Bundaberg council to put spotlight on dog owners, food sites

Staff shortages have been felt at the coalface of more than one council responsibility in recent months, and a special report to be presented at its first general meeting of the financial year makes it clear what now needs to happen. See the big issues the council will be voting on this week:

Bundaberg Regional Council’s adoption of its quarterly operational report will be one of the biggest items on the agenda at its first general meeting for the 2022/23 financial year on Tuesday.

While the council has shown compliance in a number of operational requirement areas, some require immediate action, including the enforcement of environment and public health legislation, a report to be presented to the council reveals.

The Think Food Safe program failed this past quarter, with comments showing it needed to be closely monitored and required “decisive action” after “reduced staffing” impacted the number of premises inspected for food safety requirements.

The Bundaberg council chambers. The council’s Think Food Safe program failed this past quarter, with comments showing it needed to be closely monitored and required “decisive action” after “reduced staffing” impacted the number of premises inspected for food safety requirements. Photo: Mike Knott / NewsMail

Priority inspection was given to high risk or non-compliant food sites, but some three star premises were not inspected and were instead given a 10 per cent discount for a licence under the Think Food Safe program.

The report also found compliance for dog owners needed greater regulatory enforcement after findings showed some owners were not meeting payment or regulatory requirements.

The report also identified a low completion rate for the stormwater upgrade program due to low industry response for tenders, a series of rain events and supply chain issues.

It found the council’s road upgrade program was impacted by the rain and supply chain issues.

Moncrieff Entertainment Centre’s target audience numbers were blamed on the pandemic, with comments stating “audiences are still gaining confidence coming out of Covid-19”.

Action is also being taken to improve customer requests, with just 755 out of 933 requests actioned in the past quarter.

Of the 1385 road, drainage and foodpath customer requests put to council, 1014 cases were closed.

Review, development and updating council communications also required action, after the “project stalled” due to “resourcing constraints”.

Despite this, council gave the tick of approval to its news website Bundaberg Now, which was the reported noted was “sitting above the industry benchmark set by Google Analytics for news websites in Australia”.

In December last year, Federal Minister of Communications Paul Fletcher called to close Bundaberg Now, saying he believed key aspects of the operation “raise serious concerns from the perspective of those who recognise the importance of independent sustainable media outlets being able to hold Government to account” and called for concerns to be taken up with the ACCC, Queensland Electoral Commission, Australian Press Council and the Queensland Minister Local Government.

A financial summary as at June 30, 2022 is also expected to be noted by the council during the meeting.

According to the agenda, the Bundaberg council was “higher than budget” for employee expenses relating to capital works program, but its overall operating and capital employee costs were lower than the budget.

While its revenue was at $209.8 million for the last year, the financial summary stated the council borrowed $33.5 million during May 2022, and had an accumulative loan balance of $99.6 million.

The general meeting will also “receive and note” a petition on Tuesday by Mary Stansbie, asking it to reopen the Gin Gin Visitor Information Centre in the middle of the main street where the visitor centre was previously located.