By Noosa Mp Sandy Bolton
Being ‘humbled’ never quite conveys the many emotions attached to being re-elected to represent our community. It is an honour and a privilege like no other, and brings feelings of enormous responsibility, as well deep gratitude to our community who made a decision to retain its independent voice, the only one out of 93 electorates across QLD. How proud I am of our uniqueness, and preparedness to set new benchmarks in expectations and of governance.
In the first days of this 57th Parliament, there is a flurry of activity and letters. One was again highlighting the failures of our voting system, reflecting your complaints about the location of the early voting centre at Noosaville that created traffic, parking and accessibility issues, and postal votes that arrived extremely late.
The issue of the volume of heavy haulage in our hinterland continues, and it was good to see support for my advocacy from Mayor Clare. With an assessment by DTMR already completed some weeks ago, we now wait for the design costings on recommended works to ensure the safety of road users. With many in the impacted communities rightfully asking the simple question on how our systems have allowed this, we await the advice from Councils Barrister as well other agencies how to reduce these impacts, and will be meeting with residents as soon as this information becomes available.
At a time when our community is preparing for end of year celebrations, we are readying for the first Parliamentary sitting now that all seats have been ‘declared’. As well a Budget and Estimates hearings. It would be a wonderful Christmas gift if some of the changes to this process suggested be adopted to reduce wasted resources expended every year, however I feel given the extreme circumstances of the pandemic I may need to continue my advocacy for next year! When it comes to saving taxpayer dollars and greater efficiency, there can be no excuses for any level of Government not to adopt sensible measures, especially in a post COVID world.
Due to Parliamentary sitting dates, I sadly may not be able to attend several traditional Christmas gatherings that I have so looked forward to with our community organisations, aged care residents and businesses. Please be assured that I will get to any that I can and send blessings together with my most sincere gratitude for your understanding if I am unable to be there. However, I will be with you in spirit, and work out alternate ways to catch up as it has been a big year and there is much to celebrate together!
Remember that we have extra resources including mounted police to accommodate our young visitors as part of their end of school celebrations and ask that should you have any concerns to let our teams know. It is an exciting time for school leavers, and they will appreciate our warmth and sharing of our very special home with them during this time in their lives.
Until next month do not forget to be fire, flood and storm ready, just in case!
