JUST what is the fascination with Ipswich mayor Paul Pisasale?

Auction clearance rates in his fair city were at 23% last weekend but maybe that counts as a good result these days.

The government’s own research shows that far more of Ipswich’s citizens will be doing the two-hour commute to Brisbane for a job if they can find one than from the Sunshine Coast in the next 15 years.

Hopefully they spend their pay packets locally.

Good luck to him.

He seems to have survived any backlash from a $62 rate rise in his last budget and has his eyes on another term in office.

He’s riding a government-directed growth spurt hard and who knows it may eventually lift average household incomes.

But does he really hold the answer to the future for the Sunshine Coast?

Is he the best we can turn to for advice in a world of uncertainty?

An odd collection of sods clearly think he does.

Why else would he be here on June 15 to address the Caloundra Chamber of Commerce “Building a Better Sunshine Coast” breakfast launch at the university?

That chamber is presided over by Bob Thompson an employee of Stockland, the recipient of the forced State Government planning outcome that is the 50,000 population Caloundra South development.

I guess that gives the “Building” some context.

Seriously, given his schedule you would think Mr Pisasale was running for mayor here.

He will be back a week later for the Maroochy North Shore ALP Branch second annual Living Legends Dinner at TAFE’s Cartwrights Restaurant on June 24.

The Sunshine Coast business community and the North Shore ALP for that matter would do better to put Paul Lucas or Anna Bligh front and centre to explain the economic plan they have to support the growth they insist we accommodate.

And the business community would do better to stop hoping for the future and instead to start servicing the community that is here now.

Surely someone can make a living here in business given the place has a customer base of 340,000 people.

I for one have long had enough of the cargo cult mentality that makes growth the great cure-all for our woes.

Fine, if you are just interested in a short-term buck it may have some gold rush merit to it. But it’s as unsustainable as every bust that has followed every boom here for the past 40 years can attest.

A good starting point for business may be to rationalize some of the myriad of entities that purport to represent it.

It would be certainly better than looking to Ipswich for inspiration. It’s the last of the past not the future for anywhere I’d want to live.