State Government Advocacy on a Queensland Pilot to Regulate Data Centres - Location, Energy Use and Treated Wastewater Cooling - and State Funding for Council-Delivered Lifeguard Services to Reduce Coastal Drownings · 2026-09-17 Notice of Motion - Cr Lorentson - QLD Pilot to Regulate Data Centres & State Funding for Council Delivered Lifeguard Services

Government, through Surf Life Saving Queensland, funds a volunteer patrol season operating on
weekends and public holidays from September to May — valuable, but only a fraction of the days
beaches are used. The far larger cost, professional lifeguards patrolling daily and often year-round,
is carried almost entirely by local governments. Sunshine Coast Council alone spends around $7
million a year on 124 lifeguards across 21 locations — more than half the $11.3 million a year the
State provides Surf Life Saving Queensland to cover the entire state’s volunteer movement. Local
governments carry this cost while assuming the risk, for a public safety service used overwhelmingly
by visitors and tourists rather than local ratepayers. Beaches are a state economic and tourism asset;
the cost of keeping people safe on them should not fall solely on councils that happen to have
coastline. As councils across Queensland finalise tightening budgets, some are being forced to
weigh lifeguard coverage against other essential services — a choice that should not need to be
made when lives are at stake.


Case study/Example (350 word limit):
On the morning of Friday 7 August 2026, emergency services were called to Bokarina Beach on the
Sunshine Coast after a 74-year-old man was found unresponsive in the water; despite first aid at the
scene, he could not be revived. Bokarina Beach is seasonally patrolled on weekends and school
holidays from September to May, so a weekday in early August fell well outside patrol times — a
stark illustration of the coverage gaps that open up once patrols step back to a seasonal or weekend-
only footing. Sunshine Coast Council’s own budget shows the scale of what local government is
already carrying. In 2026–27, Council is spending approximately $7 million a year on professional
lifeguard services, employing 124 lifeguards across 21 patrolled locations — more than half the
$11.3 million a year the State provides Surf Life Saving Queensland to support the volunteer
movement across the entire state’s 58 clubs, funding that is welcome but structured around weekend
and public holiday patrols rather than daily, professional coverage. Noosa Shire carries the same
structural cost, sharpened by its tourism profile. Council pays around $1.69 million a year for
lifeguard services across six beaches — Noosa Main, Noosa West, Peregian, Peregian North,
Sunshine and Sunrise — for the September to May season alone. Noosa’s lifeguards recently carried
out 260 rescues, more than 59,000 preventative actions and 6,700 first aid treatments while
attending to over 3.6 million beachgoers, most of them visitors, with numbers peaking sharply over
summer and school holidays. The real budget pressure comes less from year-round patrols than
from having to substantially 'man up' beach patrols during these peak tourism periods, when visitor
volumes and drowning risk are both at their highest. This pattern repeats across Queensland, from
the Gold Coast to Cairns: coastal councils carry year-round lifeguard costs protecting residents and
visitors, while the State’s contribution stays structured around the volunteer season. As drowning
tolls rise and budgets tighten, this imbalance is becoming harder to sustain — and, as Bokarina
shows, gaps in coverage can be fatal.