By Margaret Maccoll
More than 700 people participated in Noosa MP Sandy Bolton’s inaugural community survey with affordable housing, renewables and climate change, lack of employment and transport the top issues raised generally.
Ms Bolton said there were no surprises in those responses and she expected to be able “to share progress on three of these in the coming weeks”.
Roads, wildlife corridors and crossings, increased support for youth and families and sustainable models for community organisations were the most frequently raised local issues under State Government control. Survey respondents nominated the issues most important to them involving government departments as hospitals and health, housing affordability, roads and infrastructure, environment and cost of living expenses.
“Specifically, the road congestion to Brisbane, palliative care and end of life choices, violence and domestic violence and the affordable transition to renewables were of concern,” Ms Bolton said.
“These are not surprising as they continue to be forefront across Queensland and Australia and need to be addressed with a longer-term focus and on an all levels of government collaboration, which I believe we will see more on in response to the call from communities.”
The survey also included a number of polls to gauge residents’ views. The results indicated there were more than 93 per cent of people in support of voluntary
euthanasia, 95 per cent wanted medicinal cannabis legalised, 87 per cent agreed with the decriminalization of sex workers, 87 per cent wanted poker machine reform, 80 per cent were in support of fishing reform in Noosa waterways, while 66 per cent said yes to daylight savings in Queensland.
Ms Bolton said future surveys would include links to information sites on the polling items to assist people to provide informed responses.
“There were also a number of requests on issues that have already been dealt with, or in final
negotiations. These included the decommissioned TAFE, Beckman’s Rd and river hulks,” she said.
“Even though every form of communication is utilised to get information out into the community, there can still be a gap.”
Ms Bolton encouraged residents to join Noosa 360 if they wanted to be informed on the progress of local issues.
Visit sandybolton.com/noosa360/
