The official date for the State Government election has been announced, and with it, the news that the Local Government election has been postponed until late April.

The move of the election poses some real issues for all Queensland councils. The most pressing is the need to pass a budget for the next financial year. With a new council not sworn in until May, it gives us little time to bring new councillors up to speed on the management of billions of dollars of assets and the finer points of a $400M-plus budget.

After the challenges of this council in the months after amalgamation, my hope would have been for a smoother transition for the new council, and our staff will have a lot of work providing background and briefings to ensure the council members are informed and supported in their decision making.

Next week marks the first anniversary of the day that Cyclone Yasi swept into town. In the twelve months since, the council has spent millions of dollars on road and park repairs, funded by the State Government's Queensland Recovery Authority.

The whole process of funding has been quite complicated for all involved, as we were still awaiting funds to repair work from the 2010 wet season, which caused a lot of damage to our roads.

I estimate we still have about two years of work to bring Townsville's roads back to their pre-cyclone condition, and thankfully, this year's cyclone and wet season has been kind to us so far.

The Townsville Local Disaster Management Group has met regularly since Yasi, and our learnings in terms of our response, the clean up, the needs of our residents and the way that all agencies work together in disaster situations is being used to update our plans and procedures.

Tomorrow, I hand out my last Australia Day Awards as Mayor of Townsville.

It is always a humbling experience to sit down each year and review the nominees. There are so many great contributors to our city, from those involved in sporting and community organisations, to the many volunteers and business people who give up their time, energy and funds to help those less privileged. Acknowledging their contributions is one job I will sorely miss in retirement.