Mayor Budget Speech 2021

Mayor’s Budget Speech 2021
                                                                                               30 June 2021

Good morning. My fellow Councillors, CEO, staff, ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to
present this Council’s second budget as Mayor of Noosa Shire. Firstly, I would like to state that it is with
great disappointment that I can’t share this table with my fellow Councillors. The budget today is very
much a collaborative and collective budget. It’s a budget we’ve all worked hard on and its in many ways
devastating that we can’t all be together to share in this special time.

Last year we stood at this very spot and talked about a one in a hundred-year pandemic. We spoke
about the significant challenges to our Council’s finances and we discussed how we would have to adapt
to a new financial, business and social environment that not many of us, or should I say, none of us
would ever have expected.

12 months on and Covid is still very much with us. The impacts are still felt by the world, our country, our
State and our Shire. Today is testament to that very fact. Over the past 15 months our Shire has shown
resilience, determination and at its shown support of its own and operated positively with so many
others.

The Noosa Shire Council Budget 2021/2022 epitomises all of those very things. It’s determined, positive
and forward thinking. And, most importantly, its community focused. Grass roots spending where our
community needs it most. Our $153 million budget, with the largest ever capital infrastructure budget of
$47m, provides a raft of new initiatives in support of the community. We have moved from survive, to
revive, and now we thrive. Better roads, better footpaths, better cycleways, increased fire mitigation and
management, better protection for our community, increased spending to support our community groups,
are just some of features of this year’s budget.

While we boldly increase infrastructure, facilities and resources for our community, we also acknowledge
that our community has hurt during covid and we appreciate that times are tough for many of our
residents. That is why we were determined to keep rate rises as low as possible.

Seventy five percent of ratepayers will see a general rate increase of no more than CPI of 1.5%. To put it
in lay terms this means that when including all rates and charges, an average residential property owner
can expect a total increase in their rates notice of $44, which is equivalent to about 85 cents per week.
Similarly, we are maintaining the current 5% discount on general rates.

A new initiative this year and one which I am particularly proud of is that we have waived the 3-year
waiting period for new pensioner concession applications. This means that if you are a pensioner and
you turn up in this town, you do not need to wait three years to be eligible for a concession on your rates.
This applies immediately. Our role, our job is to help where we can. This initiative helps our elderly, and
we are all proud of it.