With $50 million in promised projects deferred, roads crumbling underfoot, and coastal spending continuing to grow, residents west of the Bruce Highway are asking: when is it our turn?
A simmering frustration has boiled over in Sunshine Coast’s hinterland communities, with residents and their elected representatives openly venting anger at what they describe as a systematic budget bias toward the coast, while their roads deteriorate, long-promised projects vanish from the forward estimates, and rates continue to climb.
The frustration reached a peak in late February when the Sunshine Coast Council’s Budget Review 2 came before an ordinary council meeting, revealing a projected $13.3 million deficit for this financial year and a forecast $19.2 million shortfall for next year. The announcement triggered a heated chamber debate that laid bare the deep divide between hinterland and coastal divisions, a divide residents of the Range know all too well.
“The notion of scaling back when you’ve already got so little is unbelievably frustrating.” Cr David Law, Division 10
Fifty Million Dollars Pushed into the Distance
At the heart of the anger is the deferral of the Nambour civic precinct project, a long-anticipated redevelopment of the Eddie De Vere and Fred Murray buildings and the Nambour Library that would have delivered a new major district library, customer service centre, and community spaces to the hinterland’s largest town. Approximately $50 million in investment has been pushed out to 2030, 2031 and 2032, an indefinite delay for communities that have been waiting decades.
Division 10 Councillor David Law, who voted against the budget review, said the timing could not have been more deflating. “On the cusp of having the most significant investment this century in the hinterland and in Nambour taken away from under our noses just about at the point of commencement,” he said in the council chamber.
Meanwhile, Cr Law noted that most of the budget review’s increases and bring-forwards, six of the major adjustments, were for projects located literally along the beachfront. The only investment that came close to hinterland territory was the acceleration of a new landfill cell at the Nambour waste facility , hardly the kind of investment communities had been promised. “The hinterland would like a little bit more than being the rubbish dump for the region,” Cr Law said plainly.
Roads Becoming Impassable – and the Money is Gone
For many hinterland residents, the budget debate is not an abstraction, it is the pothole-riddled, rutted, and increasingly treacherous road outside their front gate. The photographs on these pages, taken by a community member on the Blackall Range in early March, show the reality: roads pockmarked with water-filled craters, severe rutting down the centre line, and deep roadside erosion that has eaten away the road’s edge making it hazardous for all vehicles. Severe roadside erosion has carved deep channels beside some hinterland roads, threatening road integrity and posing risks to vehicles and cyclists.
At a recent Maleny and District Community Association (MADCA) public meeting, community members voiced serious alarm about the state of unsealed roads across the hinterland, with some reporting roads that have become impossible to traverse safely after rain events. Cr Law confirmed at that meeting that the council’s gravel road sealing program, a critical investment for hinterland connectivity, had been cut from $10 million per year to just $4.5 million, where it is set to remain in the coming financial year.
Division 9 Councillor Winston Johnston confirmed in the council chamber that this is not a deferral: “It wasn’t a deferral, it was a cut right now for the people in the hinterland where all the gravel roads are,” Cr Johnston said. He challenged coastal councillors directly: if budget cuts are genuinely necessary, then coastal divisions must make equivalent sacrifices. “The amount of money that we spend because we believe it’s essential in the coastal section is enormous.”
The impact of delayed road sealing is also financial. Cr Law pointed to a gravel road sealing project in Northarm that had been in planning for five years. When it was first designed, it would have cost around half of what it will now cost in 2026. Every year of delay, the bill to ratepayers grows , and the road surface gets worse.
“The purpose of local government is to deliver services and facilities of comparable standard throughout the local authority. At present that’s not happening.” Cr Winston Johnston, Division 9
Council’s Financial Reset – But Who Bears the Cost?
Sunshine Coast Council is in the midst of what Mayor Rosanna Natoli has called a “financial reset” triggered in part by the apparent ‘discovery’ of a $30 million accounting error in depreciation reporting that delayed the 2025–26 budget. General rates have already increased substantially, with the Sunshine Coast now among Queensland’s more expensive council areas for ratepayers. Cr Law warned the MADCA meeting that further significant rate increases are likely.
Coastal Cr Joe Natoli argued in the chamber debate that coastal divisions carry a disproportionate infrastructure burden from population growth and higher densities. But hinterland representatives are not buying that framing. Cr Johnston noted that sports stadiums and major community facilities are consistently built on the coast, while the hinterland sees comparatively little from the capital works program. “Do you honestly try and relate to how the people in the hinterland feel when they see $50 million, $70 million, $100 million being spent on the coastal section?” he asked.
The contrast is stark: council has spent $100 million on its new Maroochydore City Hall, $45.4 million on the Caloundra Chambers upgrade, and $27.2 million completing a new district library at Caloundra, while the $50–55 million Nambour civic project sits deferred until the next decade.
What Community Members Are Saying
The mood at the MADCA community meeting was one of deep frustration, and a sense of broken trust. Members of the audience spoke of roads in their areas becoming impassable after rain, of projects promised during election campaigns that have since been quietly shelved, and of a growing feeling that the hinterland is treated as a revenue contributor rather than a community deserving equitable investment.
For many hinterland households, on larger properties, with longer distances to services, and without the public transport options available on the coast, the prospect of significant rate rises feels deeply unfair when the services and infrastructure they fund continue to be deferred or cancelled.
Cr Law was direct: “I’m grateful that we’ve got a better handle on our reality, but the reality just is doubly worse when you’re starting from such a small catching up position.”
What Happens Next
Council’s 2026–27 budget process is now underway, with a “priority-based budgeting” approach that requires every spending proposal to be justified from scratch. Both Cr Law and Cr Johnston have signalled they will fight hard at budget time for hinterland priorities, and both have warned they will not stay quiet if the pattern continues.
Cr Johnston put it plainly: “Next budget, I won’t be very quiet about situations where we’re spending the vast majority of our capital expenditure on the coast and hardly anything in the hinterland.”
For residents of the Range and surrounding hinterland communities, the message to council is equally plain: we pay our rates, we support our region, and we are watching.
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