IT took five hours, two votes and a near-mutiny for Redland City Council to pass a budget that should have been a unifying milestone for its new Mayor – and the community she promised to serve.
Contrast this with the Gold Coast – Queensland’s second-largest council – which passed its budget in just 35 minutes.
Instead, the process devolved into a political farce, laying bare the dysfunction that now defines this council under Mayor Jos Mitchell’s leadership.
Let’s be clear: this was her moment.
The Mayor had eight months of workshops, briefings and behind-the-scenes horse-trading to shape a consensus.
She had the time.
She had the public mandate.
What she lacked was conviction.
In one of the most baffling political moves in recent local government memory, the Mayor did not present the budget – an abdication of responsibility that left CEO Louise Rusan to do the honours.
Then, despite months of involvement in its development, including personally initiating a widespread organisational review, the Mayor voted against the budget.
Councillors pleaded with Mayor Mitchell, saying her support could have been the circuit-breaker – that if she had she backed the budget, the others would all have followed.
But instead, it was her former Leading Change teammates – Crs Wendy Boglary, and Lance Hewlett – left to push the financial plan over the line, backed by Crs Paul Bishop, Peter Mitchell, Paul Golle and Jason Colley.
In the end, it took a procedural amendment and a vote flip just to rescue the budget from collapse.
Even then, it scraped through 6-5.
This was a failure of leadership at the most fundamental level.
Privately, the Mayor says she couldn’t support funding for projects like the Redland Whitewater Centre or Heinemann Road.
Fair enough – but where was the alternative plan?
Where was the vision?
Where was the advocacy behind closed doors in the months leading up to the vote?
Why did it take until five minutes to midnight for the Mayor to realise she could not support this budget?
Redland ratepayers should be rightly asking: what on earth is going on here?
Cr Shane Rendalls put it bluntly: “Regardless of how good the individual players of a team are, they need a good captain to achieve their potential.”
What Redlands got instead was a leader missing in action.
The dysfunction and chaos on display on Monday was not an accident.
It was the inevitable result of months of missed opportunities, evasive decision-making, and a Mayor who preferred to attend meetings remotely from just down the corridor.
Redland ratepayers are facing a steep hike, with general rates set to rise by 7.89 per cent – and the total increase, including utility charges, hitting 10.68 per cent.
They deserve a council that functions with clarity, accountability, and cohesion – not one that takes five hours, a lunch intervention, a dramatic vote reversal, and a procedural Hail Mary to do what should have been done smoothly.
Mayor Mitchell may have wanted to distance herself from an unpopular decision – instead, she owns this chaos.
And Redlands is poorer for it.
