“COMMUNITY” ISN’T A MAGIC SPELL
NOOSA COUNCIL DISCOVERS THAT “THE COMMUNITY” MAY ACTUALLY MEAN “SOME OF THE COMMUNITY”
Noosa councillors have apparently discovered that the word “community” may require a qualifying adjective.
The revelation came at yesterday’s Council meeting, where a councillor reportedly suggested that when councillors use the word community, they should perhaps say “some of the community” instead.
This immediately raised an awkward question.
How many times has “community” been used by councillors without the apparently essential “some” attached?
Fortunately, someone had the receipts.
According to NoosaWatch analytics for the 12 months to 7 October 2026, the word “Community” was mentioned 1,697 times across the seven councillors.
That’s an average of 4.65 communities per day.
Amelia Lorentson apparently led the community appreciation campaign with 497 mentions, followed by Karen Finzel on 286, Frank Wilkie on 282, Jessica Phillips on 277, Brian Stockwell on 206, Nicola Wilson on 114 and Tom Wegener bringing up the rear with 35.
The obvious next step is therefore a Council policy.
THE COMMUNITY COMMUNITY POLICY
From now on, every Council document, speech, Facebook post and meeting contribution could be required to pass through the newly proposed Community Qualification Office.
For example:
❌ “The community wants this.”
✅ “Some members of what may broadly be described as the community appear to want this.”
❌ “We consulted with the community.”
✅ “We consulted with some people who responded to the consultation and therefore cannot necessarily be assumed to represent everyone who lives within the geographical boundaries commonly known as the community.”
❌ “The community supports the proposal.”
✅ “Some of the community supports the proposal, while other members of the community may support something else entirely and several members of the community were probably at work.”
THE LAW, HOWEVER, HAS A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT IDEA
There is a small problem with treating community as though it were a dangerous substance requiring a warning label.
The Queensland local government framework expects councillors to represent residents and act in the public interest of the local government area.
So the law doesn’t appear to prohibit the word community.
What matters is what a councillor is claiming about that community.
If 17 people attend a meeting and 14 support something, it is perfectly reasonable to say:
“Fourteen people who attended the meeting supported it.”
It is rather different to announce:
“The community supports it.”
Because the community contains rather more than the 14 people who happened to be in the room.
1,697 USES - AND NOT A SINGLE “SOME” IN SIGHT
This creates a magnificent opportunity for Council’s next governance review.
Every occurrence of community could now be audited.
Was it:
The community?
Or:
Some of the community?
Or:
A representative sample of the community?
Or:
A Facebook subset of the community?
Or perhaps:
Three people who emailed a councillor and a bloke they met at the coffee shop?
The possibilities are endless.
And if the new rule is that community must always mean some of the community, there is only one question remaining:
WHICH SOME?
Because that is ultimately the important bit.
The word isn’t the problem.
Claiming to speak for an entire community without demonstrating who was actually consulted, how many people participated and whether the views expressed are representative is the problem.
That’s rather more serious than a grammatical dispute.
So perhaps Noosa Council doesn’t need to ban the word community.
It just needs to remember that:
“THE COMMUNITY” ISN’T A MAGIC SPELL THAT TURNS “SOME PEOPLE” INTO “EVERYONE.”
And with 1,697 recorded appearances in 12 months, there may be quite a lot of spell-checking to do.
NOOSA COMMUNITY UPDATE:
This article represents the views of some members of the community, possibly including members of the community who have read it, while making absolutely no claim to represent the entire community, which is presumably busy being the community.