Rate increases for Whitsundays residents and businesses

Business owners in one of Queensland’s busiest tourist hotspots will see a dramatic increase to rates — and warn costs will have to be passed on.

Whitsunday Regional Council moved to adopt the 2025/26 budget on Wednesday.

A dramatic rate rise has been approved for commercial businesses in the Whitsundays, and owner occupiers haven’t got off lightly either.

General commercial and industrial rates will rise on average a whopping 21 per cent while residential owner occupiers will see an average increase of 2 per cent under the 2025/26 budget.

Cr Jan Clifford said she had issues with the “massive” increases to rates for business like marinas and shopping centres.

Local business owners are concerned about how a large increase would impact them.

Bernie Mackie and Tony Ardente own Rose Bay Beach Caravan Park and while they don’t know how the potential increases will impact them, they said it was certainly concerning.

“Unfortunately we would have to pass that on to our customers,” said Ms Mackie.

“It will affect the cost of how you’ve got to run a business.”

Bernie Mackie and Tony Ardente own Rose Bay Beach Caravan Park and they said an increase would be tough for businesses.

Mr Ardente said it was already a hard industry being so seasonal and with the cost of everything else going up a rate increase would be tough.

At the Whitsunday Regional Council’s special budget meeting councillor Jan Clifford said she couldn’t support the “massive” percentage increases in some sectors calling it “unfair and unreasonable”.

Mayor Ry Collins said council had previously held back on increases to ease pressure on the community, but that approach was no longer sustainable.

“To maintain essential services and keep pace with rising costs, we need to act responsibly,” he said.

“We’ve done a complete review of the rating system to ensure all ratepayers contribute fairly and equitably, every service is sustainable, and every decision strengthens our region’s future.

Mayor Ry Collins said the changes would set council on the right path. Picture: Fiona Kroll

“As part of this reset, categorisation and some sectors will see significant changes — and it’s important we’re upfront about that.

“For commercial ratepayers, it’s a big shift, and not one council has made lightly.

“But after years of minimal movement, commercial rates have fallen out of step.

“This adjustment helps restore balance and ensures a fairer share of the cost of services and infrastructure that support our region’s growth.”

Council have said the average residential owner occupier would pay an extra 48 cents per week in rates while the average commercial and industrial owners would pay around $14 a week.

Agricultural and grazing property owners will also see a jump with their average rate increase going up around 7 per cent or $14 per week.

It’s not just rates that are increasing, utility charges are also going to be up with an average increase of five per cent for households and commercial business and four per cent for agriculture and grazing.

This weeks special budget meeting also saw other issues discussed including councils debt (borrowing) policy.

Councillor John Finlay proposed to amend the policy to remove the proposed borrowing of $865,000 for their water program.

He said the cash balance in the water fund remained healthy and said borrowing that sum was not necessary.

“Any external borrowing that we do incur an interest, that interest has to get payed externally to this organisation, out to a bank,” said Cr Finlay.

“This is another impost on our rate payers.”

He also questioned the airport internal borrowing of $3 million for the airport, saying he wasn’t sure what they were actually borrowing that for.

Council’s chief executive officer, Warren Bunker said the policy identifies items which have potential to obtain loans.

“This is giving us an opportunity in the documentation if we may need it, for a loan,” he said.

“Its not that we will take it we, will actually make a very conscious decision before that.”

Mayor Collins said he thought it was trivial as there was provision in the policy to borrow or not borrow and they should consider their options at the time when they need the funds to deliver the projects.

Cr Finlay’s amendment was lost one to six and the original policy was adopted.

The community donation policy was also discussed with Councillor Clay Bauman saying he wouldn’t support the changes in the budget to the number of applications allowed each year.

He said the reduction to one application per community organisation each year was a steep cut that could directly effect the valuable work done by not for profits.

Originally published as Rate increases for Whitsundays residents and businesses