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Easter celebration It was an Easter delight for both the children and the seniors when visitors from Busy Bees childcare centre dropped in on Noosa Seniors centre for an Easter hat parade and a delivery of Easter eggs and handmade cards. While there, the children met the Easter bunny and joined in some old fashioned games like egg and spoon races. A spokesperson said the children were regular visitors to the centre and the beaming smiles on everyone’s faces showed how much they enjoy the time together. Noosa Today wishes everyone a Happy Easter.
Vincent and Daisy from Busy Bees childcare centre with Jenny Sever of Noosa Seniors. (Rob Maccoll)
Workforce crisis By Margie Maccoll Noosa’s ageing population, housing too expensive for its “productive workforce“ and a low gross regional product (GRP) growth are strongly impacting Noosa’s economy and need urgent action, Noosa Chamber of Commerce president Ralph Rogers told guests at a chamber event hosted by Noosa Today last week. Mr Rogers told attendees these were some of the findings from the chamber’s recently completed economic and social impact study, a document prepared annually by the chamber from a range of data to understand what is going on in the local marketplace, with a comparison to neighbouring council regions.
“We put it in a document so it’s easier to digest, to understand and to be there to assess it and use it in your own business plan,“ he said “It’s important for Noosa to not only understand the economic consideration but what’s happening from a socio-economic point of view. The 40-page study is used to advocate on behalf of our members and the community, based on fact not fiction.“ Mr Rogers said among key takeaways from this year’s report was the fact the GRP (a measure of the total value of goods and services produced in a region) of the shire hasn’t got above 4 per cent in the past four years, except during Covid “when
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government threw a whole lot of money at the community“. “What that demonstrates is the community is somewhat dependent on social payments,“ he said. “Of the three councils we closely monitor Sunshine Coast, Gympie and Noosa - we have the lowest GRP growth out of the three shires. “There’s a couple of reasons why this is happening - 36 per cent of our population is over 60 compared to the Queensland average of 22 per cent, 25-34 year olds are only 7 per cent of the population when the Queensland average is 14 per cent. “Our average dwelling price is $1.3 million
when the Queensland average is $690,000. What else needs to be considered is annually all we’re doing is approving on a 10-year-average, 336 residential dwellings a year with half of them knock downs and rebuilds. “So what you can see is 25-34 year olds can’t afford to buy a place to live here, therefore they’re not here, therefore we’re losing our productive workforce. “From a council point of view between 201415 through to 2019-20 the difference in operating expenses in council grew 25 per cent. From 201920 to 23-24 it grew 44 per cent. That’s from $78m in 2014 to $132m. Continued page 2
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