The wheels of change are turning and with a new state government, and increasingly a local government now open to the concept of deamalgamation, the return of a Douglas Shire may yet become a reality.

We spoke with Division 10 councillor, Julia Leu, about the prospect of returning to the Shire.

The Newsport: What do you make of Val Schier's comments effectively saying it's time for deamalgamation, and where do we go from here?

Julia Leu: I do know they're very genuine comments. With the resounding LNP victory on Saturday, many people in the communities of Douglas and Noosa are expecting the LNP to come good on their promise to establish the boundary commission and process that leads to the possibility that both communities could well be deamalgamated.

There's certainly a process that is involved with that, and it's similar to what we went through with amalgamation; the Boundary Commissioner determines what the new boundaries could be, they take in to account a lot of factors. Then we would be expecting that the financial implications, governance issues, a whole raft of things would be scrutinised by Queensland Treasury.

How I see it is that after that process, then when we're all well-armed with all the facts, all the positives and negatives, so we can make the decision as a community.

It's very important and appropriate that the Boundary Commissioner process will go through all this again, and plus we'll have access to the finances of the Cairns Regional Council.

TN: What costs are associated with deamalgamtion?

JL: At this stage we're not really sure. Having the support of the Cairns Regional Council would hopefully mean that there's opportunities to get back some of the things we put into the amalgamation.

There are other elements in terms of financial implications and particularly what would be the government structure? How many councillors, the mayor, would there be divisions?

This community will have an opportunity to have its say. Unfortunately it was a forced amalgamation in the first place, we don't want to force deamalgamation either.

We will get all the facts, and we will get a chance to have a look at it, and then we'll get the chance to vote on the final outcome.

TN: How would a referendum work?

JL: The details of how that would work have not been articulated. I do know that Noosa has been in contact with key players in the Government already, and I know Friends of Douglas have as well.

The critical thing will be when Campbell Newman announces his new ministry because people will be liaising very strongly with the incoming Minister for Local Government and some other people that have been in communication with for some time.

TN: If deamalgamation occurs, who would you expect to run for a councillor position?

JL: At the moment it's really early days. We've got a lot of very talented people in this community. I suppose the best thing would be it reflects the diversity of our community.

A lot of people are saying to me they want the Shire back, but not necessarily to be a councillor themselves. I don't think we'll have any shortage of people.

It would be a period of time when we need unity and we don't want to be tearing each other apart. I think that's one of the issues we've got to face in this community, we've got to start to unite and focus on what's important for the future. 

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