With an increasingly turbulent economic environment looming across the nation, one of the best assets any community can have is a local government who truly understands the needs of its residents and businesses alike, and can shape economic policy grounded in fairness, growth and sustainability.
After careful analysis of the latest information released around Noosa Council’s budget, the Noosa Chamber of Commerce believes our council needs to take into consideration our LGA’s (Local Government Area) urgent need to address basic economic issues and commit to implementing the Local Economic Plan that council endorsed just a few months ago.
Meeting the significant economic challenges that lie ahead – rampant inflation, supply-chain crunch and soaring energy costs to name a few – need to be addressed with due care and consideration by council policy and budgeting if we want to all benefit as a community from a sustainable local economy. The proposed budget will add to inflationary pressures within our community.
With an average growth rate of our local economy of just 1.3 per cent per annum, Noosa is yet to seize on its economic potential and continues to be a town of a stark social divide. The vast majority of our community struggle to keep up with the ongoing rise in cost-of-living, while an elite few remain relatively insulated from the economic storm clouds gathering.
For this to change we have to implement sound economic strategies, many of which are described in council’s approved Local Economic Plan.
The Noosa Chamber of Commerce is engaging with Council, seeking to start the implementation of The Local Economic Plan and look beyond the next 12 months, and is tabling recommendations to council to explore funding economic development so that the Local Economic Plan can be implemented in a way that offers a great opportunity to reverse the sluggish economic growth in our community. A flourishing local economy that helps bridge the social divide between the wealthy few and the vast majority of ratepayers will pay dividends for all community stakeholders in the long term, and we all want to see the Noosa community be as great as it can be.
In conjunction with the Hastings Street Association and the Noosaville Business Association, and after conducting an in depth review of the proposed budget, the Chamber met with council recently to discuss the impacts of higher rates and charges that have been included in the 2022-2023 budget.
We appreciated the opportunity to voice our members’ concerns and describe the real world inflationary consequences of council’s proposed increased fees and charges to the many small businesses we represent.
The reality is everyone will be receiving increases at least of 5 per cent with over 40 per cent of ratepayers receiving an increase greater than this number.
Commercial Business properties in category 2 will have increases of 30 per cent.
Most fees and charges from dog licences to food licences are going up.
The environment and heritage levies are being restored to 2019 levels even though there are healthy projected closing balances for both of these levies already.
Our associations have asked council to consider reverting back to the tourism and economic development levy being managed exactly the same way as the environment, transport and heritage levy so there is absolute transparency.
We have also asked that businesses that pay the levy have the choice of contributing to tourism or economic development through a “tick-and-flick” format.
We know that unless we work hard to curate and rebalance our local economy, our social and environmental aspirations as a community will just not be met.
The hard truth is that Noosa needs a healthy and thriving economic environment to form the backbone of any whole-of-community recovery after years of turmoil with Covid and natural disasters. Covid has left many businesses with debt.
Without a viable strategy that lifts up our small business community, the negative knock-on effects for the wider community and council funding will be significant, and the last thing anyone wants is a downward spiral of depressed economic growth, lower council revenues, less services and more crime.
In the Chinese language there is a phrase, perhaps somewhat similar to our “Every cloud has a silver lining”, that within a crisis there is a turning point or opportunity, and we believe that while Noosa may be headed towards an economic crisis, there is also an important turning point we as a community can take to embrace our local economy with passion as we have the environment.
To rebalance our economy and kickstart economic growth Noosa would well benefit from the establishment of a new entity, the Noosa Economic Development Corporation.
Council has a grant that was awarded some time ago and we would love to see that activated so that the concept of private-public partnerships can be further investigated and if proven, our community can develop the requisite pathway forward for the establishment of such an entity like the Noosa Economic Development Corporation. This is the kind of proven strategy we would love council to commit budget allocation for in 2022-2023 and assist the wider business community in helping kickstart a new era of growth for our great shire.
Council have stated in their Local Economic Plan that they want to “support the development of future focused business ecosystem through ecosystem organisation programs that provide a package of support which reflects the needs of the individual sector, builds industry capability and skills, provides assistance to sectors leaders, grows specialisations and drives drives industry development”.
By working with the business community to find ways of establishing a stronger economy-focused entity such as a Noosa Economic Development Corporation would be a great start to honour these aspirations.
Noosa cannot afford another decade without a finger on the economic pulse of society, and we are confident that our engagement with the council will enable our collective efforts and vision to be able to navigate this current looming economic crisis and pivot the situation into a new positive chapter for our businesses who provide the lifeblood of our community.
We would strongly encourage all members of our community, particularly those who have been impacted by our sluggish economic growth, to contact council via council’s “Have Your Say” website and advocate for sensible and sustainable economic measures that will give us the best opportunity to position Noosa as not just the tourism destination of choice, but a leader in innovative economic policy that benefits all our community.
We would also like to encourage readers – particularly those in small business – to consider joining the Noosa Chamber of Commerce (noosachamberofcommerce.com.au for more information) or one of our affiliated organisations – the Hastings Street Association and the Noosaville Business Association – and get involved in ensuring we get our local economy back on track in this vital time of rebuilding.
