History made as Noosa elects first female Mayor

Our new council got sworn in today. Well what a ride it has been! After the slow and painful countdown courtesy of the Electoral Commission amidst the outbreak of a global pandemic Noosa elected Clare Stewart as its first female Mayor. 

Noosa Shire formed in May 1910 and (not counting the amalgamation gap) has seen 391 male councillors and only 18 female councillors in its 110 years of existence.

Drawing on library records and hoping we interpreted the names correctly we had the first female councillor ever in Pamela Milner in 1973, followed by Marea Brown, Barbara (Joy) Laurie, Anne Grant, Olive Macklin, Beverly Menkens, Heather Melrose, Lynley Midgley, Vivien Griffin and June Colley. At its unique peak in the year 2000 we had 3 female vs 7 male councillors under Bob Abbot’s mayoralty.

Noosa went back to electing one single female on each consequent council after de-amalgamation during the Playford/Wellington years from 2014-2020. First Sandy Bolton and then Ingrid Jackson. Sandy Bolton is of course now our State MP and Ingrid declined to run again herself, but spurred other women to stand for office. Ingrid is a wonderful example of a successful woman ‘sending the lift back down’ to support women to step up.

So this time three women will serve on the new Noosa council: Congratulations to Clare Stewart, Amelia Lorentson and Karen Finzel.

Much changed

We’d like to explicitly thank Jo Falla who is a great connector of women of all walks of life and has inspired many political conversations about women in leadership. We’d like to thank the courageous Karen Cook-Langdon, Yanni Van Zjil, Meghan Halverson, Janet Kake and Snezana Redford for having a go.

We also believe the outstanding leadership behaviour modelled by Noosa’s own Ingrid Jackson, Sandy Bolton and further afield Jacinda Ardern (NZ),  Angela Merkel (Germany), Erna Solberg (Norway) and Sanna Marin (Finland) who are leading their respective nations with openness, respect, and care, is showing a trend in the right direction.

And some stayed the same

Having their own ‘boy’s club moment’, the ‘NET (Noosa Election Talk)’ Facebook page signed off with a post proclaiming that a group of men referred to as the “Good Guys” led Clare to victory. Pity that these good guys couldn’t also acknowledge the effort of many women who brought about and are continuing to bring about this change.

Nevertheless, Dom Massoni and Ken Coleman did a great job with the NET. Even if you didn’t like their political stance, they have contributed to the spawning of Rod Ritchie’s counter facebook group ‘Residents for Noosa’ which brought regular election updates to the community as well as Keith Jackson’s more visceral take on the goings-on. There were also groups based in Peregian Beach and the Hinterland getting involved in important political conversations. This is all in contrast to the broader community’s relative political inactivity and inertness in elections of the past. So we are grateful for all who facilitated conversations.

A new epoch – Our new mayor

Clare the Mayor ran an outstanding campaign. As a relative unknown she was beating the pavement from the end of last year to meet as many people as possible to make herself known and to understand the community issues first hand.

We supported Clare in her campaign assuming that 

• as a mother she would understand the needs of those with kids including safe access to schools and the importance of a good education system;
• as a trauma survivor, she would know the importance of health care and support for the vulnerable in our community;
• as a lawyer she would understand our rights and would bring great negotiation skills to the table. We trust that her decisions and actions will be based on evidence and good expert advice.

As a self declared LNP member we hope that the Covid-19 crisis has shown the LNP’s shortcomings and that looking after business first is unsustainable in an unjust society. Strong, resilient communities must come first! Only then can businesses thrive. And no community can be resilient without a healthy environment. 

As a privileged white person, we hope that Clare will connect with the Indigenous community and support them to re-establish their connection with the land we live on.

We wish her all the best on what we know will be a steep learning curve. She has proven to be resilient, and this next chapter could be her most defining moment. 

Just under half of voters are concerned that they have lost a passionate environmental leader in Tony Wellington – Clare will have her work cut out to bring them along on her journey as she juggles the balance between business, society and the environment. 

The Councillors

During the campaign we have elaborated on what we felt was the incumbents ‘enabling’ of bad behaviour. However we congratulate Brian Stockwell, Frank Wilkie and Joe Juresivic. We hope that the diversity around the table will bring out the best in them and that they will start to listen and take note of what their colleagues and members of the community have to say, whatever the gender. We believe they now have a new opportunity to shine in supporting and encouraging their new colleagues Clare Stewart, Amelia Lorentson, Karen Finzel and Tom Wegener.

We hope for ideologies to take a back seat and the wishes and needs of the broader community to be decided on the basis of evidence and expert advice.

In these unprecedented times we hope that more frivolous and opportunistic projects such as the oyster reefs and Cooroy playground will make way for remedying more basic and sustainability focussed needs of the shire.

In any event we think the new council will make for good Council TV. We will look out for inevitable bloopers and we promise to be kind. Council bureaucracy is full on and even the most experienced councillors sometimes make procedural mistakes. An L plate is nothing to be ashamed of if your conscience, heart and soul are in the driving seat.

Best of luck to all.