Whinges about over-work aside, if what I saw Monday is anything to go by, the new Sunshine Coast Regional Council appears in safe hands.

There’s a long way to go yet before systems of governance are settled down, the inexperienced gain confidence and defensiveness gives way to trust, but the goodwill in the old Noosa chambers at Tewantin on Monday was palatable.

Perhaps it was the two-day workshop held last week, or perhaps it is just that the 12 councillors elected from across the Sunshine Coast to form the amalgamated local authority really are a good bunch of people.

Delivery styles differ with personalities, left/right brain influences determine the path from “A” to “B” and the time getting there can be frustratingly slow, but everyone showed patience.

Importantly, everyone listened to what each other was saying.

That is critical as people get to know each other. It can be disastrously easy to read too much into the way someone asks a question. It can be a relationship-destroying mistake to take as a fool someone who thinks with their mouth.

The conclusion reached is what’s critical, not the path to get there.

Mayor Bob Abbot was missing from the general committee meeting, away on matters of state.

The chair was taken by Russell Green who had predicted before the start of play that proceedings would be concluded within the hour.

They weren’t. Despite refreshingly short breaks for coffee and lunch, matters continued until after 3pm.

It was important that they did.

Everyone is still feeling their way, councillors used to other ways of doing things and different reporting styles rightly questioned the quality and scope of information before them.

As with everything, this was done with polite courtesy.

I have seen council meetings where I have wondered why the clerk, as the CEO was once known, didn’t bound over his table and take the offensive oaf hectoring him by the throat.

There are many belittled public officials for whom I would gladly have stood as a witness for the defence. There have been moments when I have considered a homicide likely at any moment, and justified.

No such tension was displayed on Monday.

Deputy mayor Tim Dwyer, a self-confessed pedant with a straight-up style not dissimilar to the way he once played top level rugby league, questioned the detail, as he should, throughout the day.

Afterwards he admitted that while the portfolio and committee system was a different way of doing business to what he was used to, he appreciated how it enabled councillors to think through the issues and gave the opportunity to review preconceived positions.

Christian Dickson and Keryn Jones, the least experienced of the new team, were quiet as you would expect. Keryn found her voice on an environmental matter – her particular field of interest – while Christian listened attentively.

His courteous deference was obvious in the way he bounded over to help the less techno-savvy with their computers.

Throughout the day as staffers presented reports and matters were debated, Russell Green gently called councillors to a decision.

Motions were displayed on a screen as they were being formed, crafted and settled upon. Everyone contributed to the discussions, on some issues ground was stood, but councillors waited their turn to speak, deferred to colleagues when they were called out of order and always played the ball.

Afterwards economic development chair Lew Brennan said councillors were getting on well and understood the need to work as a team.

Obviously there is always a lot going on below the calm duck floating on the pond. There is a lot to be let go of after more than a century of local government boundaries drawn on a much smaller scale and with long-term councillors coming together from a range of governance cultures.

The regional council has created an entity larger in scale than David Jones.

Councillors need to act more as directors – the fixing of potholes will require that the service delivery of the organisation matches demand – a chief executive officer to oversee the operation is not yet appointed and the state government is breathing down its neck demanding immediate action on a review of the South East Queensland Regional Plan.

I had to feel for a forlorn Chris Thompson when afterwards he waited in the car park for the RACQ to restart his car: “There goes my one chance for a surf.”