Councillors promise to take Australia Day Awards to voters
By Sonia Isaacs
SOME Sunshine Coast councillors are promising to campaign to reinstate the scrapped Australia Day Awards if re-elected at the March 2024 local government elections.
A majority of councillors voted to rebadge the awards as the UNSESCO Biosphere – Community Awards at a council workshop earlier this year.
The new awards are focused on sustainability and environmental achievements.
Councillors in support of the move said a decline in participation numbers, cultural sensitivities and the loss of key sponsorship, were key factors.
But a lack of community consultation and the fact the vote was not taken to an ordinary meeting, concerned some councillors.
Division 2 Councillor, Terry Landsberg, Division 5 Councillor, Winston Johnston and Division 7’s Ted Hungerford all opposed the move.
Cr Landsberg described it as “an embarrassment” and said that if re-elected, he would push to reinstate the awards.
“This decision is extremely disappointing and an embarrassment to our communities who have supported these awards on the coast for over 60 years,” he said.
Cr Johnston, and Cr Hungerford, both said they believed the community should have been engaged and consulted, and the matter taken to debate at an Ordinary Council Meeting.
In a written response to concerned constituents,
Cr Johnston said he believed the change to be “insulting to the community”.
He said it was a disappointing outcome and that he had asked repeatedly for council officers to carry out community consultation.
“I strongly believe (this change) to be an insult to previous recipients and our community in general,” he said.
GC&M News understands the decision was made following an hour long discussion at an October council workshop attended by councillors, council staff and the Sunshine Coast Biosphere committee, which comprised of both internal and external stakeholders and included Sunshine Coast Council CEO, Emma Thomas.
Mayor Mark Jamieson and Division 8’s Jason O’Pray were understood to be absent from the vote.
Division 6 Councillor Christian Dickson, said there were valid reasons for the decision including a decline in participation numbers and cultural sensitivities.
“Council then looked at ways to provide a new date and name for the awards to help people across the entire community feel more included,” he said.
Division 9 Councillor, Maria Suarez, said council wanted to continue to recognise community achievements.
She said since council amalgamated, the awards had never been held on Australia Day, and the move to rebrand was due to a decline in sponsorship and community nominations.
“We always wanted to celebrate that and celebrate the people within it and the categories within the Biosphere (awards) very much aligned with the previous awards,” she said.
A spokesperson for former sponsor, UniSC, said while they proudly sponsored a range of activities and programs across the region, “they reviewed their mix of sponsored programs regularly.”
Division 1 Councillor, Rick Baberowski, said he supported the decision, adding it was never a step back from Council’s support of Australia Day. He did acknowledge that the way the awards were announced to the community was “naive”.
“It was never in my mind that this would take away from our commitments to Australia Day, what was obvious was we were seeing a steady decline in applications,” he said.
Cr Baberowski said at the same time Council wanted to raise the profile of its Biosphere status which was marking its first year.
“The Biosphere is one of those aspects of our community that we really want people to understand is profound and important,” he said.
“We wanted to attach some community activity or awards to it to give it profile.”