Des Houghton: Why QLD local government is being destroyed

THE power-hungry State Government has tightened its testicular hold on local councils, which cannot survive in their current form, writes Des Houghton. JOIN THE DEBATE

I FEAR local government in Australia is being destroyed before our eyes.

Little councils, and some quite big ones, are buckling under the strain of having to deflect spin and downright falsehoods peddled by sinister, unelected pressure groups.

Councils are also buckling under dictatorial demands from state governments.

A new threat to councils’ independence comes from the unelected busybodies in the integrity “industry”.

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I hasten to add here that a lot of the pain being suffered by local government is self-inflicted. There have been some depressing anti-corruption investigations by police and the CCC.

However zealous investigators may have overstepped the mark in at least one investigation when they attempted to tell an elected council which way it should vote on a certain staffing matter.

Meanwhile, mayors and councillors are struggling to understand how the new integrity laws apply to them.

No fewer than 85 of them sought advice last year from Integrity Commissioner Nikola Stepanov.

There wasn’t nearly enough detail in the annual report. However we do know that many cases involved perceived conflicts of interest.

In significant planning decisions recently, councillors were forced to delegate decision making to non-elected chief executives.

To my mind this defeats the purpose of having local governments.

And it’s getting worse.

The power-hungry Palaszczuk Government has tightened its testicular hold on local councils and I’m told it is now exploring ways to seize control of all planning matters and waste collections.

Mayors are under constant attack and are often referred to regulators like the CCC in attempts to embarrass them politically.

However, most of our councils – and especially Brisbane City Council in the hands of Lord Mayor Graham Quirk – are models of independence and accountability.

There is disenchantment in some regional communities.

This is hardly surprising as some councils run fake community consultation events even when they have already entered into secret talks with vested interests without their ratepayers’ knowledge.

The decision by the Southern Downs Regional Council to allow the University of Queensland to build a massive solar farm near Warwick is a case in point.

And the decision in Bundaberg to approve a nine-storey resort at beachside Bargara, near Mon Repos, was all the more puzzling because the local councillors didn’t even vote on it. The approvals went ahead even though the harmful impacts on turtle populations remain unknown, as far as I can see.

The Warwick solar farm decision, that involved secretive negotiations with no appeal process open to local objectors, shames both the council and the university.

UQ’s obsessional quest for carbon neutrality means 154.7ha of prime crop land will be sacrificed for an unsightly factory nobody wants.

As well as the large, moving solar panels, residents will look down on buildings and up to 20 electric current inverters the size of shipping containers.

Too late. Work has begun at the site this week even though the project still has not been certified free of electromagnetic cancer risks. And work has started before the ombudsman and the Crime and Misconduct Commission have completed their investigations.

Families who will suffer most were not even given a chance to object to the solar farm.

Nor do families have a chance to object to more than 30 State Government-declared Priority Development Areas throughout Queensland.

The $1.4 billion Toondah Harbour development at Redland City is in a state-declared PDA, so the rabid anti-development activists are barking up the wrong tree by blaming the council.

They should be directing their ammunition at Annastacia Palaszczuk and her planning Minister Cameron Dick.

Local councils cannot survive in their current form. The Bargara decision convinces me of that.

Local councils cannot survive in their current form and I’m worried they may become minor departments of state governments.

The Bargara decision convinces me of that.

Jewel on the Esplanade was proposed by Chinese developer, Sheng Wei, who has not yet bothered to address the community about his proposal.

But several Bundaberg councillors who went on a trip to visit their sister city Nanning in China last year did get to meet him.

George Martin, a local planner, told me Wei’s project was in breach of the Town Plan and would destroy the coastal village atmosphere.

The planning committee originally recommended approval of a six-story development but Wei stood his ground saying it was nine storeys or nothing.

Wei won.

Martin told me the “deemed approval” came after several councillors declared conflicts of interest and couldn’t vote.

A turtle hatchling makes a break for the ocean at Mon Repos near Bundaberg. Picture: Lachie Millard

Jewel will set a new precedent for building height along the coast, sidestepping the 2015 planning scheme introduced after wide community consultation.

Said Martin: “There is real concern about the impact of lighting from this development on the behaviour of nesting and hatchling sea turtles on adjacent coastline and close to the Mon Repos sea turtle rookery.”

Mon Repos recently won a $20 million upgrade.

Urban lighting impact was listed as a significant threat to the survival of the endangered loggerhead turtle in the Federal Government’s Marine Turtle Recovery Plan released last year.

Mon Repos draws 30,000 national and international visitors a year.

Said Martin: “Increasingly the community is feeling let down by our council which seems to have been complicit in the developer’s ‘gaming’ of the Planning Act rules; there is a wider feeling that this will potentially become a ‘new path to approval’ for developers when councils want to take a lazy route around planning scheme provisions.”

Mayor Jack Dempsey said the project would invigorate the regional economy and be a catalyst for sustainable growth.

He said his priority would be to ensure low light emissions during the turtle nesting season.

“We all have a responsibility to protect our iconic turtles,” he said.

“The fact is that turtles can nest anywhere along the coast. This doesn’t mean we should stop development.”

P.S …

DON’T DARE ASK

MORE state secrets: Minister for Training Shannon Fentiman refused in Parliament to shed light on a $390,000 termination payment to a former TAFE executive.

“The details of the contract are a matter for TAFE. I understand that that is absolutely commercial-in-confidence,” Fentiman said in response to a question from the LNP’s Fiona Simpson. Simpson noted that Fentiman had also declined to reveal who received $230,641 worth of Commonwealth Games tickets purchased by TAFE.

On top of the Games freebies, TAFE spent another $83,303 for hospitality and $687,525 for international travel last financial year, Parliament heard. The CCC should put our minds at rest and seek answers – unless of course its chairman Alan MacSporran is too busy throwing his weight around at accountability forums.

PENFOLDS CHARGE

CHAMPAGNE expert and wine judge Tyson Stelzer has written a thoughtful piece on his website defending the sharp rise in recent years of Penfolds top tier vintages.

“I have long been an advocate of benchmarking Australia’s flagship wines against the great wines of the world,” he said.

Penfolds was now “strategically and boldly” playing in a global market with its top wines sitting alongside first growth Bordeaux and Grand Cru Burgundy. “It is right and proper that Penfolds Grange should be priced accordingly.” In 10 years the price of Grange has jumped from $550 to $900.

Christian Rowan

MANUS, ABORTION AND COERCION

I WASN’T going to write about the abortion vote this week until a Labor identity phoned to tell me to “butt out” and leave the commentary to women.

This item is for him. The stench of Labor hypocrisy hung over the Legislative Assembly this week when abortion was legalised. The ALP bangs on about women’s rights but I detected a lack of concern for women’s health in new laws that did not explicitly address mandatory counselling, cooling-off periods or forced abortions that are the result of domestic violence coercion.

Congratulations to the Member for Moggill, Christian Rowan, and others, for highlighting these problems.

“It is irresponsible in the extreme to not adequately care for and support women and their partners who are considering one of the most difficult decisions they will have to make,” Dr Rowan said.

Mandatory cooling-off periods and counselling is commonplace in Europe. Rowan asked: “By comparison, what safeguards will there be for the women and the unborn in Queensland? Virtually none.” Rowan attacked the AMA in parliament. “In relation to AMA Queensland’s unbridled zealotry to appease certain practitioner members, the current AMA leadership has completely abandoned the dignity and welfare rights of the unborn as well as those of women, the vulnerable and marginalised, particularly those affected by domestic and family violence and at risk of abortion coercion.

By supporting those who have admitted that they and colleagues sometimes perform abortions on women who appear not to be consenting of their own free will, the AMA has obliquely endorsed domestic violence coercion.

In recent times, the AMA has purported to champion the rights of refugees, particularly children on Manus Island and Nauru, but when it comes to the refugees we are talking about today – those unborn refugees on the border of life – the current AMA leadership has recklessly abandoned them.”

SEX CHARGE

QUEENSLAND’S Jewish community was reeling yesterday amid news a prominent figure is due
to face court on a child sex charge.

IRRITANT OF THE WEEK

QUEENSLAND republican activist David Muir. Must he bang his hollow drum in the midst of a joyful royal tour?

Email Des Houghton or Twitter: @DesHoughton