Candidate Profile Frank Wilkie
My History
Background: Noosa councillor, Former newspaper editor, journalist and high school teacher.
Age: 44
Lives: Peregian Beach with wife and daughter
Qualifications: Bachelor of Arts, Graduate Diploma Education, Graded journalist Sunshine Coast Environment Council (SCEC) Environmental Journalism Award Winner 2002 Council
Responsibilities:
• UNESCO Noosa Biosphere working group
• Noosa Bicycle and Pathways working group
• member Noosa River Plan Implementation Group
• member Works and Community Services Portfolio
• Committee member Peregian Neighbourhood House Working Group and Management Group member
Community Involvement:
• Dedicated to helping all community and sporting groups achieve their aims and objectives.
• Committee member of the Noosa Longweekend, a 10-day festival of cultural events featuring some of Australia's and the world's best writers, artists, musicians, social commentators.
• Involved in raising the standard of community theatre across the Sunshine Coast and participating in the fledgling Sunshine Coast film industry
My Objectives
Having spent the past 11 years gaining an understanding of the principles of sustainable development underpinning Noosa’s town plan, I intend using that working knowledge to ensure the new council evolves along these lines and becomes an outward-looking, transparent and service-oriented organisation.
I will use all means necessary to protect the town planning limits and policies that have kept Noosa's population to manageable levels and preserved the enviable blend of built and natural environment that powers our tourism-based economy.
I will work to develop the community board-backed UN Biosphere Governance model to become an advisory authority to help counter any excesses of the State’s development assessment panels set up under the Iconic Legislation. These Brisbane panels look set to have final say on Noosa projects and may be stacked with rogue development stooges.
I will work to ensure the new council is transparent, responsive to residents' needs, accountable and decentralised.
I will push for services and staff to remain at current, or higher, levels and to operate from existing council buildings and depots. Affordable housing must be pursued, not by opening the floodgates to development, but via partnerships where state/federal government subsidies deliver artificially-lowered rent or leases.
I also believe we need to review downwards Maroochy and Caloundra's excessively high population growth targets and establish a council-driven scheme where subsidised plantation timber, biodiesel and food crops are installed on the disused canelands surrounding the Sunshine Coast. The scheme would be part-funded by residents seeking to offset their home and vehicle carbon emmissions, potentially as a natural extension to Noosa's Living Smart program. This would help achieve the end goals of preventing disused canelands from becoming housing estates and enabling the coast to become Australia's first carbon-neutral region growing the bulk of its food.
I have a determination to quickly get to the heart of issues and match council resources with the community’s wishes. You pay for your council. It is there to serve you.
My Contact Details
Phone: 0413 530 587
Email: Frank.Wilkie @ noosa.qld.gov.au
Postal: PO BOX 117, Peregian, 4573
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