PHIL JARRATT goes deep under rainforest cover to hear new Councillor Tom Wegener’s big ideas for Noosa
Councillor Tom Wegener climbs out from the driver’s seat, stomps around the edges of a storm water crevasse on this rough track running along the edge of deep rainforest, and declares we can go no further.
While not technically lost, we are technically slightly buggered. We have to turn the vehicle around in a space not much wider than the social distancing minimum. Fortunately the car is a tiny town sedan with a good turning circle. Unfortunately, it has virtually no clearance and is totally unsuited to negotiating the rutted slope we just came down.
But, with a few wheel spins, a bit of foliage for traction and a couple of therapeutic curses, we make it, and can resume our wanderings around the Yurol/Ringtail acquisitions – “the clay waiting to be shaped”, as Wegener puts it, of the ambitious Masterplan to turn the Noosa Trail Network into a world class natural habitat, crisscrossed by marked paths that tread lightly on the environment. We could have explored the already-established parts of the network during our morning on the hoof, but Tom insisted that I see the wild side, and I’m glad he did.
At one point on our walks, as we emerged from the rainforest and viewed the landscape from a ridge, he got very animated. “See all that below? Newly planted trees that in 10 years will be an incredible wildlife habitat. See that clump of forest in the distance? The last of the state plantation forest, soon to be felled and replaced by new growth too. The Koala Crusaders volunteers, with a big grant from The Body Shop, have planted many thousands of trees already, with a future koala habitat as the goal. Can you imagine how great that will be for tourists and for our kids?”
Tom Wegener is a waterman, new to council and fairly new to the wonders of the hinterland, but he has taken to them with a passion, which is pretty much how the man rolls. When he feels, he doesn’t hold back.
Wegener, now 55, was a well-known California longboarder when he slipped into Noosa in the late ‘90s to show a surf movie in which he starred. At the local radio station to promote his screening, he fell in love with the pretty morning dee jay and he and Margie married within the year and created two great kids, Finley and Sunday, now grown.
What most of us didn’t know when Tom hit town was that he had a law degree and had run a practice specialising in environmental cases. During his two decades in Noosa he has added to his academic credit a PhD in small manufacturing, written a book on sustainability in the surfboard industry and pioneered the replacement of foam surfboard blanks with sustainable paulownia plantation wood, not to mention the renaissance of the traditional finless surfboard.
Despite this, relatively few voters of Noosa knew anything about Tom Wegener when he decided to run for council this year, and he gave himself a one in four chance of succeeding. He ran on passion and a pittance, and got across the line. As Tom says, “If people knew me at all, it was as a surfboard builder, but I thought I had some skills that fed well into being a councillor. Being a lawyer gives you a bit of confidence when people start throwing big words around, and being a small manufacturer, I’ve worked my butt off for 22 years here, so I identify with everyone doing the same.”
When Wegener started campaigning for council he was apt to quote Socrates and the Stoics as his inspiration for pursuing a role in democracy in action. He’s wisely knocked that on the head a bit, but when you look at where the man has come from and what he hopes to achieve in local government, it can be reduced to a Socrates sound bite – human reason over doctrine. And it is this that informs Tom’s passion for the Big Ideas that have shaped Noosa.
He turns to me, behind him on the trail, to make a point: “I think it’s so exciting that we can continue to leverage Noosa’s natural assets, just like we’ve done with surfing. People come from all over the world to ride our waves, and that’s a big base for our tourism economy. With this network of trails going around and through our hinterland towns we can do the same thing. You could get lost walking these trails! You could spend weeks out here. And the beauty is that it’s not just something for tourists to enjoy – like the surf, this is something we locals can use and enjoy. It took real vision to make this happen, and that’s what Noosa does best. (Pioneer environmental activist) Arthur Harrold and friends went through this process many years ago with the first big idea, which was to have a national park on the headland. Big ideas are why Noosa is so special today, and the Yurol and Ringtail Creek acquisitions are among the last pieces of the puzzle to fall in place.”
As well as enjoying the learning curve of a newbie councillor, Wegener is relishing his role as NSC representative on the board of the Noosa Biosphere Reserve Foundation, which he sees as the glue that can bind the community groups that come up with the big ideas, and help nurture and fund them. He says: “The Biosphere is not static: it is the history, the culture, the environment, the decisions that have made Noosa what it is today. It’s a process, and in my view it’s good governance in action, which Noosa has enjoyed for many years and needs to continue.”
Now that the mud-slinging campaign is ancient history, Cr Wegener says that he and the other newbies are getting along just fine at Pelican Street. “I think as new councillors we were all a bit tentative going in, but we’re working really well with each other, and with the re-elected councillors. The most important thing is that we all listen and we communicate clearly. Even if we have disagreements we can talk through them in a reasonable way. And through that process it seems that generally we can arrive at a unanimous decision. I think it was (former mayor) Bob Abbot who once said, the last thing you want is a councillor to come in with a predetermined view about what must happen.”
Reason over doctrine. But if Wegener chose to quote one former mayor as we tramped the trail, it was an even earlier mayor who has been his guiding light, citing Noel Playford’s reasoned, pragmatic approach to governance as his inspiration.
As we drive back into town, Tom says: “For me one of the most exciting things about being a councillor is you drive around these streets and see all of the things that we are involved in, and it makes you feel so enmeshed in the community. And because I’m a surfer, every time I walk along that $7 million walkway to the National Park to go surfing, I think, this is worth every penny it cost. It’s a constant reminder of those big ideas that have made Noosa the best place on earth.”
