Long-serving Mayor Allan Sutherland has announced he will retire at next year’s council poll

One of Queensland’s longest-serving mayors has announced he will retire from politics after serving in the role since 2008.

Moreton Bay Regional Council Mayor Allan Sutherland. Picture: Bradley Cooper.

MORETON Bay Mayor Allan Sutherland will call it quits at the March 2020 council elections, ending a local government career spanning almost three decades.

The Courier-Mail can reveal Mr Sutherland will not contest next year’s elections.

It follows speculation the Mayor — among the longest serving in the state — would be stepping down.

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His announcement comes almost 25 years after the former electrician was first elected as to Redcliffe City Council as a councillor in 1994.

Though his latest term has been marred by controversy including an appearance as a witness at the Crime and Corruption Commission’s (CCC) Operation Belcarra investigation into the 2016 elections, in which he was not charged with any criminal offence.

The Belcarra investigation resulted in widespread reform of local government in Queensland to improve accountability and transparency.

He rose to deputy mayor in 1997 before successfully challenging the mayoralty in 2000.

He famously arrived at the gates of State Parliament in 2007 with a wheelbarrow full of petitions as part of a failed bid to stop the former Beattie Government’s council amalgamations.

Cr Sutherland was then elected mayor of the newly amalgamated Moreton Bay Regional Council in 2008.

The anti-amalgamation fight was one of many political scraps he would find himself in with State and Federal Governments during his tenure.

Opening of the new rail link from Kippa-Ring to Petrie. Allan Sutherland Picture: Chris Higgins

Cr Sutherland told The Courier-Mail he wanted to end his mayoralty next year after watching the first students walk through the doors of the new University of the Sunshine Coast campus at Petrie.

He quoted Kenny Roger’s song The Gambler in saying he had decided it was time to “fold em” and spend more time with his family.

Cr Sutherland counts his successful fight to secure the local university campus — a life changer for young constituents — as well as the Redcliffe Peninsula railway line as among the highs of his career and his brushes with the Crime and Corruption Commission, including as a witness during its Operation Belcarra investigation, as among the lows.

He was never charged with any offences by the watchdog.

A number of mayor hopefuls have already put their hands up for the role, including Redcliffe real estate agent Dean Teasdale and retiree Eric Shields of Meldale.

Health Minister Steven Miles, whose Murrumba electorate sits within the Moreton Bay Regional Council area, congratulated Cr Sutherland on his tenure.

“Allan has been a fantastic champion for the Moreton Bay region throughout a period of extraordinary growth,” he said.

“Next year when a student gets on a train at Kippa Ring to go to uni at Petrie they’ll probably never know there wouldn’t be a train or a university if it weren’t for Allan.

“I’ve very much enjoyed working with him.”

Local Government Association of Queensland CEO Greg Hallam said Cr Sutherland would hold a special place in the region’s history.

“People will still be talking about him in a century’s time as the Mayor who brought the railway to Redcliffe and the Moreton region’s first fully fledged university to Petrie,” Mr Hallam said.