Day 25, 22 February
MUM’S THE WORD AT COOROY
Fortified with only bottled water and three packets of biscuits, hundreds of Cooroy residents packed into the town’s Memorial Hall last Thursday to hear from 16 of 18 candidates in the upcoming Council elections.
Andrea Newland arrived 50 minutes into the event, seemingly prepared for all occasions, rolling in a large suitcase and carrying a briefcase and folder, but missed her slot to pitch her bid to the people of Cooroy.
Candidates had three minutes to win over voters, MC Richard Hansen happy to stop them mid-sentence from going over time. At the end of the 48-minute round he called for questions from an orderly audience with the proviso they state their names. “It’s not Facebook, you do not get to do this anonymously,” he quipped.
After the first couple of questions, hosts of the evening, Cooroy Chamber of Commerce had the floor, asking each candidate how they would improve Cooroy, if elected. This was too much for mother-of-six Alecia Staines’ youngest who loudly voiced a protest, forcing mum from the stage. Alecia managed to return for her response when Mayor Clare Stewart stepped up to help, trying in vain to comfort the youngster with a walk in the cool air while cries continued through the open windows.
Maybe the child triggered something in the adults, or they just couldn’t take another round of replies, but at 6.50pm about half the room steadily exited while the questions continued.
Day 28, 25 February
THE NON-ROAST
“It was never going to be a roast,” MC Debra Walz assured the eight candidates who took their seats up front at the Tinbeerwah Hall for the meet the candidates forum which had been advertised as a “friendly roast”.
“We’re all friends here and it’s going to be a very respectful meeting,” she continued. “We’ll leave the nastiness to the keyboard warriors on social media.” And so it seemed for the first 20 minutes or so that CD caught, all peace, love and free popcorn, and a country fair vibe amongst many of the 70-plus punters in attendance, current Noosa MP Sandy Bolton and former MP Bruce Davidson among them.
Two of the four mayoral candidates, Ingrid Jackson and Nick Hluszko, and six councillor candidates, including Cr Amelia Lorentson and Leigh McCready, faced off for the first round of Q and A with the audience, although CD, having moved on to the next engagement, is not sure how many of them bought their 15 minutes of fame (at $50 a minute, proceeds to charity) to preach to the choir in the afternoon’s finale.
Regardless of who won the debates inside, candidate Hluszko read the car park perfectly with his farm truck mobile billboard just reeking of “old-fashioned values”.
TN OR NOT TN? THAT IS THE QUESTION
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock you will have heard the cascading torrent of negative (and occasionally over the top) reaction to Tourism Noosa’s candidate questionnaire, sent in advance to all 18 candidates for mayor and councillor, with their responses to form the basis of last Tuesday’s election forum at the Noosa Boathouse.
Since the timing of the forum coincides with Noosa Today’s publication deadline, we will deal with its outcomes via a “late drop” elsewhere in the paper, while discussing the responses here in Campaign Diary.
The questionnaire asked just three tourism-related questions of candidates:
1. What are your thoughts on tourism in Noosa?
2. Tell us about your ideas for how you will sustain Noosa’s visitor economy across the region.
3. Noosa Council currently contributes $2.5M annually to Tourism Noosa which in 2022-23 returned $1.7B overnight visitor expenditure into the local economy. What are your thoughts on this?
Since answering any of them with detailed plans could create difficulties for successful candidates in future debate over TN funding or the Destination Management Plan, most of the responses were cloaked in generalities or purposely oblique, but only question three was blatantly politically loaded, asking candidates to comment on council’s current $2.5 million annual contribution to Tourism Noosa based on the false premise that the organisation, rather than the industry, had turned this into a $1.7 billion return.
Whether this was the reason that candidate Chris Darwen sent an apology and candidates Andrea Newland and Michelle Ngatai-Stokes failed to respond is anyone’s guess, but the 15 responses received varied from thesis-length to single sentence, with several of them calling question three inappropriate. We’ve chosen some highlights from Q. 3 responses:
• The economic contribution from Tourism Noosa throughout the Shire’s historical narrative is embedded into our social and economic ecosystems that over many years of careful cultivation is gradually maturing. – CR KAREN FINZEL
• What these statistics don’t show is the impact of Noosa’s success as a tourist destination has had on the community, principally through the spread of Short Term Accommodation and [on] our environment through extra waste generated, waste to landfill and resource recovery. It’s the social and environmental cost of this success that has prompted the need for a reassessment of where we are heading as a community, via the Destination Management Plan.- MAYORAL CANDIDATE FRANK WILKIE
• This is an amazing return on investment and if these numbers are correct, well done to TN. To be completely honest I would need to [know] more facts to determine how you came to this conclusion that the $2.5mil returned the figure of $1.7b. – MAYORAL CANDIDATE JOHN MORRALL
• In this question, there is no evidence provided to demonstrate a causal relationship between Tourism Noosa activities and the visitor expenditure… If I become Mayor, I would hope that, in order to reassure Council of the value its $2.5 million annual investment, Tourism Noosa would provide more sophisticated assessments. – MAYORAL CANDIDATE INGRID JACKSON
• My greatest concern is that of the $3.3m income that NT [sic] receives annually only 33 per cent actually goes to marketing the rest goes to SG and A. While the effectiveness of marketing efforts suggest some success in terms of contribution to the local economy and visitor numbers I feel that we have to challenge ourselves to find creative ways to convert SG and A to more marketing funds. – MAYORAL CANDIDATE NICK HLUSZKO
• I think you’re asking the wrong question. Based on these figures, I could expect that TN should be more self-sustainable and be looking at ways to lever the benefits from that sort of input rather than reliant on a long term investment…What is the true measure of success? Is marketing all it takes, or all there is? What does it take to facilitate a more sustainable and manageable tourism future without killing the goose? – CR JOE JURISEVIC
• I choose to abstain from providing commentary on this matter. It’s my belief that publicly expressing an opinion on this matter could potentially lead to a conflict of interest when the funding agreement is deliberated upon by the Council. – CR AMELIA LORENTSON
• We need to be clear, the values and natural assets of the destination together with those who provide accommodation and experiences are the major contributors to the visitor economy. Successful and highly professional marketing and product development by TN contributed to the realisation of some of that return. -CR BRIAN STOCKWELL
• This is an inappropriate question. – CR TOM WEGENER
• The wording of this question is problematic… as it suggests TN is taking credit for the whole industry’s performance. TN did not return $1.7B to the economy, it was generated by the tourism industry. – CANDIDATE NICOLA WILSON
