Hervey Bay Gossip

Premier Anna Bligh today announced significant changes to the Queensland land valuations system to provide greater certainty and align Queensland with other States.

The Premier has today committed to moving to site valuation, consistent with other jurisdictions and in line with what the property industry and local government have been seeking for some time.

The Government will put in place a new structure to reform the state valuation services including the appointment of an independent Valuer General to provide transparency in the assessment and issuing of valuations.

“In dealing with the past, the Government will legislate to maintain the status quo by validating valuations already issued.

“The Government is determined to protect Queenslanders from the potential for hundreds of millions in repayments which has emerged after a recent Court decision.

“The Government will pass legislation so the method for valuing property is crystal clear, now and into the future,” Ms Bligh said.

“This will allow us to complete the 2010 valuation with certainty, but we will then go further and introduce the simpler method of valuation - ’site value’ - for non-rural lands from the following year.

The Premier announced today the state would:

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We get plenty of sunshine all year round here in Hervey Bay and that makes power from the sun a very sensible option.

So if you want to find out more about solar hot water in Hervey Bay or solar electricity in Hervey Bay then follow the links to Solarhart Fraser Coast’s website and discover how easy it is to get your power from the sun.

When Kingfisher Bay first announced that they would be cutting out the fast catamaran services from Hervey Bay to Fraser Island there was some people left wondering how they would ever be able to negotiate the steep stairs that were then fitted to the barges.

At the time Kingfisher Bay management indicated that they would be modifying the barges to allow better access to the passenger deck and that now seems to have happed. Here’s one of the barges leaving River Heads and you can clearly see that it’s fitted with new stairs.

Today’s Courier Mail is carrying a story surveillance cameras and how a number of regional councils are investigating the possibility of having their cameras monitored by staff from Ipswich City Council. And of course our Mayor Mick is interested in having the security cameras in Hervey Bay and Maryborough monitored from Ipswich “… if the price is right”

Just what is the “right price” Mick? With at least three security providers here in Hervey Bay isn’t there at least one here that could do the job just as well as someone over in Ipswich?

Wouldn’t it be better to keep jobs here in the Fraser Coast Regional Council area even if we did have to pay a premium Mick?

I hope someone from the Council can explain why it’s better to send money out of the region than to employ people within the region.

Even though it might be a while before the Premier of Queensland makes it back to Hervey Bay that doesn’t mean that you can’t ask her a question.

The people of Queensland will have an opportunity to have their say on the future of the education system, during the first on-line People’s Question Time next week.

The Premier is inviting members of the public to send in their questions ahead of the forum, to be held on Friday 26 February.

“This forum is an opportunity for the people of Queensland to make their voices heard on the best way to ensure all Queensland children are given a flying start,” Ms Bligh said.

“The Education Minister and I, together with education experts and stakeholders, will take part in the forum giving Queenslanders the chance to ask questions and put forward suggestions.

“I urge Queenslanders to get online and get involved in this important conversation about our children’s future.

“Whether it is new ideas to get parents reading with their children or questions about shifting Year 7 into high school, I want to hear your views.

Ms Bligh said questions can be submitted in the lead up to the forum via www.qld.gov.au/questiontime, or people watch live and lodge questions online during the event.

“From the success of last year’s on-line Integrity and Accountability Forums it was clear that Queenslanders valued the opportunity to have greater access to their Government,” Ms Bligh said.

“This forum will be the first of a regular program of People’s Question Time, which will take community consultation to a new level.

“Visual and audio footage of the forum will be streamed live via the web for people to watch online.

“This means, no matter where they live, Queenslanders can have their say and ask the questions they want to hear answered.”

The forum will be streamed live on 26 February 12:00-1:00pm. For more information, or to view the live stream go to www.qld.gov.au/questiontime.

So according to the Chronicle we’re on the verge of seeing the coal industry come back to the Fraser Coast. For several years now there’s been talk of at least one mine opening up around Aldershot just north of Maryborough and now that talk could turn into some action.

According to Northern Energy, a minerals exploration company, there’s around 57 million tonnes of coal reserves sitting under the ground at Aldershot and it’s time that it was dug up and shipped off to buyers around the world.

That’s great news for a region that’s struggling with high unemployment and it will really bring much needed investment and development to the region. Hervey Bay, Maryborough, Howard, Toogoom and even Burrum Heads will all benefit from the dollars that a coal mine will bring to the region.

We can expect to see house and land prices rise as more people come into the area, all the empty commercial and industrial premises that are now vacant will be filled and even more will be needed and many small businesses that are struggling to survive will see their bottom lines improve.

We may even see more office space … like that at 65 Main Street … being built in the Hervey Bay CBD.

Now that the scaffolding has been removed we can see what 65 Main Street really looks like

On the down side rents will increase  and that could see some people leave the region as rising accommodation prices force them to move on to other areas.

There’s no doubt that if the coal mine at Aldershot does go ahead Hervey Bay will change and it will be interesting to see how we cope with that change.

Jim MacKellar ponders the meaning behind the words the Mayor used in  comments to the Fraser Coast Chronicle last month.

I have finally had time to fully digest the Mayor’s comments in the paper (FCC 20JAN10) and I find them much more disturbing the more they are understood.

The first half of the article has the Mayor describing a consistent and worrying interference in the free flow of information to the Councillors. He even mentions the possible negative effects this interference may be having (most probably is) on the morale of the officers who write the reports. But then he says, “But at this point I am not going to do anything because I’ve got a couple of other problems to take care of first”. Which raises a couple of concerns. Firstly, can the Mayor only deal with one issue at a time? If this is so it is no wonder that he is not being pro-active in his role. He is far too busy trying to catch up.

Secondly, is the issue of priorities. A Council makes decisions giving primary consideration to the information presented to it by the qualified staff. If there is consistent interference in the flow of information, with the intent of influencing the decisions made, all the Councillors should be gravely concerned. Any interference with the integrity of the reports must have an end effect on the integrity of the decisions Council is making.

Thus the Mayor is saying that he has a couple of other problems that are of greater importance than ensuring the integrity of the decision making process. How drastic must these problems be?

“What I really want to do is get the Councillors motivated,”  the Mayor then goes on to say. Get the Councillors motivated? The inference is that we have a Council made up of elected members who are not motivated. Is it the Mayor’s job to motivate the Councillors? I think not. The paid staff may need to be motivated during difficult times but Councillors should come as a fully motivated package from day 1 to day stop.

These are not teenagers or members of the local footy team. They are well paid representatives of the people who put themselves forward for the position with a full understanding of all it entails. Everyone of them was an experienced Councillor when they stood for election.

The only possible reasonable excuse for lack of motivation is that they realize that they have been almost totally sidelined by the executive and have become only figureheads of Council to rubber stamp the executives decisions. If this is the case then they need to get together as a team and fix the problem, because they are the only people who can fix it. The solution lies in their hands, do they have the courage to grasp it?

The forecast this morning for Hervey Bay included a high tide of 4.29 metres that was set to peak at Urangan Pier 0929hrs … and it was indeed a very high tide that attracted a lot of onlookers .

This is the view from the access gate at Shelly Bay right at 9.29am

An hour later at Toogoom the water was receding but you can see from the pile of leaves that it had reached the top of the boat ramp.

At its highest the water level must have got fairly close to the top of the rock wall to the north of the boat ramp too.

The water level was well up along the Burrum Heads Road and the road into Toogoom as well.

90 minutes after high tide there still wasn’t much of the beach visible down at Dundowran Beach either.

Kingfisher Bay’s plans to cease operating a fast Cat service to Fraser Island comes to a head today with the very last fast service departing from Urangan at 10pm tonight.

From tomorrow morning it’s the slow boat (barge) to Fraser Island and it will leave from River Heads. While the resort’s general manager for tours and marine … David Hay … is quoted as saying that operating from River Heads is “… very convenient” it may be less so for people from Hervey Bay who may wish to travel over to the resort just for the day.

Self-assessment is always fraught with danger so I’m sure that many of us who saw what our representatives on the Fraser Coast Regional Council thought of themselves a few weeks back was almost funny.

If you missed it, most of our esteemed councillors thought that they were doing an absolutely wonderful job and gave themselves an A or 10 out of 10 for the effort they were putting into the Council. They were so happy with themselves that I bet they all thought that they deserved a raise.

But now we’re discovering that if that’s their best effort then it just isn’t good enough because we’re sinking into a very deep financial mess. It seems the Council budgeted for receipts of around $7.7 million from developers … after all the Council knew that every developer and his dog wanted to build something in Hervey Bay.

Unfortunately … while they might have wanted to build something in Hervey Bay … they weren’t prepared to pay the sort of money that the Fraser Coast Regional Council expected so they didn’t. Instead they stopped their developments and went off to places where Councils didn’t want to kill the goose that layed the golden egg.

So now … instead of sitting on a cash pile worth $7.7 million dollars … the Council has only received $300,000 and that means that we could be broke and the Council is running around looking for excuses … almagamation costs is a good one to trot out at times like this and that’s what Mick did today in the Chronicle. But I’m not quite sure what amalgamation costs have got to do with developers fees so maybe there’ll be some more excuses coming in the next few days.

I wonder what those report cards would have looked like if they had been written by someone who really knew what was going on inside Council. How much longer are we stuck with this lot?