by Janine Hill

A CANDIDATE for the Sunshine Coast mayor’s position says the Sunshine Coast must lift its exports to have a bright future.

Michael Burgess, a retired businessman with an interest in sustainability, said exports were essential for wealth, and prosperity was vital for the region’s future.

“Prosperity is always based on wealth. You don’t have a prosperous place that does not export,’’ he said.

Three policy thrusts

Mr Burgess is running a campaign with three main policy focuses: regeneration of the environment, protection of the local lifestyle, and the creation of the prosperity which he said was necessary to support both of those.

“There is little point in having short prosperity that does not allow for people to enjoy the lifestyle they wish in an environment that is just not being destroyed, but is getting better,” he said in a background statement.

Mr Burgess has calculated gross regional product per capita, a key economic indicator, as $58,600 on the Sunshine Coast in 2022. 

He said GRP was $48,700 in 2012 and should be $62,100 given inflation which meant productivity had declined by about 6% a year.

“The decline has been consistent except for the year in which the government sent in a great deal of support for the covid unemployed,” he said.

“These figures are crucial because they are the only reliable indicator of whether there is money in the economy to allow all business, the principal local employers, to grow.

“It is not that no business is doing well. 

“They may not be doing well enough to create jobs proportionate to population growth, and regardless of the individual business performance, there may be businesses who are not getting up or who are failing when they do because of the declining amount of money circulation per person in the region.”

His comments cast some doubt on the positive picture painted by mayor Mark Jamieson in his State of the Region address last year.

Mr Burgess, of Kawana Island, has been a strong critic of the council for some years.

He began scrutinising the council after making an unsuccessful pitch to it in 2016 for a community farm and urban sustainability, concepts which he said had since received support from other councils. 

Second shot at top job

This is his second shot at election for mayor.

He ran in 2020, coming third with 10% of the vote behind Mr Jamieson on almost 50% and then deputy mayor Chris Thompson on 33%, but ahead of another council critic, Don Innes, on a little over 6%.

Mr Burgess’s website champions not only community farms but parking parks combined with farms to alleviate neighbourhood parking problems, and agrihoods – housing developments with farms at their heart.

He does not support the idea of a new sports stadium for the Sunshine Coast, saying communities derive no economic benefit from such infrastructure, and instead calls for an elite sports training facility.

Business acumen

He said his natural curiosity and business experience – beginning with an outlay of a few thousand dollars, he and his wife built a video business with 200 employees – would stand him in good stead for the job of Sunshine Coast Mayor.

“There are 32,000 or so small & medium local businesses, there are 149,000 local jobs. 

“It’s not hard to see that without a vibrant local business environment, we won’t have a stable & growing employment market in a prosperous and thriving community, with a lifestyle the envy of the world, in an environment protected from exploitation.”