Sunshine Coast Council mayoral candidate Ashley Robinson answers the burning questions

Sunshine Coast mayor candidate Ashley Robinson has answered a grilling about major Sunshine Coast issues and has pledged to improve the transport network in the region if elected.

We’ve put Sunshine Coast mayoral candidate Ashley Robinson on the spot ahead of the election. Here’s where he stands on the region’s biggest issues.

What comprehensive strategies do you propose to address transportation challenges on the Sunshine Coast, considering factors such as infrastructure development, public transit enhancement and sustainable mobility solutions?

You can’t retrofit infrastructure, our transport issues are massive, and I think we’re all planning for the worst and hoping for the best with the heavy rail into Maroochydore. To me, it seems unlikely it is going to get to Maroochydore and hopefully it will get to Caloundra, but we’ve got to make some massive changes between and not wait for that to happen. We need obviously electric buses, we need Wi-Fi on buses, so people will actually get on the bus to go to work and hopefully big employers will let them start work on the bus. We’ve got to re-educate people on public transport, and it isn’t good enough at the moment. So we’ve got to make it better.

How do you plan to manage the population boom on the Sunshine Coast following the COVID-19 pandemic, with people moving here, putting pressure on services and expected population growth?

It’s like the other question, we’re going to try and retrofit that, but look everyone says that the people are coming and every second person is going to have a dog and every fourth or fifth person is going to have a disabled child, so we’ve got to make sure our connectivity is better. We’ve also got to respect our town plan and make sure make sure that our amenity doesn’t change, and we’ve actually got some work to do on that because it has changed.

Sunshine Coast mayoral candidate Ash Robinson OAM. Picture: Iwan Jones

The Sunshine Coast is widely known for its pristine coastline. How will you balance the competing interests of residents, tourists, surfers, swimmers in managing and protecting the coastline?

I understand that people live within 8km of the beach on the Sunshine Coast and everyone else wants to come to the beach. I think we need to re-educate our population on litter, we need to re educate our population on dog behaviour. There’s lots of things like that, that population growth actually hurts the amenity, we’ve just got to make sure we manage it.

How do you plan to balance the diverse needs of the hinterland and the coastal regions of the Sunshine Coast, ensuring resource allocation, infrastructure development, and economic opportunities?

I was born in the hinterland, I understand what the hinterland issues are. We had a road where we lived that never got bitumen for 44 years. So I understand that we need to govern for the whole Sunshine Coast. As I said, they’re both beautiful parts of the world. I am going to govern for the whole area.

Ashley Robinson is a prominent businessman and former Alex Surf Club CEO. Picture: Supplied

The Sunshine Coast has received world-class recognition for its environment with the biosphere designation. How do you intend to navigate the tension between developing land to accommodate the booming population while preserving green spaces. What are your thoughts on developing on flood plains?

Flood plains is pretty simple, flood plains don’t build on them, it’s a very simple answer. Everyone is tossing around the word sustainability at the moment, we need to look at every area and every development, as I said, with respect to development, but we need to look at different areas to make sure we can’t just take one brush to the whole lot. So we’ve got to look at different situations and find out what is possible because we’ve got a housing shortage, and we’ve particularly got an affordable housing shortage. So we’ve going to find out what is actually possible in one area may not be possible in another.

Where do you stand on the Blue Heart Sunshine Coast project? Do you support it or do you think it needs review?

I was at a meeting the other day and I think at the moment, we respect our Indigenous heritage and we’re always talking about our Indigenous heritage. What about our rural areas? What about the history of our farmers in this area? At the moment, I think that Blue Heart is a good idea, but they haven’t been consulted properly and the community hasn’t been consulted properly, that has got to come back to the council to have an another look.