‘Listen to your heart’: Mayor’s 2024 lesson shapes bold hinterland plan

Q&A with Mayor Rosanna Natoli

Question: What are your key goals for the hinterland in 2025?

My key goals are closely entwined with the challenges listed below and I want to tackle these head on. When you distil it all down, the biggest challenges all come back to balancing different interests and trying to work out what’s most important.  Whether it’s community groups or teams within Council, there are so many players who are all are extremely passionate! 

Q. What do you see as the biggest challenges for the hinterland in coming years?

Connecting our communities - More efficient, accessible and reliable public transport is high on my wishlist – it is a must for our future, along with easing traffic congestion.

I’m looking forward to seeing progress on the long-awaited rail connection from Beerwah to Caloundra and then on to Birtinya and Maroochydore. This will make a huge difference to our hinterland communities.

Housing is another enormous challenge - everyone knows we need more affordable housing and an easing of cost-of-living pressures. While we need Queensland Government assistance with this, we will keep looking to find solutions together. This is a huge task - balancing the need for housing with the need to protect the integrity of the rural living and agriculture.

Q. What was the most important lesson you learned in 2024?

How much I genuinely love this job! I love the people of the Sunshine Coast and I feel an enormous sense of responsibility - to deliver a thriving, vibrant future. Decision-making can be really tough when you’re balancing the needs of competing community groups, businesses, residents… and future residents. 

The lesson learnt is to always listen to your heart!

Q. What else would you like to say to people in the hinterland regarding your goals/vision? 

The past nine months have been a massive learning curve and I want to build on what I have learnt in 2024 so that as a Council, we can deliver the projects and programs our Sunshine Coast residents, and especially those in the hinterland, desire and deserve. People in the hinterland often feel ignored or forgotten and I would love to change that.

Mayor Rosanna Natoli “People in the Hinterland often feel ignored or forgotten and I would love to change that.”