetable were and report back to the resident. Changes were made by the State Government that meant any questions would have to go from the Councillor to the Mayor who would then ask the CEO. The CEO, at their discretion, would pass it down the line, with unelected public servants free to ignore it.
In the meantime Councillors were subject to complaints to the CCC and the Office of the Independent Assessor. The list of potential complaints could be serious, such as taking a bribe; or trivial, such as replying to a council staff member in an “unfriendly” way. You’ll note that this is all one way – there’s no equivalent offence for Council staff (or State Government Members and Ministers). https://www.statedevelopment.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/44233/councillor-complaints-factsheet.pdf
While I would be the last to defend former Councillor Mike Brunker, even a broken clock is right twice a day. “Mike Brunker said though he had “enjoyed every minute”, it was “time to move on” as changing rules and legislation were eroding councillors’ powers and he no longer believed he could positively contribute to his community. “It’s just the not the same as when I first started,” the Division 6 councillor said. “In the old days we could actually help people.”
Right now, being a Councillor in Queensland is just not worth the trouble.
Hi Ben,
Is it worth considering if there are any cultural, social, legal, economic, or other factors that contribute to uncontested elections?
It sounds like the practical issues that Mark raises are very relevant.
So sure, you can propose changing electoral systems, but if there’s any underlying public apathy or reluctance to engage in local governance that isn’t being addressed, then those underlying problems will remain a barrier to democratic functions.
Change the system & I bet much of the problem will disappear.
Peter and Mark, I really don’t buy that those concerns are leading to uncontested elections. The same could be said of the experience of councillors in NSW but in multi-member wards, except in tiny rural communities, we get competitive elections everywhere. It’s only when the magnitude is 2 (we don’t even have M1 wards anymore) do we see uncontested elections.
So yes that may be a factor but I don’t think it’s a major factor. The electoral system is the main determinant. Moreton Bay is a large urban council – it should have competitive elections. And those are more likely with PR.
Ben, the other difference is that Queensland councils are much larger, both geographically and in terms of population, than anything in NSW or Victoria.
Where there are heavily contested elections it’s mostly due to political party fights by proxy e.g Ipswich; or in cases like Logan, an internal party fight; or where there are significant local issues or media coverage. There’s also some cases of settling of historical scores – Cairns, Townsville and Fraser Coast come to mind.
There’s a general reluctance by political parties to run formal tickets outside of Brisbane. The Liberals and Nationals have only previously endorsed candidates in the Gold Coast, Redlands and Cairns and the LNP will only ever run a ticket in Brisbane now. The ALP has previously endorsed candidates in the old Bowen Council, Gladstone, Ipswich and Rockhampton. If you want to go back far enough the Queensland People’s Party (the predecessor of the Liberal Party) endorsed individual candidates in the 30’s and 40’s. The Greens randomly add people as endorsed candidates, but mainly that’s because they are either office bearers or future State or Federal candidates.
The days of being a part-time Councillor are long gone except for some of the smaller and indigenous councils. The other increase in workload is impacted by technology.
Back when Bruce Small was the Mayor of the Gold Coast, his entire correspondence was handled by a part-time secretary. That’s because when you wanted to correspond with the Mayor you either wrote a letter or phoned to make an appointment. Those were generally considered and reasonable questions because people had to put the effort in.
Now, due to the ease of email and social media, there is an expectation of a reply within minutes of some random numpty having a brain spasm at 4:00 am. Adding on all of the *wonderful* automated web surveys and various pressure groups the signal to noise ratio has dropped alarmingly.
One thing I didn’t mention earlier is the proposal by the current state government to actually remove the ability of the Mayors to directly contact their CEOs, effectively creating a political class from the Council staff. The role of Councillors would be twofold – to make the PR announcements for Council decisions and to take the blame when they went belly-up. Speaking of complaints, take a random selection of the following – https://www.statedevelopment.qld.gov.au/local-government/for-councils/governance/councillor-conduct-tribunal/decision-summaries
It’s not just a case of finding people willing to run, the death of volunteerism is also affecting groups like Rotary, Zonta and your average P&C. People have less free time these days to devote to community service and that includes politics.
It’s telling that a number of Councillors made the decision to jump out or up this time. One I spoke to a few weeks ago left a safe Council seat to run for a very difficult State electorate (10% plus) because they said they felt they weren’t able to achieve anything as a Councillor.
I’ll leave this here as another potential reason why nominations dropped.
Electoral Commissioner Pat Vidgen said about 150 fewer candidates were running for local government positions at the upcoming election compared to the last poll in 2020. “[It’s] not a steep decline, but there is a decline,” he said.
“Part of that I think is the mandatory requirements now to nominate. Anyone who nominated by yesterday had to do a number of things, and one of them was mandatory So You Want to Be a Councillor training. What we think is that perhaps some people might have done the training and thought, ‘you know what, that’s probably not for me’.”
The paperwork isn’t that onerous, but having done it the training certainly emphasises the negatives. After the 2020 Council election I was invited to give a witness statement to the ECQ and pointed out that some parts of the regulations were impossible to comply with due to the way the legislation was written. Here’s a brief list:
– Authorisations specify a font size. Font sizes are a relative measure, not an absolute one which means that changing the font type may change the absolute size but not the relative size. The net effect of this is that candidates were required to reprint material based on whether the Returning Officer thinks it looks like the right size;
– Bank accounts were required to be used for all transactions, but the legislation states that “The account cannot have a credit card facility attached”. If you can find a debit card that doesn’t have a credit facility attached to it then good luck. FYI I was in Brisbane and was able to hand over a money order at the ECQ office. I was sorely tempted to ask for a ruling that all of the other candidates hadn’t complied with the legislation when they paid their nomination fee and were therefore invalid. 🙂
– The ECQ is unable to make a determination on the treatment of self-funding and whether donations from the candidate have to be recorded or not.
– The ECQ is also unable to rule on bank fees and charges. Technically they can’t be recorded as an expense, but if you leave them out then the income and expenses won’t balance.
There may yet another reason. Now that the state parliament has fixed four year terms, we have a situation where the local elections and state elections occur within seven months of each other. Candidates who may be better suited for the local arena are instead saving their energies and resources for the state poll. If the local elections occurred between the state elections – say, between 12 and 24 months after the fixed state election date – you may see more candidates nominate for the council elections.
If the next two federal elections are held at the end of their three year term, we will see all three levels of government being elected in Queensland in 2028.
That was also true in 2020, which didn’t see a particularly high rate of uncontested elections.
Mark, in that case maybe Queensland councils should increase the number of members (councillors) who serve on them. Many Sydney councils already have 15 councillors which is the same or greater than those in SEQ, and they have populations under 500k. I think all SEQ councils need to have at least 15-20 councillors on them, possibly up to 30 for some of the larger ones.
In fact, each single member BCC ward could be converted to a multi member 3 councillor ward, given that this is the structure used in many Sydney council wards that cover a similar area.
I’ve thought about this phenomena before too. I suspect that local media coverage plays a factor in local council participation. Gold Coast and Brisbane, which consistently fields a strong pool of candidates, also have their own robust and established media market that covers local issues including council politics. This includes prime-time television news on 7 and 9, commercial online publications and over-the-counter papers. Logan and Moreton conversely relies more upon community news publications and don’t have their own nightly broadcast. This makes it difficult to get attuned to relevant local politics in the outer reaches of Greater Brisbane despite the significant LGA populations of those regions.
Nine Gold Coast news as one example was established in 1996, when the Gold Coast had a population around where Logan stands today, and significantly less than Moreton Bay LGA’s current population. NBN News has broadcast televised bulletins covering the Gold Coast as part of its coverage of Northern NSW since the 1960s.
Moreton Bay resident here (my Councillor is one of the ones re-elected uncontested).
MB doesn’t really have a distinct identity, especially in the former Pine Rivers LGA. We’re firmly part of the greater metropolitan Brisbane mortgage belt. That’s about it.
There’s a classic saying about a council’s three Rs being “roads, rates and rubbish” – to the extent that Moreton Bay council delivers on those competently I think people are generally pretty satisfied with it. Mark’s comments around the depoliticisation and the general removal of ability for Councillors to actually intervene on things are also a factor. In many ways I think Moreton Bay comes close to being the Platonic ideal of a depoliticised public service.
We definitely do get some proxy partisan battles – see Div 8 for example.
But also (from a logistical perspective) the spending caps are … actually very low? They’re about 75 cents per enrolled voter (for Councillor), or 62 cents (for Mayor).
That really doesn’t buy you much in campaign material, especially when you’re going up against an incumbent who’s had the benefit of four years of ratepayer-funded communications.
And the divisions (wards) are about 28k voters, big enough that, like in BCC or at state level, you need a sizeable team to properly cover on foot.
It’s one of the worst casualties of council amalgamations and I don’t think I’ve ever heard of any of its councillors for any reason other than as part of a corruption scandal. All I know about Peter Flannery is that he wants to trick people into thinking the city of moreton bay exists. like can you imagine a single person in redcliffe or arana hills or caboolture telling someone from sydney that they live in ‘moreton’ lmao
Is there any appetite in Moreton Bay to split into smaller councils again, like there was in Noosa?
I also think if people knew nobody was running against the incumbents, they would have ran themselves. If it’s not announced until it is too late (deadline) then it is hard to get people to run if it is assumed there would be competition.
Furtive, actually the name ‘city of Moreton bay’ despite being obscure is very similar in name to ‘Canada Bay city council’ in Sydney that covers Concord, Drummoyne and Rhodes
It’s not really about the name. The constituent parts are sprawling satellites that have few to no common logistical and economic interests between each other. It would be like trying to cram all the councils between like Newcastle, the Blue Mountains and Liverpool together into one entity (or trying to make a council out of the divison of Macquarie I guess). You then put up a bunch of structural impediments to prevent any sort of actual politics taking place, remove the ability for the council to actually deal with things like public transport in any meaningful way and it’s no surprise that all you get running for council are the same old faces packing resumes and dispensing patronage. why would anyone else ever bother? The result is mediocre outcomes, nothing being built other than more suburban sprawl and this mind numbing pseudo-politics to spruik around election time to keep up appearances.
I dunno if there’s any momentum for deamalgamation, my guess is no because the residents have long since learned not to care about council elections in any way whatsoever
@ Furtive Lawngnome I am not sure about within Moreton Bay Council specifically since I rarely pass through there, but generally most people in Queensland are apathetic regarding the council amalgamations at this point and know nothing will ever be done to correct the various mistakes made during the initial process. There’s a lot more focus on making the best of what we’ve been left with rather than costly de-amalgamations or another statewide overhaul despite most communities not really actively identifying as part of their “regional council.”
Yeah, I would agree with you that Moreton Bay as a council is too large (both in area and population terms). A complete restructure of all SEQ councils, especially the five in the Greater Brisbane area into at least 15-20 is required.
In terms of similar communities – I would say Arana Hills, Samford and the forested areas on the west side of Moreton Bay are better off being grouped with suburbs like Ferny Grove and Everton Park in the Northeast part of BCC as one new council area. Then you have Redcliffe combined with North Lakes and Strathpine as a revised Pine Rivers council, with Caboolture and surrounds being the last council area.
@ Yoh An –
Lumping in Redcliffe with Strathpine? Don’t say that where Redcliffe people can hear you!
@ Lawngnome – without disagreeing on your other points, having two levels of government being responsible for PT isn’t great. Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast do OK because they just raise a bit of extra revenue for more service, but BCC takes it beyond helpfulness and into active clashes with the state government.
Alex, are Redcliffe and strathpine really that different in terms of demographics?
At least in terms of geography, both places are linked by major roads unlike a similar grouping of Campbelltown and Sutherland in Sydney which involves straddling uninhabited reserves and the Holsworthy military base.
@Yoh An… 🙂
Redcliffe was one of the two areas (along with Noosa) that worked very hard to deamalgamate when the LGA’s were joined. Noosa was successful, Redcliffe wasn’t.
The original Redcliffe Council stopped at the bridge and before you got to Deception Bay. In terms of the amalgamation, culturally the merger of Redcliffe, Pine Rivers and Caboolture would be the equivalent of merging Sutherland Shire, Liverpool and Penrith – with Redcliffe having a slightly greater degree of entitlement than The Shire.
There’s quite a few areas where the amalgamation should be revisited because it just isn’t working out. Unfortunately there’s already a defacto Greater Brisbane as outlined in the ShapingSEQ planning model to the detriment of regional areas in Queensland.
Yoh An, as I’ve said (or at least implied) before on here, the culture and identity of a place cannot be entirely determined by demographics or transport linkage. A simple walk around these places can clue one into differences that may not necessarily exist on paper. Redcliffe certainly has a different vibe to anywhere else in Moreton Bay. But it’s not to say the old council boundaries were perfect in that regard. Within the old Pine Rivers, the newer suburbs (North Lakes, Murrumba Downs, Griffin, Mango Hill) all feel noticeably different to the older suburbs /(Lawnton, Bray Park, Strathpine).
Mark Yore, how, specifically, is the existence of a greater Brisbane region in planning documents to the detriment of regional areas?
Yeah, agree with you Wilson that even places that are connected can still have cultural differences. I think some of these ‘disjointed’ communities exist in Sydney, including the divide between the Hills District (affluent in nature) and Western Sydney which falls somewhere around Carlingford and Dundas.
I think the problem is that you have to draw the line somewhere, and it may not always be feasible to get groupings of similar suburbs together.
@Wilson So glad you asked that question Wilson.
Firstly though, there are 93 State electorates in Queensland. Guess where the midpoint seat is – the electorate with half the seats south of it and half of them north? Most people guess Noosa, or Gladstone or one of the seats on the Sunshine Coast. Actually it’s the electorate of Everton, not even out of Brisbane City.
Which is a long-winded way of saying the voting power is concentrated in the south-east corner. I like to point out that the areas that make the money have no control over the areas that spend the money, which is one of the reasons that the 2032 Olympics, sold on the basis that events would be held across Queensland, are now facing pushback on even holding events on the Gold and Sunshine Coasts.
The ShapingSEQ Planning Policy is all about the allocation of resources, pouring more and more people and resources into SEQ and less and less into regional areas. The brand new Cross-River Rail system – $6.3 billion at last count to save (at last estimate) 8 minutes on a journey. North Queensland rail timetable – one trip north and one trip south, 5 days a week. Since 1998 37 regional maternity wards have been closed. And so on for police, ambulances, hospitals, electricity and other essential services.
The more difficult you make life in the regional areas, the more attractive moving to the city becomes.
As I said in my submission,
“I’d also like to raise the question of whether a bigger, more concentrated Brisbane is the way forward. Does a city that is already one of the largest in Australia due to historical accident, with commuter sprawl stretching from Byron Bay to Gympie and out to Toowoomba, need to add another 2.2 million people?
Queensland was one of the most decentralised states in Australia not that long ago.
There are only 26 electorates not covered by this regional plan and that proportion will shrink further as the population is increasingly concentrated within SEQ.
The towns and cities of regional Queensland west of Toowoomba and north of Gympie are becoming “Fly In, Fly Out” hubs. Useful for holidays or high-paying jobs, but not a place to set down roots. Regional areas, even regional cities, can’t compete with Brisbane and South East Queensland. Essential services that were previously part of the community, such as maternity wards, have been stripped away.
I encourage you to think about moving a greater proportion of the increased population to the regions by shifting jobs, opportunities and resources to those areas. Otherwise we run the risk of the Greater Brisbane SEQ area holding 95 percent of Queensland’s population instead of the current 72 percent.”
Agree Mark, NSW also faces a similar issue with rural areas outside of Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong now ‘hollowed out’ with services that are slowly declining. At least the Coalition government there tried to slow some of that decline with more investment into regional areas, but even so Sydney based infrastructure still dominated most of the headlines and funding commitments.
I’m also guessing that amalgamating Redcliffe with the other bayside suburbs like Sandgate would not be feasible because of demographic or cultural differences – similar to the contrast between Sutherland Shire and suburbs around Rockdale/Hurstville on the other side of the Georges River.
@Yoh An It would be difficult. Not only because they’re two different LGAs, but demographically and culturally the are different. The bridge (previously the Hornibrook Bridge and now the Ted Smout Bridge) marked the old boundary between where you worked and where you went on holiday. Of course well before that Sandgate and Shorncliffe were the holiday spots – in fact the Summer Government House was at Sandgate in the grounds of what’s now St Patrick’s School.
So even though Brisbane has massively expanded, you can still see the tidal rings of where the city boundaries used to be. It’s as much a state of mind as anything else – that’s why the social demarcation between the north and south of the river is so strong.
In my Division I will have a Mayor with no competition. I had previously offered the Mayor my support.
In my Division the existing candidate has done more to communicate with his constituents than any elected representative. It is understandable that only a candidate that thinks more of animals than they do of humans is his only contestant.
The Moreton Bay City is merger of three communities and was imposed on us against our will. However, it is a fait-accompli.
The council has the support of the electorate if they had been tickets of candidates, standing against them, they would have been returned.
Some months ago, I told both the mayor and counsellor Booth that I would take a dim view of any candidate not listing All candidates in a preferential order on their out of vote card.
Most of the counsellors will have no difficulty in complying with this requirement, because their opposition are either nut cases or Real estate agents.
One more thing (and yes @Andrew Jackson, Moreton Bay has always had it’s share of fruit loops, crooks and underperformers).
@Ben, there are also, admittedly rare, cases where the Mayor or Councillor are just quality people and no-one wants to run against them. Logan in 2008 was an attempt to remove popular Independent Mayor Pam Parker after she won unopposed in 2004. Former ALP State minister Tom Barton and business representative John Freeman (part of what was informally called Logan Inc.) ran against her. Tom Barton had run LCC candidates out of his electoral and ministerial office before. Anyway, Parker won on the primary with 56.83% of the vote and was unopposed in 2012 before stepping down in 2016.
Sometimes the reason why there’s only one candidate for Mayor or Councillor is because no-one else wants to run against the sitting candidate because that person is acknowledged as the best option.
Yes sometimes there are very popular incumbents. That need not render the voters’ contribution moot if you have a multi-member electorate. So no, that doesn’t justify or excuse this situation. It just demonstrates the absurdity of electing just one member for an area.
I cast an early vote this morning in Division 2 of Moreton Bay. Scout Hall in Murrumba Downs. No party or candidate workers on duty outside polling booth. First time ever in 50 elections that this has been situation.
I had a choice between a or a competent local Councillor and an Animal Rights Party candidate who has not managed to even communicate with electorate. My prediction is that Cr Mark Booth will be re-elected on about 90% to Anomal Liberationis on 10%. Electoral Commission of Queensland have an ad I’m Courir Mail today directed at voters of Moreton Bay telling 140,000 Voters in Divisions 1, 4, 7, 9 and 11 that their Councillor and Mayor Have been elected unopposed.
This Council have just got on with the job in hand without the whiff of mismanagement that plagued its predecessors. Last time we had the dirtiest election campaign that I have experience
In Division 2 I had to make a choice between our currrent Councillor Mark Booth and an Animal Liberationist who has not managed to get any propoganda into my hands. I had offered to work for both the Mayor and Cr Booth but I am not much use to them being on crutches at the moment with a knee replacement. So this election I am incapacitated.
Cr Booth regularly communicates with his constituents by e-mail, Newsletter and my only criticism of him is he tends to go into too much detail.
Mayor Peter Flannery deserves to be re-elected.
Most residents of Moreton Bay be are happy with the council and most complainants do not understand the link between service delivery and rates.
I opposed the compulsory merger. Amalgamation of Redcliffe, Canoolture and Pine Rivers. I have lived in Redcliffe and Caboolture areas and worked in Pine Rivers since 1988.
However de amalgamation would be an absolute bloodbath
Assets can easily be merged but trying to deamalgamate means dividing a bulldozer,
Paying off contractors who have entered a contract for three shires who now have three customers who all think they should Pay less than a third. The ALP government supports large councils therefore I think de amalgamation not on calendar. The Council itself a pro existing structure.
@Andrew Jackson Yep, splitting councils is not on the cards from either side of politics. I can probably even see a case for Redlands to be absorbed into Brisbane and Scenic Rim to be absorbed into Logan. Logan picked up a huge area from the Gold Coast in the original change. Unfortunately it was the bit that had already been approved for development but none of the infrastructure had been started, leaving Logan with the bill.
While there are lots of regional councils that could do with adjustments I think everyone is just too exhausted to bother. Not to mention that changing the boundaries on the Indigenous councils would be like using your bare hands to stop a chainsaw.