Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the member for Herbert indicated, last Saturday local government elections were held in Queensland. My electorate of Longman is entirely within the new supercouncil, as it is so called, of Moreton Bay Regional Council, which is now the third-largest in Queensland after Brisbane and the Gold Coast. On the weekend, several longstanding councillors lost their positions, mostly in contests against other standing councillors. I would like to particularly mention those from Longman who no longer hold positions on the council: Lyn Devereaux, Yvonne Barlow, Chris Monsour and former councillor John McNaught, who was unsuccessful in his bid for the mayoralty. I want to thank them all on behalf of the community that they have served for many years and wish them well in the future.

In the contest for the mayoralty, voters favoured existing mayors over the others who had sought election to those positions, although preferences have not yet been distributed. The inferences from scrutineers suggest that the mayoralty may well be won by the former Redcliffe mayor, Allan Sutherland; therefore, Caboolture mayor Joy Leishman will also lose her position. I want to acknowledge her service to our community over several years, which included contesting for the Liberal Party against me in the state parliament in 1992, which I am happy to say was unsuccessful.

There are some winners, and I want to congratulate all of them. Serving the people within the Longman electorate for the next four years will be Gary Parsons, Chris Whiting, Greg Chippendale, Julie Greer, David Dwyer, Bob Miller and Adrian Raedel. All except new Councillor Raedel were serving councillors in the Pine Rivers Shire Council or Caboolture Shire Council. One personal disappointment is that only two women won seats on the new council. They contested only five but it is still disappointing that only two out of 13 councillors will be women. Voters have trusted experienced hands with the difficult job of harmonising the diverse programs of the three former councils that now make up the Moreton Bay Regional Council. I wish them well in that endeavour and offer them whatever assistance I can give that they may require.

There is one small, inexpensive and worthwhile project that I recommend for continuation, and that is the production of local histories. The Deception Bay history which I was pleased to attend the release of quite recently was an initiative of Councillor Whiting. Written by Thom Blake and Peter Osborne, it is a product of research of the literature and of local family histories and it settles, once and for all, the origin of the name of Deception Bay. Not Cook, not Flinders, not explorer John Oxley but Andrew Petrie named Deception Bay. Andrew Petrie was one of the first free settlers in the Moreton Bay colony— (Time expired)