Mayor: Living in one of the best places in Australia comes at a cost

The Livingstone Mayor has described the 2025/26 budget as “courageous” with council committed to delivering vital infrastructure for a fast-growing community.

The Yeppoon Lagoon is one of the lifestyle benefits that comes from living in Livingstone Shire

The average residential ratepayer in Livingstone Shire Council will pay an extra $202.48 cents in 2025/26 after council delivered a “challenging” $212.7 million budget at today’s meeting in Yeppoon.

The 4.07 per cent rise will increase the average residential ratepayer bill from $4,973.41 to $5171.38, or $3.89 per week, and that’s with the 10 per cent discount.

Mayor Adam Belot said achieving a rate rise of just over 4 per cent rate was “a solid outcome in challenging times” during a cost of living crisis.

Livingstone Mayor Adam Belot has described the 2025/2026 council budget as “courageous”.

“There are some (budget) lines that some may agree and disagree with but on a whole it’s an honour to be in a position to make decisions to set this community up into the future to continue to be truly one of the most liveable places in Australia, literally a paradise to live in, but that comes at a cost,” Cr Belot said.

“But we don’t want to be too prohibitive that our locals’ can’t enjoy living here still.”

He said Livingstone was a growing community and therefore the council needed to invest to service that growth.

“We are matching the community where they’re at but importantly we are planning for the future with this budget,” Cr Belot said.

“With that modest rate rise we will be able to continue to deliver tremendous services for our community. We would like to do more, we would like to grade more roads, we would like to mow more, but it’s about striking a balance and I believe the operational plan does that.

“It’s not about what we’re doing but for me it’s more why we’re doing it.

“I think the $90m in the (101 projects) capital works program is really a courageous budget in many ways to deliver the infrastructure that in many ways is so important.

“Our commitment to the East West connector (vital link road from Yeppoon Road to Rosslyn) is an absolute game changer for the community.”

Deputy Mayor Pat Eastwood noted that $41m of the $90m capital works program was from government grants and funding.

He said council spends an average 28 per cent of its total expenditure (not counting wages and staff costs) on shire businesses, meaning that $36.5m would potentially go back into the local community.

An artist impression of the new $13m 50m swimming pool and other facility upgrades for the Yeppoon Aquatic Centre situated at Cooee Bay.

 Big ticket budget highlights

• Gateway Business & Industry Park (Stage 4): $5.2m
• Yeppoon Aquatic Centre (Stage 1): $16.8m
• Great Keppel Island Projects: $21.6m
• Roads & Transport: $14m+
• Pathways & Footpaths: $3M+
• Water/Sewer Upgrades: $8m+
• Waste Management: $6.7m
• Road Network Charge reduced from $228 to $152
• Natural Environment Charge reduced from $26.20 to $17.40
• Disaster Response Charge increased to $60

During debate there was some general discussion around the positives and negatives of the 10 per cent rate discount system with councillors hearing that while 90 per cent of ratepayers were able to take the opportunity about 1800 ratepayers did not pay on time to achieve the discount.

However councillors agreed for the 10 per cent system to continue unchanged.

Cr Andrea Friend and Cr Glenda Mather voted against the budget.

Cr Friend said she was not happy with aspects of increased extra water access charges and also the disaster levy not being generated into the rates bill to allow the 10 per cent discount.

Cr Mather voted against it because she didn’t feel there was enough support for rural ratepayers.

More details on the budget will be released tomorrow, Tuesday June 10.