It’s Not About Grants. It’s About Distrust.

ONE FAILED MAYORAL CANDIDATE DEMANDS PROOF THAT EVERYTHING HAS Ever Worked IN NOOSA

A local pre election campaign for so called transparency - has taken an unexpected turn this week, with demands that every grant-funded project from the dawn of time - be publicly required to prove it achieved something. Totally ignoring the built in Acquittal Process that already ensures accountability for all these grants. Should any applicant fail that process then they are excluded in the future. Seems the ones who succeed in obtaining grant funds - must be achieving successful results in order to re apply.

BUT NO according to this Facebook piece authored by a male failed Mayoral candidate - that’s not enough - they now must be specifically, measurably, annually, cumulatively, and preferably in a spreadsheet that’s understandable to someone who skipped straight to the comments section.

This obvious never ending election campaign - that never stopped since last losses for two disgruntled contenders for Mayor - began this week with a simple question:

“How do we know environmental grants actually work?” then quickly evolved into:

“Can somebody please provide a detailed accounting of every turtle, tree, weed, bird, volunteer, brochure, community workshop and environmental outcome ever produced by any organisation that has ever received public money?” Supporters insist this is not about any particular organisation.

To demonstrate this, they carefully listed the same organisations multiple times - over and over - throughout the article - while repeatedly explaining it was not about those environmental groups.

Will Residents soon demand:

• A yearly report proving every speed bump prevented exactly how many accidents.

• A breakdown showing which library books improved literacy and by how much.

• A spreadsheet identifying which individual flowers in public gardens generated measurable happiness.

• A public dashboard tracking every duck’s contribution to community wellbeing.

Volunteers who had mistakenly assumed that restoring habitat, protecting wildlife, planting vegetation and improving ecosystems were themselves forms of evidence. For decades Scientists had foolishly believed that environmental improvement was often gradual, complex and difficult to attribute to a single funding source.

Fortunately, social media has now clarified that every environmental outcome should be simple, immediate and capable of fitting neatly into a Facebook post. They simply believe that unless every environmental grant can be reduced to a scorecard, a dashboard and a pie chart, there remains a possibility that absolutely nothing happened. It seems that somewhere along the way, a sensible discussion about environmental improvements wandered off into the wilderness and returned demanding forensic audits of every community group that ever planted a tree.

WHAT THIS IS REALLY ABOUT:

Noosa has a few with OBSTRUCTIONIST MENTALITIES particularly failed candidates previously mentioned. Continually trying to create new era of public debate with the sinister hidden message that perhaps nobody can be trusted. Only them.

Not the grant recipients. Not the assessment panels. Not the council officers. Not the governance systems.

Not even the councillors elected to oversee the whole process. Nobody except them.

This white anting tactic has emerged - despite repeated council reports explaining that grant applications are assessed, scored, moderated, reviewed, acquitted and monitored through processes specifically designed to ensure accountability.

But if staff say applications are assessed, how do we know they assessed them? If acquittals are reviewed, how do we know they reviewed them? If councillors receive reports, how do we know they read them?

And if an environmental project delivers measurable outcomes, how do we know those outcomes weren’t secretly fabricated by a conspiracy of volunteers armed with native plants and clipboards?

The obvious solution is to TRUST NO ONE.

Under the proposed new level of public scrutiny standard, every grant recipient would be required to prove not only what was achieved this year, but what was achieved last year, five years ago and possibly since European settlement.

Every tree planted would require an audit. Every weed removed would need a witness statement.

Every turtle protected would be expected to provide supporting documentation.

Most remarkable is the underlying assumption.

Council officers are apparently trusted enough to manage millions of dollars of public funds, prepare reports, assess applications and advise councillors. Yet somehow not trusted enough to accurately report whether a grant condition has been met. Councillors are apparently trusted enough to make decisions on budgets, planning schemes, infrastructure, rates and public assets. Yet somehow not trusted enough to determine whether a community grant achieved its purpose.

The logical conclusion is extraordinary.

If the governance systems cannot be trusted, the officers cannot be trusted and the councillors cannot be trusted, then the real scandal is not the grants.

The real scandal is that the entire council is allegedly incapable of performing even its most basic functions.

Curiously, that argument is rarely made directly. Instead, readers are invited to arrive there by themselves.

The absurdity becomes obvious when applied elsewhere. Should every road project publish a lifetime accounting of every pothole prevented? Should every park bench be required to demonstrate measurable reductions in loneliness? Should every footpath provide annual evidence proving nobody tripped because it existed? Should every speed bump publish quarterly performance indicators? Should every councillor provide a spreadsheet demonstrating the exact value generated by every vote they cast? If the answer is no, then perhaps the issue is not accountability.

Perhaps the issue is a growing belief that visible paperwork is more important than professional judgement.

The irony is that everyone agrees transparency is valuable. Publish outcomes. Publish summaries. Publish achievements. Excellent. But somewhere between “provide more information” and “trust absolutely nobody,” the conversation took a wrong turn. What began as a discussion about transparency evolved into an accidental declaration that council staff, assessment panels and elected councillors cannot be relied upon to do the very jobs they are employed and elected to do. That may be the most extraordinary claim of all.

With this flawed approach being pushed forward - Council officers could now ludicrously be required to consider whether future grant acquittals should include photographs, spreadsheets, satellite imagery, independent audits, DNA samples from native vegetation and signed statements from local wildlife confirming that project outcomes had, in fact, occurred.

The target may be environmental grants this week, but the implication is much bigger. If every acquittal, assessment and recommendation is assumed suspect until proven otherwise, then the real accusation isn’t against grant recipients - it’s against Council itself.

And that’s exactly the way the Obstructionists like it. Tactics designed to twist the narrative, block future environmental initiatives and take over Council with their own candidates - with aims of Over Development and total Power. The future of Noosa is at stake through use of these obvious tactics

Environmental grants have simply become the vehicle for now - but the destination is undermining confidence in the institution.

• It’s Not About Grants. It’s About Distrust.

• The Real Target Isn’t the Grants - It’s Council.

• Trust Nobody: The Hopefully New - Noosa Policy

• If Council Can’t Be Trusted, What’s the Point of Council?

• A Transparency Campaign Built on Distrust