Mark Pitt is CEO of South Burnett Regional Council, based in the Queensland town of Kingaroy, key producers of peanuts, pork and power.

Our region has an aged population, with high unemployment and socio-economic disadvantage, though we are working to change that. After years of drought, we’d had just enough rain that things were starting to look up, then wham! Coronavirus.

When our first case was confirmed on March 13, the Local Disaster Management Group enacted our pandemic response plan (though it wasn’t written with COVID-19 in mind, so we rushed to update it). We’ve been in disaster mode since, with a Multi-Agency Recovery Committee meeting in parallel to consider human, social and economic impacts. That’s given the community confidence that things are being well-managed and allowed council to operate as close to normal as possible. We use the council website as a “single point of truth” for the community to access COVID-19 information.

Our staff have been exceptional. We can sit and make all the decisions, but we wouldn’t have been able to respond so well without their brilliant attitude and approach. Two new councillors started a Ray of Sunshine South Burnett Facebook page, encouraging locals to wear yellow, share messages of hope and brighten lives during the pandemic and that small initiative has been quite successful.

Tourism was one of our first casualties, but JobKeeper has helped some operators. One winery that stood down a significant number of staff was able to bring them back and maintain a viable workforce for when this is over. We are hurting like everyone else. But I’m cautiously optimistic we are well placed moving forward with agriculture and big employers like the abattoir, power station and council still operating and keeping money flowing through the local economy.

Mark Pitt PSM
Chief Executive Officer
South Burnett Regional Council