Growing up at boarding school can be tough, let me tell you. You had to stand up for yourself and be self motivated to get your school work done, get yourself ‘fed’ and ‘watered’ and generally get yourself where you needed to be each hour of the day. There was no mum or dad around 24/7 to help organise your life.

I made lifelong friends at boarding school and had great, more intensive family time in school holidays so it worked out well for me. It taught me to get up early because “first in is usually best dressed”.

It is probably the reason why I was the first candidate to announce my run for Mayor of the Gold Coast. It has given me a long time to communicate with voters and the plenty of time to get my name as well as my message and policies out into the hands of voters for their scrutiny.

My ‘truth campaign’ mailers pointing out the actual voting record of some of my mayoral competitors, has come in for some criticism of late. They have called it mudslinging, dirty, negative and grimy campaigning. Isn’t it interesting that no-one has called it inaccurate, incorrect or untrue!

In fact, no one has criticised the content at all…just that the sentiment is ‘negative’. I can live with that!

Most interesting of all, no answer has been forthcoming to the central question: “Why would you vote one way but say another in public about Allconnex?” The city hasn’t received an answer to that one as yet and I don’t expect one any time soon.

I think it is important that candidates, especially sitting Councillors, are held accountable for the votes they have taken, the decisions they have made and the positions they have held in the past. After all, aren’t these the best indicators of what they will do in the future?

My truth campaign simply outlines the facts and lets voters make up their own mind with the information clearly presented to them.

But the fact is that this mailer is but one of my five city wide mailers I have sent out. The other five? Yep – you guessed it, are policy driven announcements. Which one got all the press? The one ‘truth campaign’ mailer on Allconnex.

The ‘Truth about Allconnex’ mailer is all about the how mayoral front runner, sitting councillor, self proclaimed champion of the people and fighter of Allconnex, actually not only voted for the creation of Allconnex but seconded the motion. On top of that the mailer pointed to the additional 13 times he voted FOR Allconnex before the first bills started arriving in the letterbox.

I didn’t hide the fact that I sent the mailer – I put my name on every one of the 170,00 I mailed out to households. The Councillor named admitted that the mailer was factually correct to the media in the later media storm.

The latest attack angle on me actually has been that I lack “policy” and I am all “negative” in my campaigning approach. So I thought I would put pen to paper, or in this case fingers to keyboard, to point out how wrong this is.

What are the other fully thought out, fully costed policy items that have been part of my five other mailers?   Well try these on for size:

• A complete restructure of Council, reducing its eight directors to just five, saving at least $80 million dollars a year from the Council budget.
• Turning Bermuda St / Bundall Road into a clearway from Burleigh to Bundall with off-ramps, on-ramps and overpasses, creating a third central transport spine for the city.
• A properly funded policy to bring back the kerb side clean up across the city.
• Bringing an end to ratepayer funded overseas junkets for the Mayor, Councillors and staff, restricting travel to the economic development team within Council.
• Freezing the pay of the Mayor (hoping elected Councillors will follow the lead) while introducing a motion to freeze the salary and perks of the top 100 senior officers of Council.
• A full four-way, three level of government, PPP style funding model for a Guggenheim-style cultural centre and performing arts precinct that doesn’t hurt residents rates bill.
• An expansion of the public bus network by 100 new buses, more routes and more local stops, with the goal of 80% of residents being within a ten minute walk of public transport.
• Expanding the network of parks and sporting fields so that no kid is more than a 15 minute walk to a park where they can kick a ball, ride a bike or fly a kite.
• Expanding the safety camera network together with inviting businesses with compatible camera equipment to join the monitoring network.
• Arranging for free off peak bus travel for seniors across the city.
• Allowing seniors to keep the early discount while paying rates in monthly installments.
• Introducing time limited PIP Infrastructure charge reduction incentives to re-kick start the building and construction industry and job creation locally.
• Cancelling the Council HQ/Taj Mahal project and repaying the debt of $183 million dollars.

All the details of these policies can be found on my website, www.tom4mayor.com.au and include details on how they are going to be funded. You can also download copies of my five city wide mailers and see for yourself that the ‘truth campaign’ represents only a small fraction of my overall campaign to voters.

The other mayoral contenders have nothing more than a vague set of dot point lists as their policies. They are all hat and no cattle to use a good old bushy’s term. Thanks to my mother-in-law Marg for that line!

Some have even stolen their policy content from existing Council policy material. One candidate has a single webpage on his transport policy which actually includes a link to the Gold Coast City Council website where “more information” on ‘his’ policy can be obtained!

This is the sixth largest city in Australia and we have contenders for the top job running around without doing the most basic of policy homework on their own policies. The most stark contrast was the launch of my fully funded Cultural Centre policy a few weeks ago. I had produced a 9-page policy document outing the funding model I had devised. It can be found at www.tom4mayor.com.au.

However on its release in the media, all I got from the other contenders was: “You stole my idea for the name of the place: Guggenheim Gold Coast!”. Where is their funding model? Where is their plan? Where is their policy work?   Nowhere to be seen!

We have five weeks to go before polling day and while I have revealed a lot of my policy homework I have been doing over the past year and a half, I have a lot of policy still to reveal. But I won’t be stopping the truth campaign either – sitting Councillors standing for Mayor need to be accountable for the mess this city is in and their part in the votes that caused it!

Welcome to everyone, thank you for attending, and a special thanks to the Mayoral candidates who have been able to make their way here this morning (Dean sends his apologies he is working on cruise and was unable to attend).

The Gold Coast is 40 kilometres long at about five people wide so I know most of you here today, for those that I do not I would like to provide just a quick background. Last week the Gold Coast Bulletin ran a story on Lex Bell being 66 and I found myself unexpectedly having to defend a position of being the youngest candidate.

The Bully allows feedback to stories online with 500 characters. This was me in a nutshell:-

At 41 I am older than Lex was when he was first elected, but eight years younger than Dawn would have been (20 years ago). I went to school in Pimpama in the old Albert Shire (moving to the “Gold Coast” in ‘95). I have been married for 17 years, have two children so we have to live modestly. I have an accounting degree and one dry sense of humour. I have worked on the Gold Coast for the past 20 years. I have two ears and one mouth and I am happy to use them in that ratio (I prefer beer to champagne).

I might just pause to expand on some of that…like many in the Albert Shire we moved to the Gold Coast via amalgamation. My family ran a fruit shop in Beenleigh from the mid ’70s to the mid ’80s, and as a boy I grew up in small state schools in Cedar Creek and Pimpama.

I attended High School in Beenleigh – when there were only three choices in the district –the new Helensvale High and Beenleigh State High and St Josephs.

I worked at DreamWorld and gardened, while completing a Commerce Degree at Griffith University. I have since completed the CPA program as well as a Graduate Diploma in Accounting.

I have had four jobs. I worked as an accountant in a private accounting practice for four years, as an accountant and manager for a real estate company for five, and as a manager for an industrial property syndicator in Brisbane for a year.

Since the turn of the century I have managed a private investment company here on the Gold Coast called Barkala.

Barkala was owned by George Alexander, who passed away in 2008, at the age of 98.

Over the past eleven years, as well as an equities portfolio, we have held and managed a variety of assets including commercial, industrial and rural properties.

George was a philanthropist and he left his estate to a private charity called the George Alexander Foundation. The Foundation has twin objectives of supporting education and the environment.

Here on the Gold Coast the foundation is the largest private benefactor to Griffith University’s scholarship program.

When I started with George he had approximately $10m of assets, during the past eleven years we have made and donated over $10m to charity, however there remains $15m of assets still on hand. And just for the record – during the term of the current Council I have been involved in three town planning applications.

One was the Gold Coast’s most expensive on-grade carpark, where we added 30 car spaces to an existing office property at Varsity Lakes.

The second was the Gold Coast’s most expensive two-lot sub-division for our family home; where Jessica Watson managed to sail single-handed around the world and back faster than we could get an approval out of this Council.

More recently we have lodged the first Master Planning unit for the Coomera Town centre on George’s former principal place of residence.

Thanks to those three recent experiences with dealing with the City’s Planning Department, I have a pretty good understanding of the frustrations involved in dealing with this Council.

But Council is not about making money or profits, Council should be about spending money as wisely and prudently as possible.

I have nothing against Councillor John Wayne personally.

However if we do not like the decisions that are being made, we need to change the decision makers.

Unfortunately, it is an adversarial process and I have chosen to run against him. There will be no dirt sheets from me, no dirty tricks.

What I bring to the table is a fresh set of eyes and the ability to ask the tough questions of the Administration and understand the answers. Sometimes those answers are not black or white – they are grey and they require analytic problem solving abilities.

I have a desire to see a much more open and transparent Council, we can make far better decisions than are being made at the moment. I want to be part of the change needed.

I come with no baggage, no alliances or involvement in mini blocs or school yards grudges. There is nothing in my past that I am uncomfortable with.

Whilst I am currently a Director on George’s companies, in order to ensure that there is no misunderstanding or confusion at the end of this month, after 11 years, I will be stepping down from Barkala.

I will work fulltime for the next four months on the campaign and I am not interested in coming second.

Divisions 2, 3 and Susie’s Division 7 are the only Divisions currently being contested. The reality is that in five months there is a good chance that there will be no major shift in the majority of Councillors appointed.

Accordingly Division 2 represents an opportunity for change and supporting my campaign provides one of the few opportunities to inject fresh thinking people into the Council.

Since January I have sat in on all but two of the Full Council meetings. Folks, currently the tail is wagging the dog in our city.

Councillors do not appear to be making or determining policy. I believe that there has been and enormous abdication of responsibility to the Administration and deferring to the crutch of reports and external advice.

Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers. Conversely if you ask no questions, you will get no answers, and it is pretty hard to succeed. For the record:

Councillor Wayne, in the month of October, asked no questions and spoke at Full Council only four times, in total for less than five minutes.

* 27 seconds on Tipplers

* 1 minute 9 seconds on dog registration and the Animal Welfare League

* 1 minute on Bulls on the Beach

* 1 minute 7 seconds on the benefits of the coffee table magazine

Every Monday afternoon a full suite of Directors attends Council, why? I do not know because they certainly are not being asked any difficult or probing questions.

Since January, Cr Wayne has not asked one question of the Directors.

Why Division 2 – having spent 10 months sitting in on the Full Council meetings, I am pretty confident that I could do a better job at representing our area than the incumbent Councillor.

I have spent the best part of the last 40 years living in the northern area of the Gold Coast, it is the area of the Gold Coast I have the most affinity with, and my family represents the demographic, and I bring a set of skills that are currently absent from the Council Chambers.

If we want to change the direction of the City – this is where we have to do it.

Allconnex is a classic example. It was not three good or bad decisions over the last six months but four or five years of poor decisions. We lost $1.5 billion of our City’s balance sheet when the assets were stripped by the State into the retail entity. We did not dig in and fight at the start and in the end it turned into a farce of misinformation and in-fighting.

Quite frankly, I – like many others – think that it is time that this City stops being run like a rural town. We have an almost $1 billion budget; and over $10 billion in assets. We need to put a bit of starch back into our Council.

Alone, I am not the silver bullet; I do not pretend to have all the answers, but I am pretty sure I have some better questions.

If we do not step forward – we will stay in the same place. So I am stepping forward because I would like to offer a fresh alternative, I want to get involved in being part of the solution to what ails our City. I would hope to be a reasonable voice and a voice of reason for the residents of Division 2, and the Gold Coast at large.

In this City at the moment we have paralysis by analysis, and that has to stop. We need far less navel gazing, planning, and reporting, and far more doing. If it is too hard, stop warming the seat, stand aside. We need fresh thinking and we need fresh representation.

We need Councillors who represent the Community to Council; not Council to the Community.

However I am not here to rail against the sitting Councillors, I believe they all have their heart in the right place. In a City of over 530,000 when less than 30 to 40 people put themselves forward. I think each of one of the candidates genuinely wants to serve the community in their own way and I respect that.

Last month the Mayor said that the Gold Coast has a record number of people employed – 306,000 (full and part-time) and that with 10,000 new construction jobs we are nearing the 2007 peak in the construction industry.

I’m sorry but I just do not believe the ABS sample of 700 Gold Coasters represents what is happening in our City.

Here are the uncomfortable facts – our City has 22% office vacancy; our City has retail vacancy. It has it at Pacific Fair for the first time in my life – it has it in Surfers Paradise, Broadbeach, Southport, and everywhere in-between. Our City has Building Approvals down 45%…Our City’s Tourism, Education and Marine industries have all been hit hard by the exchange rate and the GFC.

How can we ever be serious about fixing a problem if we refuse to acknowledge it exists?

Council cannot fix unemployment, or the Australian dollar, they are all things out of the direct control of Council.

However the most powerful tool the Council has is the town plan – how we use it, and how it is used goes a long way towards encouraging business to again flourish in our City. Small, medium, and large businesses employee people here on the Gold Coast.

This City was built on the back of people having a go and that is the spirit we need to nurture and encourage once again. We need Council to get out of the way.

Abe Lincoln said he only ever had one policy and that was common sense. But what is common sense? Is it common at all? Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be done.

In September the State Government held a seminar in Nerang called “Way to Grow”. The State wanted to prepare a list of key infrastructure projects to strengthen regional Queensland.

I was one of about 60-odd who attended, along with only one GCCC councillor. That Councillor asked about the climate in tropical far north Queensland.

Common sense would have been to ask a question about – Exit 54, or the next stage of the Light Rail from Griffith University to Helensvale, or to ask after a social infrastructure for the Northern Suburbs or funding a Cultural Centre.

We need to apply more common sense, we need to ask better questions.

What we have at the moment is a council that is under siege.

It is under siege with its community that it should be representing as was evidenced in the AllConnex and the Tipplers choices that were made.

It is under siege with the construction industry as is evidenced by the defensive press releases regarding the way its own information was repeated and reported.

It has convinced itself that it is so under siege from the media that in effectively a one paper town, it has decided that the way to lift the pressure is to allocate $400,000 towards a glossy magazine that will have a limited two edition run before the March elections. If I have anything to do with it – there will not be a third edition.

But with our new Mayor, and at least a couple of new Councillors we do have the chance to grab this City and help it grow up by changing the culture.

Mayoral candidates – you need seven other votes to get your mandate across the line. I am here to tell you that I will be there to help not hinder you get on with the job of running this City.

In all likelihood one of you will be the Mayor in April, and together we need to:-

* Acknowledge and help with the Cost of living pressures.

* We need, as a City, to live within our means. We cannot promise a rates freeze but we can promise to improve the value for money.

* We need to stop the waste and we need to spend as much time questioning the big ticket items as we do approving the transfer of $101 in divisional budgets for community functions.

* We need to re-engage with the State Government (we need to rescind the motion that currently prevents Councillors from meeting with State Government Ministers without the Mayor’s approval).

* We need the culture of Council to be open and transparent. We need a culture that has officers “On tap not on top”.

* We need reform (I do not care if it is two directorates or five directorates – we need to snap the culture with change. Control, alt, delete – we need to reboot).

It is not by accident we find ourselves here in Helensvale, the heart of Division 2, this morning. Just down the road in the heart of Helensvale itself is the Golf Club. It has had a drainage problem ever since the rail was extended from Beenleigh to Helensvale in 1990s.

Last year the City Council endorsed a “Coomabah Wetlands master plan” – the problems at the Golf Club rated a small one paragraph mention. That document was the perfect opportunity to set the platform to address the drainage problem.

I have been down and walked the rail line. The bush engineer in me says it looks like a $50,000 civil engineering job, and bush town planner in me guesses about $500,000 in consultants and reports.

Bob Hall, we have four Mayoral candidates in the room – here is your chance for a commitment from them all – we fix the drainage issue this term. We negotiate with the State and the Department of NO, sorry I mean DERM, and we get it done. No more excuses, no more “it’s too hard”, no more “they will not let me do it”.

What we will do is work with the State, not against it, and we will fix the problem.

At the recent “Turning Point” session the point was raised – if the City of the Gold Coast is not being run by the 15 elected Councillors and Mayor and the 10 State MPs – who is running it?

In 2008 the Council prepared a “Northern Social Infrastructure plan” – it remains in draft form, endorsed but unfunded. This week the Council advised that it passed through the State interest tests. 2008 to 2011 is unacceptable.

Yet despite having a social infrastructure plan that says we desperately need community halls and meeting places. We have built a temporary library facility, we are then knocking down the existing building, to build a $20m community hub, then we are going to pull down the temporary facility. Smells like waste to me.

I would have thought a more common sense approach would have been to keep the old Library, build a new one with suitable parking and access for the community and then re-use the original building to start plugging the needs identified in the social infrastructure plan.

If we continue to put one foot in front of the other, but not look up and look ahead, we can and will still walk over the cliff.

Finally, Transport linkages – we need to advocate for the Griffith University to Helensvale extension to the Light Rail. We need to link the Northern areas to the Coastal strip by efficient public transport.

Those linkages need to planned, designed and costed, sitting on our hands and saying we will look into it maybe in 2021. That is not the answer.

Politics is the art of compromise and negotiation. We need to get to the point where the City comes first; but we also need a strong voice for the Northern Growth Corridor. I want to be one of those strong voices (there will be no laryngitis here).

I have called the tables here today after the suite of words that we need to invoke if we are going to get our City out of the funk that it is in at the moment. Have a look around and note that none of the tables have been called:-

* “It’s too hard”

* “Red Tape”

* “Impossible”

* “It’s not that easy”

* “It’s the state’s fault”

* “Bold or future”

And I have also left – “Working for tomorrow…today” in the cupboard.

It is time for a change – here is my task.

20,000 residents; 18,000 voted; 8,000 voted for the incumbent; boils down to 9 possibly 10 booths to be manned and trying to get past 1 incumbent (and maybe a dose of apathy).

1 vote out of 15; 1 vote for change.

This is John Wayne’s third election, and my first. What I have worked out pretty quickly is that everything involves finding funds.

I have been fortunate enough to receive campaign contributions so far from an – airline pilot, retail consultant, environment planner, lawyer (thanks Frank for upgrading everyone to a round table this morning), sign writer, industrial estate agent and the Gold Coast’s best cake decorator. Thank you.

Council is much more than Rates, Road and Rubbish. It is about reading, here are the minutes and agendas for the past six months.

I am under no illusions that the role of a Councillor is an easy one. But I am prepared to put my hand up, stop throwing stones from the sidelines and at least have a crack.

Thanks for coming – and if anyone is looking for a gig with how to vote cards on the 31st March 2011 – feel free to let me know. I am hoping for a new mayor, a new Councillor or two in the New Year.

It’s time for change, it’s time for fresh thinking, it’s time for fresh representation.

The Southport Hospital site should stay as a QLD health facility and not sold off to developers for high rise. In my book it is that simple!

While the State Government is conducting a “community consultation”, what is the bet that the real plan is to see how much they could get for the site on the open market? Let’s face it – it is a great site in central Southport with the light rail running right past it. It should make a pretty penny for the cash strapped State Government. With public transport services outside its front door, the building would be also a great site for some public facilities, something like, um, a hospital – whoops – it already is!

The State Government screwed over the city by moving the Parklands Show Grounds just up the road and now they want to sell off the hospital site to help balance their deficit budget. We are slowly but surely being hoodwinked as a city.

Someone is going to one day have to explain to me, while keeping a straight face, why the State Government gobbled up the show grounds to put up accommodation for athletes nowhere near the main Commonwealth Games Stadium at Carrara. Then they buy more land to relocate the show grounds to a site next-door to the Carrara Stadium.

Why-oh-why didn’t we just leave the Parklands Show Grounds alone and build the athletes’ village at Carrara on the proposed show ground site? Does that make any sense to anyone else? Am I being too cynical when I suggest that there is a State Government profit motive in the great Parklands “gobble and redevelopment”?

It seems with the opening of the Parklands campus our city will go two steps forward and then three steps back if we sell off the Southport Hospital.

With so many of our citizens with cancer having to haul themselves to Brisbane on a daily basis for life saving treatment, surely local cancer treatment should be one of the “fit and proper uses” for this existing site and its buildings? I can think of at least 10 more health related uses that the hospital site could be used for and I am sure so can you.

I know there will be health experts that say the building is not suitable, falling apart or not what we need. I know Dr Alex Douglas, LNP member for Gavin has expressed just such an opinion about the state of maintenance of hospital in the past to me. However, let’s get all this information out in the open and debate all the pros and cons of the site.

Before anyone points out that this matter might be a State health matter and not the purview of a Mayoral candidate I would like to point out that the Gold Coast City Council is represented on this panel to decide “the best future use of this site”. If it is nothing to do with Council then why are they there? What debate has occurred at the full Council level as our city’s position on this matter? What are the riding instructions to our council representatives on this committee?

What are these unrepresentative faceless council bureaucrats in this meeting saying exactly? Are the Gold Coast Council representatives just there to advise on how to “tune the town plan” to maximize the selling potential of this site? What is the Council’s role exactly? Why aren’t any Councillors on this community consultation representing the wishes of us, their constituents? Where is local Labor MP for Southport Peter Lawlor standing on this issue or PK Croft or Christine Smith? It’s their health minister that will ultimately decide this. What representations are our State MP’s making?

This smells to me like another little Tipplers being snuck through the back door and only when we see the “for sale sign” go up on the hospital will we all wake up and start to make some noise. Are we really going to let another Tipplers, AllConnex, Council HQ and Parklands happen to us and our city again?

This is not just a Southport matter but a matter for the whole city – it is a whole of city health facility – it is the “Gold Coast Hospital” after all.

We have a significant medical precinct built-up around the Southport hospital site. Does Griffith’s School of Dentistry pack up and find a new home as well? Are we just going to burn through all that city investment in this medical precinct and throw it out the window for a quick “State Budget” buck?

I would like to know each of the Gold Coast State MP’s position on selling off the hospital site to developers – do they support this or would they, like me, like to see this site and its buildings stay in the “health services” role in this community. I know which way I stand on this: The Southport Hospital should stay in the health services for our city, it’s that simple!

Good on the Southport Chamber for getting in on the consultation but I think we need a wider debate about this city asset before it too gets gobbled up.

There is a lot of talk in the national newspapers and TV about the two-speed economy: the mining industry that is doing well and the rest of us, doing not so well.

Here on the Gold Coast we seem to have a three-speed economy: the mining industry, the Council and the rest of us. Seems like while the mining industry boom along in other regions of our state and our Nation, the only industry doing well on the Gold Coast is the Council.

I’m in a local business and like a lot of local businesses we have had to tighten our belts and reign in spending to survive the downturn in the economy generally and the tourism industry specifically. Seems that tightening of belts requirement has not reached Gold Coast City Council.

The most interesting document obtained the long-term financial outlook. It’s on my website now for anyone to download. For transparency sake, I think that all the council meeting agendas be online long before the meetings are scheduled and the minutes should be online in the following week of the meeting for all interested residents to see. Ultimately I would like to see council meetings streamed to the internet so that a cheap but permanent copy is retained about what was said by whom. I have witnessed myself things said during Council meetings being different to what is presented to the media later on.

The long-term financial outlook Council is bleak.

We will be in deficit in 2012-13 to the tune of $26 million. 2013-14 sees that add another $40 million. $29 million for 2014-15 and $13 million for 2015-16. That is over $100 million of deficits for the next term of Council locked in for whomever wins the next Council elections. This is not counting the $50 householder pork barreling that Councillors pushed through before the next election. There is no money for this $50 cheque to go to every household – it’s just borrowed money. We as a city are borrowing millions just to pay ourselves $50 each!

These deficits also point to the fact that Council is locking itself into general rate rises of 5.5% from 2013 onwards and a fee and charges increase of 5% per annum compounding. AllConnex disbandment is being lined up to get all the blame but I feel it is Council itself that should be taking a good hard look at itself. It hasn’t made the cuts it should have as the economy down turns just like every other business had to on the Gold Coast to survive.

The figures presented are sometimes contradictory and other figures are downright disturbing. For example on page one of the long-term financial plan the discussion details how the Council’s budget will be in deficit for the next four years at least. Yet on the very next page one of the assumptions is that “The model assumes the budget will produce an annual surplus of $15m”. We have recently seen announcements of budget surpluses but as far as I can see we have been borrowing for building assets that won’t provide a return. That’s deficit spending in my book.

Another inconsistency I discovered was the money that the city has borrowed for projects that are no longer going ahead. According to the Mayor’s speech at the Institute of Business Leader’s budget prelaunch breakfast, Council has borrowed a lot of money it doesn’t need right at the moment. But rather than bring down the debt we at the breakfast were told that officers report that the city is making more money from interest revenue. I found that strange at the breakfast and yep – the document shows how this is not the case. We receive around 5.5% interest revenue and pay 7.0%pa on borrowings.

In the last budget in 2008 our city had borrowings of around $265 million. In 2012 that will top at $850 million and be almost $1 billion dollars of debt by 2015! There is a lot of talk about Net Debt however our city seems to be borrowing or drawing down against our ‘home loan’ and then just putting that money in the bank.

The State Government financial benchmarks are all being missed now with this Council. Working Capital Ratio should be between 1 and 4. It will be 4.3 in 2011-12. The Operating Surplus Ratio should be no more than 10%. It will break that barrier in 2017. Our net financial liabilities ratio should be between 0% – 60%. Well next year we break that barrier for the first time and it will read 95% by 2014-15. The interest coverage ratio should be between 0% – 5%, for the next few years it will be between 7% and 8%. The Asset sustainability ratio shouldn’t be less than 90% according to the State Government. This is 66% next year and is falling rapidly to 39% in 2014-15.

Yep. These are highly technical accounting terms and ratios but in business they are the indicators of a healthy or unhealthy business. If Council was a traded stock the rating would be “SELL”! As it says in the report in black and white “Council does not meet the benchmark for these ratios until 2020″ – almost 10 years from now!

Seems Council has gambled on AllConnex bring home the bacon, reinvesting the compensation from the State Government for all the bulk water and distribution assets we gave up and reinvested them into a distribution business we already owned but now we don’t control.

The most damning line in the report is that “Council is raising sufficient operating revenue to meet operating expenses”. Even the way this line is written indicates how the Council wants Councillors to respond – to raise rates. Never is there any suggestion that drastic cuts need to be made nor is there any line that the council itself needs to reform.

Costs are out of control and so is debt creeping up to unsustainable levels. It won’t be long before we are a basket case like the Queensland State Government who is now suffering under an interest bill of $100 million each and every week!

To get out of this mess we need to reform council, cut the 8 directorates to 5, refocus them on core Council responsibilities and defer many of the ‘make work’ projects, reports, committees, task forces and unproductive activities the this Council seems to be doing these days. Tough minded business people need to take over in Council to turn this ship around otherwise we will be a failed city by 2016.

The recent decision regarding Allconnex is a disturbing situation with the costs now estimated to be close to $100 million.

Whether we agree with the split or not the fact remains that we should not have been placed in this position. The Councillors responsible for allowing this disaster to unfold with no plan to challenge the State Government and the ridiculous regulations they imposed on us should be sacked for incompetence.

At least one State Minister confirmed to me that he barely heard from Councillors on this issue. This is an indictment on the position they hold and the level of expertise we expect from real leaders.

The Rapid Transit, Skilled Stadium, Tugun Bypass and Frank St upgrade were all achieved after constant contact with State Ministers that created a professional trusting relationship. I am proud to have delivered that for the residents during my time as a Councillor.

Unfortunately that trust has been destroyed by four years of self-indulgence and ignorance to the plight of the average family in this City.

As a small businessman who has built his own firm from scratch during the most difficult period in our history, I am aware of the struggle that families face on a daily basis.

Rates have increased by around 24% in the last three budgets. Now with the Allconnex fiasco they may increase by another 8% next year. On top of this we have had four years of debilitating Infrastructure Taxes on small businesses that have stopped new enterprises setting up. Only in the last three months has there been any action by Council.

We have had $14 million spent on Tipplers without consultation with the wider community, massive spending by Officers on overseas trips, hundreds of thousands burned in project overruns as well as design and management fees that would be unheard of in the private sector – landscaping costs that equate to $500 per tree planted and so on.

The list of financial sins are too numerous to mention but worst of all is the insult of the massive surplus Council has just announced after increasing our rates by 24%. A $34 million surplus may sound like good management but in fact the savings should have been found before this budget was adopted and ratepayers slugged with yet another increase when many are struggling to buy food.

That is what true representation is about. Respecting the public money and not just accepting the wish list put forward by bureaucrats.

On a lighter note you know there is an election on when the rumours start about campaigns. Apparently I must be worrying some of my opponents as they run around suggesting I will be dropping out of the race.

For the record: I am not dropping out as none of the people who are suggested as likely candidates have the vision, leadership or experience to run this City.

As for my opponents I issue a challenge. Anytime you want a proper moderated debate and not a sanitised forum then let me know. I will be there anytime, anywhere so that we can show the public the difference between knowledge, experience and vision and pure ambition.

Further I would like to thank publicly the hundreds of people who have already registered as volunteers for my campaign.

The Gold Coast City Council Budget for 2011-12 released last month showed that our city’s gross debt levels rising to over a billion dollars, if you include AllConnex, by 2015. But Gold Coasters shouldn’t feel especially worried, not when we compare ourselves to the overall debt position of our State of Queensland. That’s what people should really be worried about!

The Queensland Government through the Queensland Treasury Corporation (QTC) have announced that they plan to borrow just over $22 billion in the 2012 financial year. That’s up from $15 billion in 2011. By the end of 2012 Queensland will have a debt of $69 billion.

By 2014 our state debt level will likely top almost $90 billion. That’s a billion dollars in debt for each of the state’s 89 parliamentary seats. On the Gold Coast we have 10 state Seats including Albert, Broadwater, Burleigh, Coomera, Currumbin, Gaven, Mermaid Beach, Mudgeeraba, Southport and Surfers Paradise. That means our collective share of the state debt is over $10 billion out of the state’s $90 billion projected debt.

So in simple terms, look around the area in which you live – the state seat in which you reside and ask yourself: “do we have a billion dollars worth of new infrastructure here?”. The answer will be “no”, of course.

Why is this important? Well we as a state will have to pay this debt back at some stage in the future. We can’t just keep borrowing more and more money. However we don’t look like paying much back anytime soon as it is forecast that our state will remain in operating deficit until 2015.

It is a particular problem for the Gold Coast City Council – as well as its borrowing ability and the interest rate we pay is tied to the State of Queensland. Because we don’t have our own ‘City of Gold Coast Act’ like Brisbane does, we must go cap in hand and raise any borrowings through the Queensland Treasury boffins in Brisbane. As our State’s credit rating dropped from AAA to AA+ so did our city’s credit rating effectively. This won’t change for the next five years unless new state managers get into George Street.

If the polls are right then we are going to get a change of Government sometime this year or early next year. The problem of this large state debt is then going to fall into the hands of the LNP leadership team of Campbell Newman and his able Shadow Treasurer Tim Nichols. They are going to have a tough time and will have to make some very tough decisions. Unless we have a strong voice with the incoming State Government there is a danger that the Gold Coast may be overlooked at the state level.

It’s no secret that I am a conservative at heart and always will be. While I am running as an independent for Mayor, people should be in no doubt which way I lean and that I am a long time member of the LNP. Of course any Mayor needs to be able to work both sides of politics, whoever is in power in Brisbane, so as to get the best deal for our city. There is no doubt it is an advantage if you come from the same side of politics however.

It can be done as long as you keep the petty politics at bay and always be fighting for the betterment of your home city. Great example of this approach include Campbell Newman and Paul Pisasale. Long term Brisbane LNP Mayor Campbell Newman got a lot out of the Labor State Government despite his LNP affiliation. Similarly I suspect that Paul Pisasale, an ALP man, will hardly miss a beat in getting the best deal for Ipswich if, as predicted by the polls, the LNP sweep to Government at the state levels within the next nine months.

The current Council has not set any records for its ability have itself ‘heard’ at the State Government level. The AllConnex debacle and the middle of the night stealth rip-off of our local bulk water capture, storage and distribution assets in return for a water retailer that we already effectively owned is evidence enough of those state level lobbying failures. We are going to need a strong voice fighting for our city the State Government that is looking to cut its own operating budget. Without it we could lose out as the realities of this State’s dismal finances start coming home to roost.

We are not competitive as a city. We don’t encourage business to move here and we certainly don’t encourage start-ups to start up here. It’s our basic costs, regulations, laws, planning scheme and fees that is killing our economy and that’s what is killing us as a city.

I won’t bang on about how Council’s fees are too high or at least much higher than our city level competitors like Melbourne or Sydney or even much closer to home in Ipswich or Brisbane. They are high. Everybody in the property industry and business community knows they are high so this isn’t new or news. I have come across some examples of the competiveness problems the way some of our Council’s fees are structured and implemented that are causing even greater problems.

At a breakfast function I attended last week the discussion revolved around PIP and other infrastructure charges still being levied by Council even in these hearse economic times. I used the example of my little extension of adding a coffee cart to the front of the Islander Hotel. The coffee cart extension has triggered council to send me an infrastructure bill of over $65,000! Numerous examples then poured forth around the table of similar outrageous bills with the general consensus being that in today’s environment it usually means the feasibility of projects are tested.

One bug bear that has hit property owners since the start of the GFC was the Council’s requirement that all their PIP and other charges be levied on the absolute maximum use that a property could sustain, not on what was actually being proposed and applied for. So if a property in Surfers Paradise could sustain a 50 storey building but you were, because of market conditions and other Council constraints, only building a 25 storey building on the property, you still had to pay Council as if your were building the 50 storey building! You were paying for infrastructure that was not going to be used.

Now before you hop on to the fact that only developers lose out on such fees, remember that those council fees (taxes) get wrapped up into inflating the costs of the apartments people buy, the cost of office or retail space and ultimately in the prices for the good and services those businesses sell to all residents. It hurts us all and it is contributing to the starving of our economy.

Now Council has introduced early last year a temporary planning instrument that allowed the fees and charges to be calculated on what was actually proposed to be built not. It took a long time and a lot of lobbying to get this through. A smart thing to do albeit a little too slow and therefore a little too late. But here is the kicker. Gold Coast Water and its subsequent love child AllConnex isn’t subject to the same sensible relaxation! Where is the consistency?

Another inconsistency is with storm water retention. When a property owner plans a development he or she has to engage engineers to design a system of ensuring that the new project doesn’t generate any downstream storm water impacts to adjoining properties. Sensible policy. Just because your neighboring property has hard surfaced areas with pavers or concrete there is a chance that this stops the rain from being absorbed into the ground and instead runs off to next door potentially causing water problems.

So where is the inconsistency? Council still charges the applicant for downstream storm water infrastructure! If the approved project compiles with the council planning laws and has no impact downstream then why should any payment be required to build storm water infrastructure downstream that’s not needed nor actually ever built? Who’s pocket does this money grab eventually come from- the poor home buyers having to pay much more for a house and land package on the Gold Coast as compared to the exact same block of land and house in Melbourne.

There is no wonder jobs are scarce, the economy wobbling and our future uncertain here on the Goldie. We have killed our economic sustainability with these taxes, unfairly applied to both business and residents alike. We have got to get this city back to being part of the low tax approach that made Queensland the success it was last century if we are to prosper well into this century.

The Ernst & Young report on the “cost of bringing water back inside Council” is due to come to Councillors in the next week or so. Council has to make a decision before the recess at the end of June to meet the State imposed deadline of 30th of June. The pressure is on for Council to take a new approach with water: openness and transparency!

If Council wimps out and decides, with their rears collectively covered by the Ernst & Young report no doubt, that it cannot afford the price of taking control of the GC Water back out of the AllConnex, then the Council officers must provide advice in that same meeting on how the AllConnex / GCCC Participation Agreement could be completely redrafted to allow for the accountability of decisions to the residents of the Gold Coast to be sheeted back to our elected representatives of this city so as to ensure that they are accountable for its functions, capital expenditures, financial management, service levels and most importantly retail pricing.

Under the present participation agreement the GCCC has no real control over pricing, spending or indeed the distribution of returns – that can’t continue whether it is inside Council officially or not.

If Councillors decide not to take it back, Council must force the State to accept new terms of the Participation Agreement regarding Governance of the Authority that is “AllConnex” as part of the State imposed 30th of June deadline for a decision.

I would also like to know if CEO Dale Dickson or other senior Council officers met with counterparts Logan City and Redlands on this dissolving of AllConnex? Has the Mayor met with the Mayor’s of Logan and Redlands to discuss dissolving AllConnex? If not why not?

The Participation Agreement must also change from the “highest possible profit margin” approach to “delivering water to residents at the lowest possible cost” and not only during the proposed two year CPI price cap by the Bligh legislation, but forever. We have to stop this city’s reliance on water profits to prop up its budget.

I think it is high time for the Gold Coast City Council to state clearly and unequivocally that the water assets of this city are not available for privatisation, either today or tomorrow or forever.

Will the dissolution of AllConnex also mean the return of Hinze dam and our other water assets back to Gold Coast City Council ownership? Or is the State Govenrment going to keep those real assets for an eventual QRail or Electricity Grid style sell off?

I am keen to know if AllConnex or Gold Coast City Council management engaged into a binding contracts for the supply of software by Gentrack, a NZ company owned by Veolia Water, for over $83M+ dollars over the next two financial years?

I think this city also deserves to see the release of the AllConnex five year forward plan before the June 2011 decision.

I also think in the interests of full disclosure and transparency that the Ernst & Young report be released before the June 2011 decision.

Are we going to have another secret tipplers decision? Residents & ratepayers of this city need some transparency on Water, not more cover ups, lies and deception.

This city council certainly needs to stop making a profit on suppling water to residents.

Over 1000 residents have already requested a copy of the Allconnex templates to dispute the charges on their most recent rates bills.

Council has a huge problem. It is fatally addicted to water. Well not the water so much as the money that flows from ratepayers in return for supplying Gold Coast households with this most basic of commodities. You see even though we apparently live in a ‘user pays’ society this is not the case with Local Government owned monolithic monopolies like the supply of water to households. The State Government took its bulk water assets off Gold Coast City Council, assets that were bought and paid for by Gold Coast ratepayers over many years. The Gold Coast City was paid some compensation only for ratepayers to then be overcharged for using the water produced by those very same assets to pay back the money loaned to buy those water assets off us in the first place. This is going to make a great Michael Moore documentary some day.

Gold Coast, Redlands and Logan Councils own the retail arm, Allconnex, and it puts its margin on water as well – well and truly more than the cost of supplying the water to our front door, to the tune of over $100 million dollars each and every year. Even Redlands and Logan residents pay a different net access and per kilolitre rate than we silly bunnies on the Gold Coast.

So should it cost as much as it does here on the Gold Coast?  No, and here’s the proof: I have a friend who owns a two bedroom investment unit in Sydney and also owns a similar sized two bedroom unit here on the Gold Coast. He rents out both and gets the water bills for both units. The comparison of the bills is stark. The Sydney unit’s quarterly bill is a little over $150 making the yearly bill a little over $600. The Gold Coast apartment, with a similar young couple living in it has a half yearly water bill a little over $600 making their Gold Coast unit’s yearly water bill over $1200! This is a 100% rip off.

Clearly this is not user pays. Council does not set any benchmarks for being well run, communicative with its citizens nor frugal, and it is addicted to the extra revenues pouring in from the water assets we as ratepayers already owned once a upon a time. Cr Eddie Sarroff can rant and rave for the TV cameras about the great water rip off but he has presided over the budget that has been benefiting from “over-user-pays” for at least the last eight years. We don’t need table thumpers or placard wavers like Cr Sarroff, we need real leaders in the room working out how we are to achieve this. Whipping up political mileage for Cr Sarroff’s own undeclared mayoral run is no substitute for the real hard work in cutting the budget and getting off our water profits habit.

What’s the answer? We can’t talk about cutting rates, water or general, until we talk about fundamentally changing the way council is structured and operates. We have to stop council’s addition to water profits, we have to cut the costs of council by radically reorganizing this massive bureaucracy and we have to stop being a mini-State Government with ratepayers money. Either we get rid of Allconnex or we take it back in house. This “its not our fault but we get all the profit”, half pregnant position Gold Coast City Council currently plays is unsustainable.

When did council become responsible for disaster management? That’s the State’s job. When did council take on building State School infrastructure like car parks and crossings? Another State Government job. When did council have to be the funder for major public transport projects? That’s the State Government’s role.

Until we get back to our knitting, back to providing basic council services of roads, rates and rubbish cost effectively we can’t hope to break our water profits addiction. Until then the water bills will continue to skyrocket.  Bring on March 2012 so we can get on with clearing up this mess!