The Brisbane City Council has announced it will invest millions of dollars in a new health and wellness program.
The council will allocate $5.6 million in its 2026/2027 budget to boost healthy activities across Brisbane with the new Move Well Brisbane campaign.
It is the next stage of the council’s Active and Healthy program, which provides thousands of free and low-cost active programs in the city council area.
Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner said the program to be delivered in Wednesday’s budget would be “the biggest boost to active and healthy programs that the city has ever seen”.
“It’s about making sure that Brisbane residents have the opportunity to stay active and healthy, to get out, to enjoy our amazing city, but also without hurting the hip pocket,” Cr Schrinner said.
Mayor Adrian Schrinner says the program will build on existing fitness activities, including Pilates and yoga. (ABC News: Jordan Bissell)
The new program will see the number of participating businesses expand to 400, and sessions more than double to 20,000 over the next two years.
“This is a great opportunity for local businesses as well to get involved,” Cr Schrinner said.
“We’ve got opportunities for you to provide services to the people of Brisbane and to provide those free services, free classes, free activities that people really want to get involved with.
Cr Schrinner said the Move Well Brisbane program would build on existing fitness activities, including Pilates and yoga, with nutritional and cooking classes.
Nutrition Australia Queensland will partner with the council to provide nutrition and healthy cooking classes. (ABC News: Jordan Bissell)
Nutrition Australia Queensland chief executive Kirsty Elliott said the organisation was “thrilled” to be providing food and cooking experiences under the new program.
“Cost of living is affecting so many households at the moment so we’re hoping that people can come away really understanding how to produce meals for themselves in their households that really are helping them to stretch the dollar a bit further as well,” she said.
Ms Elliott said the cooking and nutrition classes were intended to “help people really build their repertoire” of what they can cook.
“We try to keep it delicious, easy, and like I said: very budget friendly.”
Cost-of-living budget
Cr Schrinner said Wednesday’s budget would have a “big focus” on cost-of-living relief for Brisbane residents.
“I can assure you we’ve worked really, really hard to try and keep the costs down for Brisbane residents,” he said.
“We know that we can’t solve every problem for people when it comes to cost of living, but certainly the things that we can control we want to keep down as low as possible and provide cost benefits and cost savings to people.”
He said the council would fulfil its promise to deliver the lowest council rates in south-east Queensland.
“We’ve seen other council budgets come out already and we’re working to make sure that we keep our rates the lowest possible and the lowest in south-east Queensland.”
