Gympie council election 2024: Michael Torrens to run for Div 4

A former council worker and mill worker who now runs his own business will contest Division 4 of the Gympie Regional Council - and he is passionate about roads, rates, rubbish and sports facilities. Read what he stands for, watch the video:

The basics – roads, rates and rubbish — are what Gympie council Division 4 candidate Michael Torrens is calling for.

The Gympie and District Driving School owner grew up in Imbil, had his first job as a council worker with Cooloola Shire Council before he worked for 14 years at the Imbil sawmill.

Mr Torrens said that in his time he had seen many changes across the region, and had decided to put his hand up to contest Division 4, currently held by high profile councillor, Bruce Devereaux.

Mr Torrens said he wanted to see the council focus more on “the basics” of roads, rates and rubbish - and do them well”.

“We’re in this cycle of patching, patching, patching, patching, particularly with the roads, but we never get around to the actual fixing part of it,” he said.

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Gympie and District Driving School owner Michael Torrens will contest Division 4 of the Gympie Regional Council at the March 16 election. Picture: Christine Schindler

Mr Torrens said his 14 years working at the Imbil mill showed his strengths in “process optimisation”.

“It’s going through machinery efficiency and finding better ways of doing stuff that will have less wastage and be faster,” he said.

“It’s the out of the box thinking that I found I was really good at.”

One issue he would like to focus his “out of the box” thinking on is finding solutions to give Gympie the sports fields it deserves, which he sees as important in keeping young people in the city.

“I don’t think it’s even anything that should be thought about, we should just be providing it,” he said.

“Noosa council just got a grant from state government to extend their sports stadium and we haven’t even chosen where we can have a sports stadium.”

He said making the area more attractive and easier to live in should also be a priority.

“Companies don’t want to move to this area if they can’t get housing and they can’t get the workforce,” he said.

Gympie and District Driving School owner Michael Torrens has put his hand for Division 4 of the Gympie Regional Council. Picture: Christine Schindler

Mr Torrens said it was about “coming back to being sensible and basic repair” such as fixing roads and having space to grow for sports fields instead of putting time in the “fluffy stuff we seem to do at the moment”.

“We’re trying to attract people through art galleries and food trails – which is good to attract people that are coming in over day trips but we need to attract people that actually want to live in the town,” he said.

He said he wanted to see more action on getting duplexes built within Gympie that would fit the aesthetic of the town, particularly around TAFE, increasing rates for prime real estate sitting vacant or run down, as well as developers looking to build in flood zones, and ensuring cats claw and noxious weeds would be cleared between land sales.

Queensland voters will go to the polls on March 16, 2024. In Gympie, voters will elect eight councillors and a mayor to help steer the region for the next four years.