Weekly column from Council Courier e-newsletter by LGAQ President and Sunshine Coast Mayor Mark Jamieson, Friday 9, June 2017.
I was humbled this week to accept from Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk a Queensland Great award to the Local Government Association of Queensland. As I said at the award ceremony at the Queensland Art Gallery, I thank the Premier and her Government for bestowing this honour on the LGAQ.
But the honour has its roots in the great camaraderie, teamwork and partnering that the Government and Queensland councils have achieved together. We humbly share this with our 77 members because it’s an affirmation of their place in Queensland’s history, a story of local communities overcoming the challenges of geography and climate.
Among those 77 are some of Australia’s largest councils in terms of revenue and population but also some of the most remote and largest in terms of sheer geographical area anywhere in the world.
The spirit and resilience of all these communities in times of adversity is one of Queensland’s strengths and it guides and inspire the way the LGAQ go about our work.
Of course, the Government chose to recognise not just the LGAQ but the many individual councils that helped their communities meet and recover from the devastation of Cyclone Debbie earlier this year. Their work was an outstanding reminder to the State and the rest of Australia of the contribution that local government makes.
We have been around for more than 120 years and we continue to exist solely for the benefit of our member councils and their 40,000 employees. Our councils in turn exist to serve and support the many varied and diverse communities that make up Queensland and it’s those communities that really are the Queensland greats.