What is the Rockhampton region going to miss in a Livingstone less future that will change the Council status to weak? Higher population growth and higher rateable properties appear the main missing ingredients to affect the status change. What does the Livingstone less Council do to replace these ingredients? Large increases in rates are not palatable. Cutting the running costs and utility of community assets will hardly enhance higher population growth. Assets sales may provide a short term fix and should be evaluated, but what happens next time the Council finds itself in a large hole. Stimulating greater business investment in the region creating more jobs and people moving to the region to fill these jobs, higher demand for workers leading to higher wages paid resulting in residents upgrading into higher rateable value properties would appear to be a smart strategy; not an easy one and benefits take time to ripen. Why hasn’t Rockhampton in the past been more successful in doing this though? For years we been spruiking about more affordable land, available water, our excellent health and education facilities, we even have a port; despite this developers/investors don’t appear to be flocking to the Rockhampton region like some other centres in Central Queensland. Why? Excuses can be made, but what has been done about them. Are we really serious about attracting developers/investors to the region? The disparity Rockhampton has against Mackay, Bundaberg and other regional centres by having its port classified rural rather than metropolitan has been identified. Has anything happened to change this? Australian Property Investor’s magazine recently criticised Rockhampton Regional Council indicating its development process needs to be overhauled. How has this feedback been received? Should the fee demands of Council to developers be cut to get projects happening here?
Aggressively chasing acceptable sustainable development appears to be a strategy that arguably over time make up for what the recreation of Livingstone takes out of the balance sheet. Thus the Mayor’s decision to withdraw economic development funding from Capricorn Enterprise needs further details. How will economic development be handled in house? How will it be more effective? The window on the Rockhampton region economic development performance has been opened by the Mayor’s notification of intention. Let’s use the media attention Rockhampton’s economic development is receiving to thrash out how it can be done more effectively.