Cassowary Coast Regional Council

Councillors welcome the new CEO Terry Brennan who started work on Tuesday this week. He will need all his qualifications and previous experience to begin to address the issues facing the Cassowary Coast Regional Council. The amalgamation of staff and systems is under way, but far from complete. The new budgeting and reporting processes are still being developed and the permanent managerial workforce is still to be appointed. All of the senior positions are acting roles at present.

The new department heads will report to Mr. Brennan as CEO. He will be responsible for their performance and it will be his role to make the permanent appointments to the senior positions. This means in practice that the present acting responsibilities will remain for the short term.

In the 2008/2009 budget I expect that council will be able to commence / deliver on:-

• Sewerage for Cardwell township
• The Multi Purpose Centre for Tully
• The completion of the Innisfail Shire Hall, including the basement level
• Bike ways for Mission Beach
• Rural road sealing

Clearly the extent of delivery on all of these projects will be dependent on the capacity of our financial resources. Councillors acknowledge the limits on rate rises, which throughout Queensland are already closer to a 10% increase, than to the CPI for local government costs of approximately 5%.

Funding from the federal government in the last twenty years has gone from approximately 2% of income tax receipts to 0.7% today and additionally the Cassowary Coast Regional Council receives significantly less than the Queensland average. In my view there is something very wrong with the Federal Grants Commission’s methodology. I have written to the Grants Commission and will advise you of their response when I receive it.

Due to other pressing demands only a start to the bike ways for Mission Beach is likely and therefore this will be a minor capital expenditure item. The major required expenditure for Mission Beach is for a public pool. Mission Beach is apparently the only community of a similar size in the whole of Queensland not to have such a community facility, a necessary and a basic one, especially given the danger of swimming in the ocean during the hottest months in FNQ. The long standing proponents of the Mission Beach Pool have been to see councillors, and again I will keep you up to date with our deliberations.

Capital works costing one million dollars translate to $30 for every man, woman and child across the Region. How council spends your money is naturally very important to each of you and of course opinions will differ considerably as to priorities. I will aim to benefit each community and the Region as a whole and will take into account needs identified by the community, our staff and councillors.