Noel Pearson-Submission to Noosa Shire Council (Good Shepherd College)

The Noosa Shire Council was the owner of this land. GSLC acquired it, apparently at
a price not much greater than its reserve at auction, in 2007. The college got this
land from the Council at such a generous price, because of its obvious best use

as schooling facilities.

| do not pretend to know the extent to which the property was therefore obtained at
a discount from the Shire. But it seems clear that there was a discount.

In a school newsletter sent to school parents in December 2007, under the principal-
ship of John Mason, the following account is given of the circumstances prior to the
acquisition of the property from the Shire Council:

The 5019 square meter block on the corner of Eumundi Noosa Road and
Walter Hay Drive, owned by the Noosa Shire Council, will be auctioned on 13"
December. This block shares a common boundary with our new HPE Center
and swimming pool. Because the council rezoned the land from community
use to industrial/service, the successful bidder could establish a service station
on the site. Marketing material distributed by the auctioneer identifies this
type of development. We are somewhat alarmed by the prospect of fuel
storage tanks and fuel vapours being so close.

The decision to sell the land at auction — and at such short notice — has taken
us completely by surprise. Several years ago, the Good Shepherd College
Council sought to buy this block from the Noosa Shire Council for the same
price per square meter we paid for the land in which the HPE Center,
swimming pool, and associated car and bus parking now sits, without success.
Then in response to a call for tenders, we applied to lease it, but again with
no success.

Nevertheless this remains a once in a lifetime opportunity to acquire land
around our boundary -— to build a performing arts centre, or a technology
training centre, or to further expand the facilities for health and further
education.

For the current school leaders to now propose to be partners in the very kind of
development that was the subject of such anxiety in 2007 (“we are somewhat
alarmed by the prospect of fuel storage tanks and fuel vapours being so close”), and
in relation to which the then school leaders had sought help from the school
community — is what makes this whole deal so tawdry.

The current school leaders in effect propose that they should gain a windfall from a
real estate development deal in circumstances where the land was obtained from
the Noosa Shire Council at a discount in 2007 — on the basis that the land’s best use
is for schooling purposes. The ratepayers of Noosa subsidized the acquisition of this
land. The parents of Good Shepherd have been contributing to the servicing of the
debt through the school’s Building Fund. How can the current school leaders be
allowed to realize a windfall gain in such a circumstance?