Young mothers who move to the Whitsundays and are left feeling isolated after their FIFO husbands go to work in the mines will be one of the focus points of one woman’s campaign as she vies for a seat on local council.
As a social worker in a community centre, Carol Van der Gaag from Cannonvale hears the plight of many young mothers who move to the region and live theoretically like single parents.
“Even though they are not single parents … their husbands might be away for up to seven days at a time and young families start to feel isolated. I want to start running focus groups with these young mums so we can find out exactly what they want and inevitably keep them in the Whitsundays! Otherwise we are at great risk of losing this younger generation,” Ms Van der Gaag said.
While retaining the work force and the social aspect of the younger generation is high on Ms Van der Gaag's priority list, she also feels an unchanged roundtable of councillors will put the community at even greater risk.
Ms Van der Gaag says every cent of council money spent needs to generate money back into the town.
“I am running for Division 2 which is predominately Cannonvale with Airlie Beach as its feeder. The community is worse off now than four years ago. More shops are empty, tourism is struggling and all council can think about is pouring $17m into bitumen for the main street! We need to find ways to encourage shop owners to spruce up their shop fronts – perhaps by rate reliefs, planting big trees instead of bitumen, broaden the pavement. There are a lot of great ideas which will in turn make money for the town. It needs to value add to the community,” she said.
Ms Van der Gaag feels all this can be accomplished with a fresh new team of business minded entrepreneurs.
“Council has lost control over two of the biggest projects in Airlie’s history… The Whitsundays is a beautiful place to live and we can bring it back to where it was. We just need a new team that thinks outside the box! I have a great deal of respect for Jennifer Whitney and I would be happy to work on a council with her as mayor. I am certain the current council does not work ... we deserve better. We need a new team with new ideas to stimulate economic growth and create jobs for the area.”
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