Noosa Today - 26th December 2025

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Friday, 26 December, 2025

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Santa spreads Christmas joy Children waited wide eyed to see Santa when he joined Noosa Coast Guard on Saturday to spread some Christmas cheer along the Noosa River and some sweet treats. The annual Christmas Lolly Run has become a traditional favourite for Noosa locals and visitors. Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a happy and safe festive season.

Santa and the Coast Guard stay at Pirate Park to hand out lollies and give a wave. (Rob Maccoll)

Fraud avoidable By Margie Maccoll Noosa Council’s $1.9m fraud could have been prevented, Acting Director Corporate Services Margaret Gatt told council’s ordinary meeting last Thursday. Ms Gatt who was employed by council after the fraud event in December 2024 and led the investigation into it, said an international criminal organisation used sophisticated, strategic and targeted social engineering techniques to commit the crime. She said council had internal controls and processes in place to mitigate such events, but these were not effective in this instance, the inci-

dent highlighting non-compliance with some of their standard processes. “Through our subsequent investigations, we have identified that there were elements of human error that contributed to some failures in our internal controls,” she said. Ms Gatt said any of the following actions may have reduced the risk or prevented the fraud from occurring: 1. “Adherence to Council practice whereby requests for changes to a supplier’s contact details and/or bank details are verified with the supplier using the original contact details on file or through an independent search for con-

tact details (vendor master file). 2. Verification of the sender’s email to the supplier’s email address from an independent source, such as the supplier’s website may have indicated the different syntax used in the email address, though this in itself may not have alerted Council to any anomalies without direct contact with supplier. 3. Requirement for enquiries from our bank regarding payments and questions of it to be escalated to a senior officer for action.” Once alerted to the fraud council established a crisis incident response team and engaged an external independent ICT expert to conduct a fo-

rensic investigation. This investigation confirmed there was no breach of Council’s systems, no personal data was stolen, nor any rate payer personal information was accessed and there was no impact on Council services, Ms Gatt said. Council reported the incident to all relevant authorities including the Queensland Audit Office (QAO), relevant Ministers and government departments. Ms Gatt said following the fraud event, controls and procedures were reviewed and improved and, in conjunction with the QAO recommendations, additional controls implemented. Continued page 2

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