Paul Weston: Shock to the heart of Surfers Paradise as city’s long running advisory group dumped
SURFERS Paradise is fighting to regain its strong retail heart, but council have now moved to dump a group that was trying to do just that. Here is how the drama unfolded.
Opinion
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WE need to talk about Surfers Paradise. In a shock move, the Heart of City advisory committee (HOCAC) has been dumped by council.
What does this mean for Queensland tourism’s hot spot?
More importantly, how did councillors at this week’s planning committee arrive to dissolve HOCAC, which since 2008 worked to make Surfers Paradise a “vibrant and successful tourist, business and residential precinct”?
The committee appointed a chair on a yearly basis, membership ranged from five to 10 representatives with the chamber of commerce, alliance group and Gold Coast Tourism along with police automatic starters. Their work was voluntary without payment.
A review by officers found there was a three-month delay in the reporting of minutes, that the time lag limited the advisory group’s influence on council and priority large-scale issues were not being discussed.
From a reporting perspective, those minutes from HOCAC could be found in a council agenda, gave an uncensored insight into the challenges in Surfers Paradise with senior police put on the spot about crime incidents.
Not all the publicity from HOCAC meetings was going to be positive but solutions could be found to real problems, like the street violence outside nightclubs and carnage from Schoolies.
The council review recommended to dissolve HOCAC and for the area councillor Gary Baildon to establish a “Committee of Special Function” to address division matters.
Cr Glenn Tozer told fellow councillors: “It seems strange that we are dissolving a committee and then just starting another one. I don’t understand why we don’t just keep the committee, telling them they’re not doing their job and dissolve the committee members.”
Cr Baildon explained that the police could still attend meetings. “Any requests to council will go through my office. I believe it will be dealt with in a more timely way.”
The committee chair, Councillor Cameron Caldwell, clearly wanting to move the debate on, said: “It’s not the establishment of another formal committee. It’s an advisory group that Cr
Baildon will have at his disposal to inform him of local matters.”
But Cr Tozer, while acknowledging HOCAC could be improved, asked some pertinent questions. The advisory committee was being dumped during “court proceedings”. Was that advisable?
This was an obvious reference to Save Surfers Paradise, a powerful lobby group of lawyers, businessmen and a retired judge, which is fighting to stop council from selling the Bruce Bishop car park.
Cr Tozer posed the question that dissolving the committee “might paint council in a poor light” but Cr Caldwell was strongly dismissive saying that was “a long bow”.
So let’s pause here and look at the bigger picture.
Former councillor and real estate identity Max Christmas is the chair of HOCAC. He is sympathetic to the aims of Save Surfers Paradise to retain a ratepayer parking asset just a stroll from Cavill Mall.
Cr Baildon will operate a new committee from his office. The membership and reporting of its meetings are yet to be determined.
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As a former mayor, Cr Baildon built up a strong reputation for civic duty, solid enough to see him return from retirement to win the tightly contested Surfers Paradise division.
He is part of Mayor Tom Tate’s so-called “working group”. His communication with some constituents and media can be gently described as sporadic.
Surfers Paradise, as one of the city’s leading commercial business centres, is in a fight. There is a 25 per cent vacancy rate in shopfront tenancies.
The bigger picture here is some light needs to be let in, not the doors closed. Surfers Paradise should always be baked in sunshine.
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