Education Centre

Super Size Me Council

This week's local Albert and Logan News (a NLT Quest Publication) reported a leak from the State Government's local government boundaries review board saying that a new super-city is planned to encompass our local Beenleigh and Logan communities.   

It's clear a deal has been done; ( a new suburb of 52K residents being planned 20 minutes west of Beenleigh) won't be built by developer Delfin it if has to deal with a broke and backward Beaudesert Shire.  The state government doesn't want to have to pitch in with the dosh to make it happen, so the only alternative is creating a super council with the funds necessary to build a new city as big as this one. 

Beenleigh, all of Logan, and most of Beaudesert looks set to become part of a new super council, with a rumour Redlands may be thrown in so we have enough water. 

But local politicians don't like the idea of changing the area one bit.  Evan Moorehead and Margaret Keech (our local state Labor MP's) will both make submissions to the review commission, arguing the merits of the status quo.   

Cr Ray Hackwood, Beenleigh's representative on the Gold Coast City Council, claimed that it would be 'political suicide' for Keech and Moorehead if the Commission proposed and then they voted for the removal of Beenleigh from the Gold Coast. 

The 'political suicide' comments were foolish of Cr Hackwood, who normally displays seasoned political nous.  Hackwood has un-necessarily politicized the process and may ostracise Keech and Moorehead (not good for Beenleigh).  Residents know the only poltical death which will result from the removal of Beenleigh from the Gold Coast and the formation of a super-council is independents like Cr Hackwood.  Party politics will be the only way to effectively run campaigns such as those in Brisbane. 

Andrew Fraser, the Local Government Minister has done a good job explaining the need for amalgamations after 100 years of nearly static local council boundaries.  On the ABC's State Line last night he eloquently demonstrated the case that many Queensland councils were at risk of financial ruin (did you know some councils had less then 500 residents; the Gold Coast has more residents in single high-rise towers!).

However Minister Fraser will have a tough job explaining why the commission changed the boundaries of councils not at risk like Logan and Gold Coast. This will be seen as political opportunism, especially since it can be safely assumed a working class city like Logan (the core of a new super-city) would return wall to wall Labor councillors.   

It is a logical step for Beenliegh and surrounding suburbs to be redrawn into a super council with communities of interest.  Although there is no community of interest with Redlands, places like Logan, Beenligh, Beuadesert and the new Yarbilba have a strong connection.

There are economies of scale for the area, with infrastructure hard to predict or plan for Beenleigh when your office if Surfer's Paradise (like Cr Hackwood's). 

While the Gold Coast is a tourist mecca, subsiding our end our town, Beenleigh's strong manufacturing industry including the Yatla enterprise development, would be more suited to Logan's similar economic background.

Politics will have a lot to do with our new city.  The money of developers, now the single highest donor to the state Labor Party (even outstripping the unions), the fact Labor sees more political control of the state as key to maintaining supremacy and their being little love lost between George Street and Gold Coast Council are all factors reinforcing my decision to pre-empt the review process.